The pan-African magazine of choice since 2009
On March 12, Patrice Motsepe became the new president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). He replaced Ahmad Ahmad, who was banned from world professional football for two years by FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), the sport’s global governing body. Motsepe, a South African mining magnate and owner of the Mamelodi Sundowns club …
Ethiopia’s 1994 constitution gave the country’s more than 80 ethnic groups unique rights to self-determination, but it also laid the groundwork for the political explosions – one that erupted last fall with the Tigray region, writer Addisu Lashitew argues. The violent aftermath of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front’s loss of power in Addis Ababa, he …
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement went into effect on Jan. 1, after being signed by all but one of the continent’s nations and ratified by two-thirds of them. It is intended to stimulate Africa’s economy by eliminating tariffs and other barriers to intracontinental trade, creating one market for 1.3 billion people. Yet getting it …
The NATO coalition bombing campaign in Libya in 2011 killed an unknown number of civilians, possibly more than 400. The eight nations involved have all refused to accept public responsibility for the harm they caused, and almost none of the families left behind have received compensation or an apology. They claim that the burden of …
The African National Congress’s share of the votes has steadily declined over South Africa’s last four general elections. Does this mean it will lose its majority in the 2024 election and have to form a coalition government, as the number of young voters demanding that the ANC deliver services and reduce corruption and unemployment grows to exceed …
New Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who took office after the death of John Pombe Magufuli in March, is the East African nation’s sixth president since it became independent in 1962, and currently the only woman running a country in Africa. Affectionately called Mama Samia, she may bring a calmer style to the office – …
South Sudan had high hopes when it became independent 10 years ago, after a long rebellion against the Sudanese government in Khartoum. But within two years, the leadership rivalries and ethnic cleavages that had divided the rebellion blew up into a bloody civil war that displaced one-third of the country’s 12 million people. Longtime foes …
Nigeria, already engaged in conflict with the Boko Haram jihadists in the northeast, is now facing widespread violence on several other fronts, from clashes between pastoralists and farmers that have displaced thousands of people to secessionist guerrillas in the Igbo-speaking southeast, who on April 5 attacked a police headquarters and a prison and freed 1,800 …
Ghana’s December 2020 general election was a big shambles. There was unprecedented political violence, as seven people were killed during the election and its aftermath. The Electoral Commission announced the result of the presidential election with several mathematical and computational errors, and changed the figures several times. The National Democratic Congress party and its candidate, …
A very colorful character, former Ghanaian president, Jerry John Rawlings, was given a four-day national funeral at the end of January 2021. In death as in life, controversy followed him: One of his close friends revealed in an emotional tribute at the funeral that Rawlings had told him only weeks before, after his mother’s death, …