Both houses of Nigeria’s parliament have confirmed newly sworn President Goodluck Jonathan’s choice of Kaduna state governor Namadi Sambo as the country’s new vice-president. Observers believe that by choosing the relatively unknown Sambo Jonathan, a northerner (Jonathan comes from the south), has revealed his intention to run for a full term in the country’s 2011 […]
Recent news from Harare pretty much defies parody: Robert Mugabe has invited North Korea’s football team to train in Zimbabwe for the World Cup. Lack of self awareness thy name is Mugabe. Sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying.
My colleague Kimberley Curtis at the FPA Human Rights Blog has an important post, “Saying enough is enough,” on the implications of House of Representatives passing the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. Also check out Texas in Africa’s take on her attendance at a Town Hall meeting hosted by the government […]
No surprise alert: The Atlanta-based Carter Center has raised “serious questions about the accuracy of [Sudan’s] election results.”
One of the more bizarre chapters in recent Nigerian history has come to a close with the passing of President Umaru Yar’Adua. Discerning Yar’Adua’s status had in recent months become the Africanist equivalent of Moscow-watchers trying to glean from the most modest clues the health of Soviet Premieres in the first half of the 1980s. […]
All signs indicate that Nelson Mandela really has slowed to the point where it seems fair to ask about the state of his health. In recent days it was announced that Mandela almost certainly will not attend the World Cup, an event I always assumed that he would go to the ends of the Earth […]
Texas in Africa is spending the week addressing the difference between good advocacy and “badvocacy” when it comes to Africa. Today’s post is a keeper. The money part: Africa is not ours to save. It is the height of arrogance to assume otherwise. That said, there’s a big difference: between saving someone and empowering her. […]
I received a mysterious mailing from Europe today. I assumed it was some sort of junk mail — a catalog for books or a flier for some new publication, or a new scholarly organization to join. Instead it was my World Cup Welcome Pack. I’m beginning my serious planning for my trip to South Africa […]
Unlike in the United States, where newspapers seem to be a dying industry, in Kenya print media appears to be thriving. I am no luddite, and I certainly embrace technology and what it can do for us. But one of my great pleasures in life is being able to read a good newspaper. this is […]
Stories that have caught my eye in recent days: British journalist Andrew Jennings does not have much nice to say about FIFA and its dealings with South Africa for the World Cup. On the one hand, the people of Sudan appear to have re-elected President Omar al-Bashir. On the other hand, at least Southern Sudan […]
It appears that Zimbabwe and Iran are close to striking a deal in which Zimbabwe will share uranium with Iran in exchange for oil. Because there is no more cunning move than going from being a largely ignored pariah to engaging with a pariah that is on the west’s radar, which seems certain to double […]
South African President Jacob Zuma recently lambasted his country’s civil service sector. Zuma argues that South African civil servants are the worst in the world. He rejects the argument that the legacy of apartheid is to blame. And he believes that accountability — or a lack of it — is at the route of the […]
Nigeria’s domestic political situation might be perilous, but the country just received a foreign policy coup. Interim President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent visit to the United States resulted in his country being removed from the US’s Terrorist Watch List. Color me impressed by Jonathan’s tenure thus far, even if I am skeptical as to whether the […]
We have passed the fifty day countdown point for the World Cup. There are certainly still concerns. Crime, of course, including worries about human trafficking being exacerbated by the presence of thousands of foreign tourists, remains a major concern, though general violence is far more of a worry than any other sort of crime. All […]