West Africa Archive

Crises and upheaval in the Sahel and West Africa have altered the regional security terrain. Challenges that were once disparate and manageable are increasingly becoming intertwined and more pronounced. With the growing mobility of conflicts, the need for a more cooperative regional context has never been as pressing. Each country in the region has a stake in improving stability, and collectively they have the capacity to tackle the threats to peace and security—but first, they each must overcome a host of domestic obstacles. The influence of four countries in particular—Morocco, Algeria, Chad and Nigeria—is a central fact of geopolitics in […]

Late last month, residents of Guinea’s northeast Siguiri region filed a complaint describing how they were thrown off their land to make room for an open-pit oxide gold mine controlled by AngloGold Ashanti, a Johannesburg-based mining company. The evictions were violent, according to the complainants and an organization advocating on their behalf. “Hundreds of families were forced off their land by the country’s most feared military unit,” says David Pred, managing director of Inclusive Development International. “They were not allowed to say no or to negotiate. Those who resisted were imprisoned and shot. Their homes were burned and their businesses […]

During his visit last week to northern Mali, Emmanuel Macron, France’s new president, announced that he would attend the next meeting of the G5 Sahel, a grouping of five countries—Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad—focused on mobilizing against extremist militants in the Sahel region. The G5 Sahel was originally created in February 2014, and plans for a multinational military force were announced the following year, at a November 2015 summit meeting in Chad. Since then, however, few details have been made available on the force’s composition and how it will operate. In an email interview, Nicolas Desgrais, a researcher […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, visited Africa for the first time as head of state on Friday, traveling to northern Mali, where France led an intervention to drive out Islamist extremists in 2013. Greeted by Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, in the northern city of Gao, where French troops are still stationed, Macron offered a vision largely in line with what he espoused during the campaign: tough talk on terrorism and an emphasis on the need for development so that […]

Islamist extremist groups that were once confined to slivers of territory in the most marginalized areas of West Africa are increasingly expanding their operational footprint in the region. Whether it is Boko Haram, which has rebranded itself as the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s West African affiliate, or the myriad al-Qaida offshoots that occupied northern Mali following a coup in 2012, insurgent operations are no longer confined by these groups’ countries of origin. The Islamic State’s West Africa Province, as Boko Haram now calls itself, has spread beyond its base in northeastern Nigeria into neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, which all have […]

From Jan. 19 to March 10, Nigeria’s 74-year-old president, Muhammadu Buhari, took an extended medical leave in London. After returning home, he remained weak; sometimes he missed Cabinet meetings and appeared gaunt in photographs. Then, last week, on May 7, he left again for London, framing the trip as a “follow-up” to his earlier leave. Unlike the late Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua, whose prolonged incapacitation in 2009 and 2010 caused a constitutional crisis, Buhari has avoided short-term turmoil by formally designating his vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, as acting president during his absences. Whereas Yar’Adua’s inner circle clung to power and […]

On April 27, in his Independence Day address to the nation, Sierra Leone’s president, Ernest Bai Koroma, gave the clearest and most public assertion yet of his intention to leave office in March 2018. “My fellow citizens,” he declared, “in just a little over a year, my tenure will come to an end and I will graciously hand over power to my successor in a democratic transition.” Having served two terms as leader, Koroma is constitutionally ineligible to stand for a third. Despite his public remarks to the contrary, there remains a degree of skepticism in Sierra Leone that the […]

Patience is in short supply in Guinea-Bissau these days. More than a year and a half has passed since President Jose Mario Vaz dismissed the government of Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira, precipitating an extended political crisis. Four new prime ministers have been appointed since then, but the parliament has not been meeting, meaning one of the world’s least-developed and most chronically unstable countries—with a ranking of 178 out of 188 on the United Nation’s Human Development Index—has been unable to pass laws or a budget. Last September, politicians agreed to a six-point roadmap out of the crisis. The following […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the potential for Donald Trump to succeed where so many other U.S. presidents have failed in brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. For the Report, Jeffrey Smith and David Rice talk with Peter Dörrie about the need to balance justice with reconciliation as Gambia moves on from more than two decades of rule by brutal dictator Yahya Jammeh. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles: To Ensure Its Democratic Transition, Gambia Will Need Justice—and Reconciliation Can Abbas Use His White House Visit to Preserve […]

In 2015, Cote d’Ivoire’s president, Alassane Ouattara, coasted to re-election, scoring a landslide win over a divided opposition. In 2016, he basked in Cote d’Ivoire’s designation by the International Monetary Fund as Africa’s fastest-growing economy. That year also saw the adoption of a new constitution that Ouattara hoped would help the country definitively turn the page on a prolonged era of crisis and conflict. This year, by contrast, is proving to be much more difficult. Already, 2017 has brought a series of mutinies by the security forces as well as a large-scale strike in the public sector. All the while, […]

In December 2016, the people of Gambia elected an opposition presidential candidate for the first time in the country’s history. The outcome caught virtually everyone by surprise, including the incumbent, Yahya Jammeh, who had brutally ruled the small West African nation as a veritable mafia state for more than two decades. Despite initially conceding defeat on national television, Jammeh reversed his position a few days later, declaring the election null and void after claiming he had personally discovered “voting irregularities” in the final results. Jammeh’s attempt to defy the will of the Gambian people sparked a two-month-long crisis, provoking an […]