West Africa Archive

Earlier this month, Mauritania announced it would delay a constitutional referendum planned for mid-July, rescheduling it for Aug. 5. Among the most significant changes included in the proposed reforms would be the elimination of the country’s Senate, a proposition that has predictably spurred opposition from senators. The delay risks increasing political tension amid speculation about President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz’s plans for when his term expires in 2019. In an email interview, Imad Mesdoua, senior consultant at Control Risks and a specialist on North Africa and West Africa, describes the substance of the referendum and reactions from across the political […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. In March 2007, a group of NGOs filed a complaint in France against the ruling families of a handful of African countries, alleging that property and other assets they owned in France were obtained via corruption. A decade of legal wrangling later, the first trial in the so-called “biens mal acquis,” or ill-gotten gains, affair is now in full swing, with hearings unfolding in Paris in the case of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the vice president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea […]

Vast ungoverned spaces, weak security institutions, corrupt administrations and scarce economic opportunities are all factors contributing to the entrenchment of Islamist extremism in West Africa and the Sahel. Regional governments have struggled to respond to the threat and ensure security, and in some cases their actions have only made things worse. Could the planned “G5 Sahel Joint Force” represent a turning point? This WPR Special Report assesses what’s at stake. Purchase this special report as a Kindle e-book. The Roots of Conflict How West Africa Became Fertile Ground for AQIM and ISIS Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and the so-called […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the next phase of Syria’s civil war and the succession shake-up in Saudi Arabia. For the Report, Linus Unah talks with Peter Dörrie about how competition for resources is fueling violence between Fulani herders and farming communities in Nigeria, a situation the U.N. warns could “spin out of control.” If you’d like to sign up for the beta version of WPR’s Africa-only subscription, you can do so here. It’s free for the first two months. And if you like what you hear on Trend […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The United Nations used World Refugee Day to launch an appeal for $8 billion to address South Sudan’s refugee crisis, as news from inside South Sudan indicated there was no sign it would be letting up anytime soon. At a summit on Friday in Uganda that authorities hoped would raise $2 billion, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres praised that country’s “exemplary refugee policy,” under which refugees enjoy freedom of movement and are permitted to work. However, Uganda is currently hosting nearly […]

Mali’s capital, Bamako, experienced two disruptions last weekend: a protest against a proposed constitutional referendum on Saturday, followed by a terrorist attack on Sunday. The attack, claimed by the extremist alliance Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen, killed five people at a resort on the city’s outskirts and, naturally, grabbed international headlines. But the protest, and the events that gave rise to it, reveal more about how the country is being governed and the challenges it faces two years after the signing of a landmark peace deal. For weeks, frustration has been growing with President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s determination to hold the […]

KADUNA, Nigeria—The funeral took place on a sunny, late March morning in Goska, a village in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state. Against the backdrop of mud homes covered with corrugated zinc roofing, people bustled down the single dusty road that runs through the town to a patch of land next to a church. Hundreds formed a crowd around a brown casket to bury 50-year-old Gideon Morik, a community leader who died on March 16. One of Gideon’s solemn-faced wives made her way silently to the center of the field. She dabbed her face with a handkerchief as she placed a vase […]

Across Africa, governments have reacted swiftly to the rift between Saudi Arabia, backed by allied states, and Qatar, with a number of countries signaling their support for Riyadh. West Africa is no exception. Mauritania has announced it is cutting ties with Qatar, while Senegal and Niger have recalled their ambassadors in Doha. Such positions reflect Saudi Arabia’s strong standing in the region despite Qatar’s active diplomacy in recent years. In an email interview, Rahmane Idrissa, a political scientist currently based at the University of Gottingen in Germany and the author of “The Politics of Islam in the Sahel,” explains how […]

On June 2, authorities in the U.K. charged Agnes Reeves Taylor, the ex-wife of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, with torture in connection with crimes she allegedly committed during the West African nation’s prolonged period of civil conflict. The arrest makes Reeves Taylor the latest in a series of high-profile Liberians to be arrested in Europe and the United States in recent years. In Liberia, meanwhile, there has been no progress on justice initiatives under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Charles Taylor is serving a 50-year sentence in the U.K. for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but his trial dealt […]