West Africa Archive

As the world celebrated the fall of Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh earlier this year, which was seen as another sign of strengthening democratic rule in West Africa, Togolese activist Farida Nabourema couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. While other regions on the continent, especially Central Africa, grapple with incumbent power grabs including “constitutional coups,” the story in West Africa has been more positive in recent years. In addition to Jammeh, the longtime president of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore, was forced to leave office in 2014 following a popular uprising, and more orderly transfers of power have occurred in countries […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. More than 100 days after leaving Nigeria to treat an undisclosed medical condition in the U.K., Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari returned to Abuja over the weekend. Supporters hailed his arrival, and Buhari seemed eager to move past the uncertainty and tension provoked by his absence, criticizing “political mischief-makers” while appealing to a sense of national unity. As Alex Thurston wrote for WPR toward the beginning of Buhari’s trip—his second long-term stay in London this year—the immediate complications for Nigeria […]

The death toll from last week’s devastating mudslide in Sierra Leone is likely to pass 500, with several thousand more people made homeless by the destruction left in its wake. The scale of the disaster was unparalleled, but flooding in the capital, Freetown, happens every year during the August rainy season. In 2015, at least 10 people were killed in the city by rising water; Kroo Town, one of Freetown’s largest unplanned neighborhoods, or informal settlements, has flooded every year since 2008. The major cause of the mudslides and flooding, according to Joseph Macarthy of the Sierra Leone Urban Research […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The Waterloo cemetery on the outskirts of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, the final resting place for many people killed during West Africa’s 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, was again being put to use this week as the government struggled to cope with mudslides and flooding that left hundreds dead. Video footage of Monday’s disaster showed torrents of mud and water rushing down one of the area’s many hills. The mudslide occurred as many people were sleeping, and it “is thought to […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. South African President Jacob Zuma survived another no-confidence vote in parliament this week. But for the first time the process was conducted via secret ballot, and the result highlighted dissension within the ranks of the African National Congress, or ANC, as the party prepares to choose a standard-bearer for elections in 2019. A total of 177 lawmakers voted in favor of the no-confidence motion, including around 30 ANC members—what Reuters described as “an unprecedented revolt.” Zuma has been dogged […]

On July 30, Senegal held legislative elections, the second such vote since President Macky Sall took office five years ago. He and his party won overwhelmingly, claiming 43 of the country’s 45 electoral districts in a victory that underscored Sall’s strong position as his re-election campaign approaches in 2019. But a tough electoral battle in the capital, Dakar, as well as an opposition victory in the city of Touba, suggest that his political supremacy is far from complete. And opposition accusations of intimidation and voting irregularities raise questions about the state of democracy in Senegal. Heading into the recent vote, […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The final week of campaigning before nationwide elections in Kenya began with two incidents that amplified fears of political violence. First, last weekend, a man armed with a machete managed to break into the home of Deputy President William Ruto, wounding one police officer and then fatally shooting another with a stolen rifle. It took 18 hours for security forces to kill him. Then, authorities announced Monday that a senior official with Kenya’s election commission had been found dead. […]

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was born into a native Liberian family, meaning her parents were not descendants of the freed American slaves who established the country in the mid-19th century. As a girl, her mother was sent to work in the home of one of these Americo-Liberian families, who are also known as Congo people. Yet in “Madame President,” a biography released earlier this year, the New York Times reporter Helene Cooper notes that throughout her life, Sirleaf has run in the circles of the Congo elite while often being mistaken for one herself. After studying in the U.S., […]