West Africa Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Four years after South Sudan’s civil war began, leaders signed yet another cease-fire this week, and diplomats expressed cautious optimism that the agreement represented real progress in ending fighting that has killed tens of thousands of people and triggered the largest African refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The cease-fire is due to come into effect Sunday. It was negotiated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, a regional East African bloc, during talks in Ethiopia […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. In late November, 40 leading radio stations in the West African nation of Guinea suspended their programming in an act of solidarity with another radio station that was closed by the government. The protest was a sign of the growing tension between the government of President Alpha Conde and the Guinean press. In an email interview, Muheeb Saeed, a program officer at the Media Foundation for West Africa, explains what was behind the recent protest, and how press freedom […]

Last week, the National Assembly of Gabon passed a bill that would revise the country’s constitution. It did so with as little fanfare as possible. As AFP noted, the news went unmentioned on state media, and the official who confirmed it to the agency declined to give his name. This is perhaps unsurprising given that President Ali Bongo Ondimba’s government has kept the actual substance of the revisions under wraps as well, opting not to make the bill public even though the Cabinet approved it back in September before sending it to lawmakers. Multiple versions have circulated online, but the […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. After months of tension and fears of widespread violence, Kenya’s political leadership this week took steps that seemed designed to end the year on a more conciliatory note. In late November, President Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in for a second term, following a rerun presidential vote that was boycotted by his main opposition rival, Raila Odinga. In the days that followed, Odinga’s political coalition broadcast plans to hold an alternative ceremony inaugurating Odinga as the “people’s president.” On Sunday, […]

In a recent interview with Al Jazeera, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo offered opinions on everything from the state of democracy in his country to child marriage and Donald Trump. But of all the topics covered in the 25-minute segment, it was his responses to a series of questions on LGBT rights that seemed to attract the most attention, at least domestically. Ghana’s criminal code outlaws same-sex sexual acts, grouping them under a category of offenses referred to as “unnatural carnal knowledge.” When asked by the interviewer, Jane Dutton, why the law remained on the books, Akufo-Addo said he did not […]

Mali is set to hold presidential elections in July 2018. Pre-campaign maneuvering recently accelerated, with candidates declaring and likely candidates readying themselves to run. Although President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita enjoys the structural advantages of incumbency, events since last summer suggest he may be vulnerable next year. Keita, known in Mali as IBK, will likely seek re-election after winning his first term in 2013. He is a veteran politician, having served as prime minister in the 1990s and president of the National Assembly in the mid-2000s. Like much of Mali’s political class, he has been on the political scene since the […]