Nearly two weeks after the military took over power in Niger Republic, the coup plotters have announced former Economy Minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine as the Prime Minister. A spokesman for the military junta made the announcement on television late on Monday night. Zeine was Minister of Economy and Finance for several years in the cabinet of then-president Mamadou Tandja, …

It was the immortal Winston Churchill who once described democracy as the worst form of government except all other governments that have been tried and discarded in the past. The truism is obvious. It accentuates the Lincolnian classical definition of democracy. Despite its flaws , democracy offers the best hope of man in a conflicted world. It gives room for free expression, …

A “wind of change” is blowing across Africa but this time around, it is not the same wind of change that erstwhile British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, spoke about – the positive wind of change blowing away colonial rule and ushering in Independence to the African colonies of Britain. Macmillan made his famous speech to the parliament of apartheid South …

Prominent Liberia politician, Sheikh Al-Moustapha Kouyateh has warned President Bola Tinubu Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) not to adopt military intervention in ongoing Niger Republic political crisis. Kouyateh, who was a presidential aspirant of the Liberia First Movement in the buildup to the West African country’s 10th …

Again, Africa is in the news. And for the wrong reasons! While other continents are deepening and consolidating on the gains of democracy, Africa is retreating to the days of the military jackboots. In the last 18months, soldiers have struck and taken over power in Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso and lately, Niger. More could be in the offing. …

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) says the closure of Nigeria’s borders with the Republic of Niger is not a declaration of war between the two countries, as speculated. The acting Comptroller General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, made the assertion while addressing the Illela border community of Sokoto State on Friday. Adeniyi, who was at the Illela border to ascertain the …

The military junta in Niger Republic has cut off ties with Nigeria after the efforts of Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) to resolve the ongoing impasse failed. ECOWAS had issued a seven-day ultimatum for the reinstatement of President Mohamed Bazoum to avoid possible clash with the junta. But President Bola Tinubu sent a high-powered delegation to the country …

Worrying sociopolitical developments in the West coast of Africa have very understandably elicited subregional, continental and global concerns. Within the twinkle of an eye the gradual absorption of democratic governance consistent with contemporaneous global trends by countries in the subcontinent, has gone on the reverse gear. A week ago Nigeria’s Northern neighbours, the Republic of Niger, became the latest of …

The Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has dispatched a delegation to Niger Republic with a mandate to expeditiously resolve the current political impasse in the country. The action was in line with the resolution reached at the end of the extraordinary summit …

Not only are military coups becoming frighteningly frequent in West and Central Africa, virtually all of them, it appears, also speak French. For the fifth time in three years in West Africa, soldiers struck again in Niger, Nigeria’s Northern neighbour, where former President Muhammadu Buhari had teasingly longed for refuge from Nigeria’s hostile press. With the recent turn of events, …