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Wow. Muhammadu Buhari’s clear victory over Goodluck Jonathan is huge for Nigeria—and for the continent. Jonathan’s speedy acceptance of the result was graceful and honorable.
Why is Europe suddenly cozying up to Zimbabwe’s nonagenarian kleptocrat? On February 21, Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe celebrated his 91st birthday followed by a lavish party with an exotic menu, reportedly including barbequed baby elephant.
The African Development Bank almost wasn’t. Twenty years ago, the Bank lost its crucial AAA credit rating and its future was very much in doubt. Yet now it is held up as one of the largest sources of infrastructure finance for the region, a multilateral financing institution owned by 53 African and 25 non-regional governments, akin to a regional World Bank.
In Ghana, an exemplar of African democracy and development, electricity is quickly becoming a front-burner political issue. Thousands took to the streets of the capital Accra on Wednesday chanting ‘enough is enough!’ about electricity blackouts.
There was a whiff of something rotten in my kitchen on Saturday – and it wasn’t the cooking. No, it was emanating from the press conference I was watching live on my smartphone, in which Nigeria’s election commissioner announced that polling, scheduled for February 14, was to be postponed by another six weeks.
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