Features

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa)  – As U.S. forces prepare to oust Islamic State militants from their last foothold in Syria, the head of the U.K.’s foreign intelligence agency warned of the lasting threat from the group’s ideology. “We are not triumphant because I think from triumphant you get to hubris,” MI6 Chief Alex Younger told reporters in Munich on Friday. “This is a societal, generational problem that we face in the West and it can only…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Whether President Muhammadu Buhari or his main opponent, Atiku Abubakar, will win Nigeria’s election on Saturday has split analysts down the middle. Polls in Nigeria tend to be unreliable, given the difficulty of sampling a nation of 200 million people and factoring in rigging, which has marred almost every vote since Africa’s biggest oil producer got independence from the U.K. in 1960. Here are the forecasts of eight analysts, with four expecting that Buhari, a…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – When Nigerians go to the polls on Saturday, there’ll be much more at stake than the presidency and seats in the parliament of Africa’s most populous nation. Democracy is on the back foot in Africa, and a credible and widely accepted outcome will go some way toward offsetting negative perceptions of the world’s poorest continent. While most Nigerian elections since military rule ended in 1999 concluded acrimoniously, the last…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen pleaded not guilty to charges of false declaration of his assets at the Code of Conduct Tribunal in the capital, Abuja. Onnoghen appeared at the court on Friday for the first time since charges were filed against him on Jan. 11 after tribunal Chairman Danladi Umar issued a warrant for his arrest on Wednesday. The chief justice, who was suspended from office by President Muhammadu Buhari on Jan….

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) -The U.K. is the world’s third-largest lamb exporter and farmers will have a lot to sell if there’s no European trade deal. For the sheep on Alan Hutton’s farm outside Basingstoke, the outcome of Brexit will mean life or death. Hutton, who farms about 1,000 acres (405 hectares) on grassy, rolling hills in southern England, specializes in raising ewes for other farmers to breed. Like many farmers and business owners, he’s…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa)  – Nigeria’s economy has fully recovered from a recession in 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari said in a nationally televised speech before Saturday’s general elections in which he is seeking a second four-year term. “The recovery of the economy from recession is complete and Nigeria is back on the path of steady growth,” Buhari, 76, said. Gross domestic product in Africa’s largest oil producer and most populous nation expanded 1.9 percent last year,…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Amina Sanusi was getting ready for morning prayers at her home in northeastern Nigeria when she heard gunshots and explosions. She scrambled into nearby bushes with her two children, but lost contact with her husband. Government soldiers in the fishing town of Baga on the shores of Lake Chad fled too, overwhelmed by the firepower of Islamist militants. Like thousands of others since an upsurge in attacks that started…