December 11, 2019
NigeriaOn December 6, the Department of State Security (DSS) stormed into an Abuja courtroom and illegally detained journalist Omoyele Sowore. The episode is deeply disappointing to American friends of Nigeria who are invested in that country’s democratic trajectory. The DSS flagrantly violated the rule of law and the sanctity of a courtroom by violently manhandling Sowore and causing the judge to flee her own chambers. The episode unfurled in full view of national and international media, dragging Nigeria’s international reputation through the mud.
December 10, 2019
NigeriaThe Sultan of Sokoto, Nigeria’s premier Islamic traditional ruler, has banned the #ArewaMeToo campaign in Sokoto state. The movement is a northern Nigeria spinoff of the international #MeToo movement. Following the ban there have been allegations that the police have assaulted two women’s rights activists.
December 4, 2019
UgandaNeil Edwards is the volunteer intern for CFR's Africa Program in Washington, DC. He is a master's candidate at the School of International Service at American University and a returned Peace Corps Rw…
December 2, 2019
NigeriaThis update represents violence in Nigeria and related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger from November 23 to 29, 2019.
November 26, 2019
RwandaOn November 10, Rwandan security forces shot dead two Ugandan nationals accused of smuggling tobacco across the border. Smuggling has become more common after Rwanda closed its border with Uganda in late February amidst a dispute between Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
December 1, 2019
NigeriaThe Council on Foreign Relations's Nigeria Security Tracker is an effort to catalog and map political violence based on a weekly survey of Nigerian and international press. The data presented includes violent incidents related to political, economic, and social grievances directed at the state or other affiliative groups (or conversely the state employing violence to respond to those incidents.)
November 20, 2019
GuineaThe small West African country of Guinea has become the latest in sub-Saharan Africa threatened by third termism. President Alpha Condé’s second term ends in 2020, and the current constitution prevents him from seeking a third. So, last month, the eighty-one-year-old set to work drafting a new constitution, one that could allow him to remain in office indefinitely.
November 25, 2019
NigeriaThis update represents violence in Nigeria and related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger from November 16 to 22, 2019.
November 22, 2019
South AfricaThe South African Police Service (SAPS) has ended a sit-in at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) compound in the capital, Pretoria. Some two hundred people have been arrested, according to…
November 15, 2019
TanzaniaDuring the four year tenure of President Magufuli, the country has move toward full-on authoritarianism. On November 7, a Magistrates Court in Tanzania postponed for the seventh time the case of journalist Erick Kabendera, who has voiced criticism of the country’s president, John Pombe Magufuli. After initially being violently abducted from his home and later investigated over his citizenship status, Mr. Kabendera is now facing a host of economic charges, including “assisting an organized crime racket” and money laundering.