More than five years in the making, the ambitious African trade agreement known as the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA), officially launched in June, aims to bring together three key African trading blocs—the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)—to create a common market spanning the continent from Cairo to Cape Town. With a huge free trade zone encompassing a region of more than 626 million people and a total gross domestic product of $1.2 trillion—equivalent to 58 percent of the continent’s entire GDP—the deal hopes to [...]
On Tuesday, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari fired all of Nigeria’s military chiefs in preparation for a fresh multinational offensive against the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. Despite an international coalition having driven insurgents out of numerous towns and villages in northeastern Nigeria, Boko Haram has ramped up attacks and suicide bombings recently, killing over 250 people this month. Buhari was elected in March, upsetting incumbent Goodluck Jonathan in a historic victory. “For the first time in Nigeria’s history as an independent nation, an incumbent leader was ousted not in a coup, but at the ballot box,” Sarah Chayes wrote in [...]
The relationship between South Africa and Nigeria, generally troubled since the end of apartheid in 1994, deteriorated markedly in recent years during the respective presidencies of Jacob Zuma and Goodluck Jonathan. This crisis in relations is not in the interests of either country or the wider continent, which needs its two hegemons to work in collaboration to address Africa’s myriad problems. Both sides seem locked into antagonistic postures from which there appears to be no easy exit. But there is a way out. Ties already in a freefall under Zuma and Jonathan reached their nadir in May, when Nigeria temporarily [...]
