BVAS machine being used during the recent Nigerian Elections. (Photo by Businessday NG) On March 18, Nigerians will go to the polls again to vote for Governors and State Assembly Representatives. This is after Nigeria’s election commission postponed the gubernatorial election, from March 11 citing the need for more time to reconfigure and deploy voting […]

INEC headquarters (Photo by RootsTVNigeria) Nigeria’s new Electoral Act was welcomed by political finance experts across Africa on the basis of the progressive provisions on campaign finance. Once the legislators and President Muhammadu Buhari had done their part of passing and assenting to the law respectively, the spotlight shifted to INEC. However, just like it […]

Cameroonian President Paul Biya casts his ballot during the presidential election in Yaounde, 2018. (REUTERS Zohra Bensemra). Cameroon is at the tail end of campaigns for the country’s Senatorial election. The campaigns will run till midnight of March 11 just before Election-Day, on March 12. The Cameroon Senate, or the Upper House of Parliament, has […]

Photo by UN Women Out of 1.4 billion Africans, half of that population is female, yet their participation in political processes remains way below average.   According to the Women’s Political Participation: Africa Barometer,2021, women’s representation in remains way below the 50% mark of gender parity and representation in politics in Africa. On average,21% of women […]

African Youth (Photo by school drillers) While the Me-Too and Not-too-Young-to-Run movements highlight equal rights of women and youth to participate in elective politics, until African electoral jurisdictions address the growing challenge of monetised and commercialised politics, the numbers of women and youth on the ballot papers will not increase. The starting point is to […]

Tanzania’s President, Samia Suluhu Hassan President Samia Suluhu has resurrected the process of reviewing the constitution of the republic of Tanzania which stalled in 2014 and has been on hold ever since. This is in addition to the release of over 500 political prisoners which she sanctioned and the opening up of political and civil […]

An electoral agent seals a ballot box in front of observers in Lubumbashi in 2019. (Photo by CNN) The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which is the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa and one of the most mineral-rich countries in the world goes to the polls in December, 2023. The country which is the newest […]

Local election campaigns in Cape Verde, 2021. (Photo by (Africannews) Cape Verde is considered to be one of the few countries in Africa where democracy is functional. In October 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 10-island archipelago held its seventh successful elections after embracing multi-party democracy in 1991. The 2021 elections were won by opposition […]

Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari. (Photo by ThisDay) By instructing the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to redesign the Naira, imposing a deadline for the swap of old notes, particularly targeting the N500 ($1.09) and N1,000 ($2.17) notes, coupled with setting a ceiling on the amount that can be withdrawn from the bank, President Muhammadu Buhari […]