Browsing: West Africa

Togo President Sylvanus Olympio was the first leader assassinated in post-colonial Africa. We look back at the circumstances surrounding his killing sixty-two years ago. But one…

The BBC has always been trigger-happy when it comes to firing off negative headlines about Africa. On Thursday, it claimed Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traoré “sparked…

Guinea’s founding leader, Ahmed Sékou Touré – one of Africa’s leading statesmen of all time – was born on this day (9 January) in 1922. As…

According to the videos online, there was no mistaking it: the loudest roars of approval during Ghana’s president’s inauguration, John Mahama, were reserved for the visiting…

Hear the word Niger these days, and you’ll think of revolutionary coups, uranium, and giving ECOWAS, France and the U.S the boot… This time, though, we…

Burkina nightclubs bounce to the sound of Cuban music. But how did Salsa find its way to West Africa? History, politics and immigration played their part,…

One hundred and two years ago, the “father of African film”, Ousmane Sembène, was born in Ziguinchor, Senegal. Sembène’s career began modestly, working a number of…