Civil Society

This is a guest post by Jean-Yves Ollivier, a French businessman who has spent over forty years involved in peace talks in Africa. He serves as CEO of the Brazzaville Foundation for Peace and Nature Conservation. Judging by the media coverage, everyone seems to be in agreement: since the wind of revolt pushed Blaise Compaoré out of Burkina Faso and finally liberated the “Republic of honourable people” from a "twenty seven year dictatorship," the other “dinosaurs” in power in Africa just have to sit tight and forget about any ideas they had about keeping power. But people have jumped to conclusions regarding the nature of the revolt, the nature of the deposed regime, and the chances of current presidents to keep power. To start with, it was a coup d’état by young people. Whoever saw the revolts in Ouagadougou – whether in real life or on TV – must have realized what demographers have been telling us for years: that 70 percent of the population is under 30 and have never known any other president than Blaise Compaoré. I can remember a thirty-odd year old man shouting at the camera: “Fed up with Compaoré! I have a Master’s degree in law but no job.” Whoever comes to power in Burkina Faso, I’m very afraid that he will remain unemployed…and outraged. The Sahel is not all of Africa. In this southern strip of the Sahara the population growth rate is greater than 3 percent. However, there is but dry earth to scrape and not enough paying jobs for the hordes of young people who haven’t had the right education but dream of what they see on satellite TV night after night. Hence emigration or escape to so-called economic “rackets” or else full-scale contraband including drug trafficking; hence the fundamentalism of new moral economies whether it be Christian born again-style Pentecostal churches or jihadist movements from Ansar Dine in Mali and Boko Haram in Nigeria to al-Shabaab in Somalia. Data and situations vary from one end of this huge continent to the next. For better or worse, how do you compare the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), rich in every ore, with Burkina Faso? The same goes for the nature of the regimes. This is the second conclusion that has been jumped to and muddles Blaise Compaoré’s government with Joseph Kabila’s in DRC or Paul Biya or Paul Kagamé in Cameroon and Rwanda. The lone commonality between these men is how long they have been in power. Is that enough to conclude that an enduring power is a harsh government or dictatorship? We might as well praise the “cabinet reshuffle.” And, there’s the third sweeping conclusion: wanting to stay in power would surely be “bad” and wrong whilst a change in power would be good and more democratic. In the aftermath of Ouagadougou’s sweeping change, it would seem that the rejection of any constitutional amendment to extend the presidential mandates, whether it is done democratically or not, gives the opponents a rightfulness and support from the international community. However, if the people freely decide to pay a premium for stability by way of a referendum for example, who can stop them? And who’s to say that the young people who ransacked parliament in Ouagadougou represent the people? The army got involved for a reason. The opposition was unable to control its troops. Once in power, will it be capable of ensuring order and respect for property and people? Will it respect liberties and the liberty of those who are against it? It’s too early to tell. If presidents in power want to renew their mandate wherever they are despite existing constitutional constraints, they must reinvent themselves and win over their young populations – that is essential and that will be a determining factor in defining the effect as a domino or a boomerang.

Sometimes, it seems like the bad news from Nigeria never stops. Tucked away in the December 23, New York Times was a brief notice that on December 22, explosions in Gombe state killed at least twenty-six and wounded seventy-nine. That carnage in northern Nigeria merited less than sixty words, so inured has the international community become. Yet, just in time for Christmas there is a good-news story from northern Nigeria. The polio vaccination campaign, more than a decade old, is working. The Globe and Mail (Toronto) reports that only six cases of polio have been recorded this year in Nigeria, a 90 percent drop from last year. There has not been a single case of wild polio virus in the past six months. The Globe and Mail quotes Tunji Funsho, chairman of the Rotary Polio Plus Committee in Nigeria as saying, “We can see light at the end of the tunnel. All the hard work that we’ve been doing is seeming to pay off now.” Indeed, this is an extraordinary achievement. When I arrived in Nigeria in 2004 northern politicians and religious leaders claimed that the polio vaccine caused HIV/AIDS and infertility. As recently as February 2013 gunmen killed nine vaccination workers. What happened? The answer appears to be the work of the Rotary and the Gates Foundations combined with the Jonathan governments strict imposition of rules in support of the polio vaccination strategy along with energized Nigerian civil goups. In addition, religious leaders have assisted the campaign. Vaccine workers also show a new sensitivity to cultural norms. For example, they vaccinate children in front of their houses, not inside. Technology helps too, supervisors use satellite devices to track the movements of vaccinators. Hence, villages overlooked can be visited. They have even been able to track and vaccinate nomadic cattle-herding families. The security situation also plays a part in the treatment strategy. In parts of northern Nigeria plagued by Boko Haram, vaccinators use hit-and-run tactics. In coordination with security forces they go into an area when it is safe, vaccinate, and then run back to safety. For anybody who has seen Nigerians paralyzed by polio getting about on skate boards (wheel chairs can be a luxury), the apparent elimination of polio is a huge achievement. Deo gratias.

This is a guest post by Emily Mellgard. Emily is a researcher for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation working on their Religion & Geopolitics resource (religionandgeopolitics.org) in London, England, and a former research associate for the CFR Africa program. The All Progressive Congress (APC)  announced December 11 that Muhammadu Buhari would run as their candidate for the presidency. Buhari, a devout Muslim from the North, was military head of state from 1983-85. The election will be a rerun of 2011, pitting Buhari against the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. In anticipation of the political contest between Jonathan and Buhari, Dr. Ahmad Gumi, a prominent and controversial Muslim cleric wrote an October 18 open letter to Jonathan and Buhari cautioning both, in his capacity as a religious leader, not to contest the elections. Muslims, Gumi argues, see Jonathan as Nigeria’s pro-Christian president, who “has tainted [the governing Peoples’ Democratic Party] as a Christian Association of Nigeria party” and who,  in a time of unprecedented crises, will be seen by the predominantly Christian south as preferable to his probable opponent Buhari. For his part, Gumi claims Buhari, whom he endorses as “incorruptible,” should not contest the elections because he will always be seen and mistrusted by Nigerian Christians as an Islamist, whether the label is valid or not. Gumi counsels fielding any candidates other than these two, believing they will be the political lightning rods for a brewing religious storm. On October 21, Gumi released a second letter, this time directly addressing retired general Buhari. This letter has a distinctly pastoral character to it, beginning with a hadith tradition from the Prophet discussing timing and character of leadership. The conclusion of the story being that these elections are not the time for Buhari, and Buhari is not the man the nation needs at this time. He maintains that Buhari’s popularity will divide Muslims, and the nation will suffer for providing Buhari the opportunity to once again seek election to be head of state. Security will be the main issue in these elections Gumi argues, “Nigeria now needs peace and stability first. Then we talk of good governance later even though it’s the source of the predicament we are facing.” Buhari, widely respected in the North for his anti-corruption campaigns, is running on an anti-corruption platform, not a security platform. Gumi also warns against Buhari running because Jonathan and his political allies have painted Buhari as a radical Islamist, and Christian leaders in the south are painting Jonathan as “their only Savior.” Religious affiliation, Gumi warns, will be used to win allegiance and gloss over deficiencies in governance. Far from presenting himself as the “security vote” candidate however, Jonathan’s campaign launch speech barely touched on security issues. Of the 112 numbered points in Jonathan’s speech, he had moved on from security by point six. Development, infrastructure, education, and freedom of speech instead are the foundations of Jonathan’s campaign. This evasion is  a worrying sign that Jonathan fails to take seriously  the defeat of his soldiers, annihilation and enslavement of his people, and annexation of his territory. Mark Amaza recently published a discussion of Buhari’s chances, concluding that they are not very promising. Combined with Zainab Usman and Oliver Owen’s recent analysis of the power of incumbency in Nigerian elections, the prospects of any candidate other than Jonathan look dire. Gumi is not the only one to advise the political candidates. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo warned against presidential and vice-presidential candidates for parties being chosen from the same religion, a likely a reaction to Buhari, who indicated he is considering choosing a fellow Muslim as running mate. Jonathan recently announced he will run alongside his current (Muslim) vice president, Namadi Sambo. Given the obvious current challenges Nigeria faces, candidates have been warned by politicians and religious leaders alike not to run and not to capitalize on easy crowd pleasing tactics such as politicizing religious differences in lieu of intelligent governance. Time will tell if Jonathan, Buhari, and their political operatives will heed this advice.

A year after the death of Nelson Mandela, his reputation for reconciliation is undiminished. However, a more rounded evaluation of his career is emerging, one that takes into account the difficult choices that he had to make. I was part of that process in an article I wrote for Foreign Policy and my Council on Foreign Relations Expert Brief. Bernadette Atuahene, the author of the compelling We Want What’s Ours: Learning from South Africa’s Land Restitution Program, in a thoughtful Los Angeles Times Op-ed looks specifically at Mandela’s compromises over the land question at the time of South Africa’s transition to “non-racial” democracy. She concludes that Mandela left a legacy of both reconciliation and inequality. At the time of the 1994 transition, whites, less than 10 percent of the population, owned 87 percent of the land. (As the government was whites-only, government owned land counted as “white.”) As part of the compromise to secure the transition and end legal and constitutional apartheid, the liberation movements led by Mandela agreed that the current owners would keep their land. In return, the new government was committed to restitution of land taken from blacks by the apartheid process, reform of the land tenure system to benefit tenants, and a redistribution strategy that would benefit those who had never been allowed to own land. The post-transition ANC government’s goal was to transfer 30 percent of the land from whites to blacks in the first five years. Twenty years later, only 10 percent of South Africa’s land has been transferred from whites to blacks. When the state has acquired land for restitution or redistribution, it has paid the owners full market value. That means that the pace of land restitution and redistribution is determined by budgetary allocations. And the ANC government has many demands on its resources. Further, Atuahene argues, the land reform process is fundamentally unfair. When the state takes white-owned land now, it pays full market value. But, restitution to former owners who lost their land under apartheid mostly receive “standard settlement offers,” a payment calculated on the basis of the value of the land when it was seized that is far less than today’s. Atuahene’s central argument is that land reform is failing because of “structural flaws in the political bargain that Mandela struck.” She fully acknowledges, however that to ensure the transition, Mandela may have had little choice. Nevertheless, the bargain is unfair. Mandela’s concessions over land are a reminder that the 1994 transition to “non-racial democracy” was not the result of a triumph of the liberation movements over the apartheid government. It was a tough political bargain that reflected the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, and the outcome was not inevitable. The collapse of the Soviet Union reduced funding available to the liberation movements, and the ANC-led armed struggle was far from inflicting a military defeat on the South African Defence Force or the South African Police Service. Further, the liberation movement was not monolithic, and there was a civil war between supporters of the ANC and Inkatha, a Zulu political and cultural movement, in KwaZulu-Natal. On the other hand, the South African economy was in the doldrums, the international sanctions regime underscored the apartheid regime’s pariah status, many townships were ungovernable, and few white political leaders any longer had confidence in apartheid as a legal and constitutional system. The last apartheid government recognized that apartheid had to go. So, both sides made a deal. But, the deal mostly addressed legal and constitutional issues; the social and economic realities were largely unaddressed, with white privilege largely preserved.  

Pierre Korkie was a South African teacher working in Yemen, where his wife, Yolande, did hospital relief work. They were kidnapped by al-Qaeda operatives in May 2013. Yolande Korkie was released without ransom payment in January 2014. Pierre Korkie, however, was held for a $3 million ransom. On December 5, he was murdered by his kidnappers during the course of the failed U.S. effort to free American journalist Luke Somers, who was also killed. The South African non-governmental organization Gift of the Givers has said that it had secured Korkie’s release, scheduled for the following day with the payment of a $200,000 ransom. Hence, Korkie was murdered apparently only a few hours before he was to be released. It is usual al-Qaeda practice to murder its kidnap victims at the first sign of a rescue operation. South Africa, like the United States, does not pay ransom and does not engage with terrorist groups. Establishment South African reaction to Korkie’s murder has been dignified and restrained. The tone has been set by Yolande Korkie who has refused to finger-point and has called for the forgiveness of her husband’s murderers. Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of Gift of the Givers, has said that he does not blame the U.S. as “…They were acting in the interest of their own citizen. Any government would do that.” However, Stevens Mokgalapa, the shadow minister of international relations and cooperation of the Democratic Alliance, in his condolence message called on the South African government to “urgently engage with American representatives to get to the bottom of the circumstances that led to Mr. Korkie’s death.” Popular reaction in the media has been more variable. There is skepticism about the U.S. assertion that the planners of the failed rescue attempt did not know that Somers and Korkie were being held in the same space. Imtiaz Sooliman is reported by the New York Times as saying that his NGO had not informed American or Yemeni officials of the planned released because it had been told by al-Qaeda to keep the plans “confidential.” From the beginning of the kidnapping of Pierre and Yolande Korkie it has been working for their release. Gift of the Givers, founded in 1992, is the largest disaster relief organization of African origin. It has worked in Bosnia, Pakistan, Somalia, and Haiti, among other places. It is Islamic in character (South Africa has a small but vibrant Muslim community). The New York Times makes the important point that a no-ransom policy may lead family members of kidnap victims to become “amateur negotiators” with terrorists, and the Korkie tragedy shows “the dangerous disconnect that can occur when civilians are left to negotiate hostage releases on their own.” As in the United States, the Korkie tragedy is likely to lead to calls for a re-evaluation of South Africa’s no-ransom policy. Yet the arguments for it remain sound. In some parts of the Sahel, ransom payments have become the largest single source of revenue for radical jihadis.

This is a guest post by Alex Dick-Godfrey, Assistant Director, Studies administration for the Council on Foreign Relations Studies Program. Recently, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud organized for the Somali parliament to lodge a petition for a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed Mohammad. This comes on the heels of a spat between Ahmed and President Mohamud after the prime minister removed a minister of justice and constitutional affairs. That minister, now the minister of veterinary and animal husbandry, is a major ally of President Mohamud, who declared the move “null and void” citing constitutional authority. If this all sounds familiar, that is because last year President Mohamud got rid of then Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon for precisely the same reason, using precisely the same tactics. The president’s argument is as thin this time as it was last time. He is simply removing a political obstacle, and he will likely succeed. There is little silver lining to this development. The president’s move was met with immediate displeasure by Somalia’s international partners. The United States pulled out of a recent conference on Somali development, citing concern with the “political turmoil” in the country. Further, Somalia has also been using recent gains against al Shabaab to try and lure investment back to the country, but some are now worried that this political bickering could scare investors away. This cycle of a new prime minister every year is partly the fault of the president’s ambition, but is also evidence of a larger constitutional problem that allows him to claim powers he does not possess. It may be time for Somalia to begin considering a structural change in its governance system if it wishes to maintain its positive momentum. There are two options. The first is to adopt a strong centralized system. It is becoming increasingly clear that a strong presidential office and a strong prime ministerial office cannot coexist without regular disruption. However, many Somalis do not trust a strong centralized system after strongman Siad Barre was forced from power. His horrible twenty-five year rule lingers in the minds of most Somalis. A more realistic option is to finally set up a constitutional court in Somalia. This independent body would theoretically adjudicate constitutional questions and provide some stability and clarity to the constitution. At the very least it could provide some political stability by ruling on matters like the one currently under discussion. It would also have the added value of assisting during the creation of federal states. These changes are unlikely. It is more likely that the cycle of instability in the prime minister’s office will continue. The current prime minister will be forced from power and the president will pick a new one in thirty days. Unfortunately, it seems likely that individual will run afoul of the president in a year’s time and the cycle will continue. These are setbacks Somalia cannot afford as it continues to battle an increasingly wild insurgency, readies itself for democratic elections in 2016, and tries to organize federal states.

This is a guest post by Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, a journalist and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. A victory for women. That’s what October 8 represented in Tanzania as the East African nation’s Committee of the Constituent Assembly officially presented a draft for a new constitution to President Jakaya Kikwete, the first new constitution since 1977. This draft has been endorsed by parliament and will likely become law when it is put through a referendum in the spring before the October 2015 general elections. This newly proposed constitution does not make many major changes to the structure of government, but it is a watershed document in that it guarantees women “equal citizenship rights,” such as Article 22’s codification that “every woman is entitled to acquire, own, use or develop land under the same conditions as men.” It also gives women the important ability to bestow citizenship to their children, rather than taking citizenship from the father, and to have equal employment rights as well as maternity leave. And, it explicitly defines children as those under eighteen, taking a clear stand against child marriage. The proposed constitution also guarantees equal representation between the sexes in parliament, a progressive step in a country with 36 percent female representation in its parliament, already the twenty-second highest in the world, but revolutionary worldwide where women comprise less than one in five members of parliament. Will a new constitution codifying these basic rights make a difference? Tanzania’s gender equality ambitions have been thwarted before. In the 1990s, Tanzania gave women the right to own and control land, yet today women are largely still denied those rights since customary laws and traditional practices prevalent nationwide prevent those legal provisions from being followed. The country also lacks an administrative system of land governance. Still, there are good reasons to be optimistic. First, the fact that the constitutional framers codified the gender rights in language that clearly spells out that women have the same rights to land as men showcases that they think more needs to be done. Second, it is a recognition that societies where land issues are not well governed are prone to persistent land conflicts. And importantly, as a constitutional clause, these rights are provided greater legal protection than some of the discriminatory but customary laws afforded equal status in the courts. The new gender equality efforts further recognize that women rarely own the land they farm, despite making up 50 percent of the country’s agricultural workforce. With few sources of income, especially in rural areas, women often bear the brunt of family responsibilities yet if they get divorced or a spouse dies, they frequently end up with nothing. Now, women will be better able to resolve disputes and enjoy the economic results of their work. As one female Constitutional Assembly member told reporters: “The draft constitution has well defined the word “person” because in some communities people believe a “person” is a man and not a woman. This is the kind of equality we have been fighting for.” Political and economic empowerment have not historically protected women from the ills of poor education, health and survival, a struggle in Tanzania where the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report ranks it 118 and 112 respectively. But this constitution, written by both men and women, is a start in codifying the concept of basic inalienable rights to all “persons.”

The November 28 attack on worshippers at Kano’s Central Mosque killed at least 130, according to the Nigerian media. No group has claimed responsibility, though most observers appear to think it was Boko Haram. Kano is the largest and most important city in northern Nigeria, with perhaps three million inhabitants. It has been a major trading city for more than one thousand years. It has an international airport. It is also perhaps Nigeria’s pre-eminent center of Islamic culture and scholarship. Its emir, at present former Central Bank governor Lamido Sanussi, is usually ranked among the top three Nigerian Muslim traditional rulers by protocol. Its governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, is widely viewed as successful. Some of my Nigerian interlocutors see him as a possible opposition candidate for the presidency  in 2015. Kano has also long been a center of Islamic radicalism. It was a center of operations for Ansaru, a group that broke with Abubakar Shekau’s Boko Haram centered in Borno and the city of Maiduguri. Ansaru objected that Shekau was killing too many innocent Muslims. Ansaru had been silent for many months but, has apparently issued a statement of condolence for the victims of the Kano bombing. It is plausible that the Kano attack was carried out by a local group with the same outlook as Shekau but not under his direct control. Shekau usually claims responsibility for big operations, such as Kano, but often there is a time lag. If he does claim responsibility in the next several days, that will indicate that his brand of Boko Haram is indeed now active in Kano. The attack on the Central Mosque should, I think, be seen as a direct challenge to both the secular state, symbolized by Governor Kwankwaso, and the traditional Islamic establishment, symbolized by Emir Lamido Sanussi. The Emir may himself see it that way; on Saturday he led the prayers at the Central Mosque and in remarks is reported as saying that Muslims will not be intimidated into abandoning Islam. So, the Emir posits establishment Islam as the true Islam. The Islamic radicals called Boko Haram claim that theirs is the true Islam. Among other things, the struggle in northeast Nigeria is a civil war within Islam. In addition to Kano on Friday, there were also attacks over the past few days in Maiduguri, Damaturu, and Damassak. These are areas where Shekau has carried out operations in the past. The Kano attack highlights one of the many unknowns about Boko Haram. How centralized is it? To what extent is it a decentralized, grass-roots rebellion only loosely under the leadership of Shekau?

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers. While parts of the world rush forward toward ‘convergence’ and ‘singularity’, spurred by Silicon Valley’s technological advances and anticipated by its intellectual visionaries, other parts of the world are doing exactly the opposite—returning to earlier technologies that better suit their current circumstances. One example is Detroit, Michigan. Long the epicenter of automobile production in the United States, Detroit, having suffered a severe recessionary decline, owing to changes in that industry, is pinning its future on the humble bicycle. Poverty and unemployment appear to “encourage biking as a more affordable alternative to driving,” writes Jen Wieczner in Fortune Magazine, and the city enjoys a reservoir of skilled workers able to transition from building cars to the manufacture of bikes. In Uganda, bicycles are also making a difference. “Pedaling Out of Poverty,” by Douglas Cruickshank, in the Fall 2014 issue of Bucknell Magazine, tells the story of the efforts of Bucknell alumni Muyambi Muyambi and Molly Burke to establish Bicycles Against Poverty (BAP) in Gulu, in Uganda’s war-ravaged north. Says Burke, “It’s an area that didn’t have development, didn’t have much infrastructure being built for 20 years, and 95 percent of our participants lived in refugee camps.” Peoples’ lives were “put on pause for 20 years.” A tough environment in which to prosper, “it made sense to house BAP headquarters right in the heart of the district, increasing accessibility to critical resources—water, clinics, markets—and building financial management skills among low-income entrepreneurs through a micro-financing model,” observes Cruickshank. From one hundred bicycles distributed in northern Uganda in July 2009, the number has increased to one thousand to date. “An income jump of 68 percent is not uncommon for families who own bikes, and that can help spur the local economy.” Successful economic experiences in two very different areas such as Detroit and Gulu with bicycles probably could not have been imagined. That the ‘experiment’ is working in both parts of the world appears to confirm that viable (and often disruptive) innovation tends to emerge from the “low end” of the economic spectrum, where it is least expected. It confirms, too, William Easterly’s view that in a world where western development elites exhibit “rich-world vanity,” it is usually ordinary people who can help humanity the most. That such people are active in Africa, helping to improve lives, is an example of engagement with the world that current apostles of U.S. isolation should remember.

This is a guest post by Molly Rapaport, a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. She recently returned from a Fulbright fellowship in Burkina Faso, where she studied polygamy. Ça chauffe moins pour le moment au Burkina. Things have cooled off in Burkina Faso, where massive protests three weeks ago led to the October 31 resignation of Blaise Compaoré. Blaise, as he is known colloquially, was president for twenty-seven years and intended to remain in power. When his proposed constitutional revision, which would have allowed him to run again in 2015, went to the National Assembly for a vote, hundreds of thousands of Burkinabe citizens protested. Their message, reinforced by burning the parliament building and tearing down a statue of Blaise, was crystal clear. Protest signs combined the president’s name with that of a terrible virus (making “Ebolaise”), and Burkinabe entreated their fellow citizens to “disinfect” themselves. And they did—Blaise ultimately resigned. With French assistance, he fled to Côte d’Ivoire before moving to Morocco. Place de la Nation, a major gathering point in Burkina’s capital of Ouagadougou (known as Ouaga), is now Place de la Révolution. Ouaga denizens cleaned up their streets. Following Blaise’s departure, Burkina recovered quickly. Power settled in the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida, second-in-command of Blaise’s presidential guard, who was not concerned by the African Union’s threat of sanctions if he did not transfer power to a civilian within two weeks. Luckily, within that deadline, the constitution was reinstated, a transitional charter was signed by diverse Burkinabe leaders, and on Tuesday, former ambassador to the United Nations Michel Kafando was sworn in as interim president. He will lead Burkina’s transition until elections in November 2015. Zida, for his part, has assumed the post of transitional prime minister, and has been busy at work firing the heads of public corporations close to the Compaoré regime. Zida’s next job will be to appoint a transitional government, and it is rumored that military personnel could occupy several of those posts. Despite the Burkinabe military’s continued prominence in the transition, the United States never labeled it a coup. Blaise had become a U.S. ally, and as part of the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, the United States has trained Burkinabe troops. Additional U.S. presence in Burkina comes from the diplomatic community, over one hundred Peace Corps Volunteers, and a U.S. military base from which it launches surveillance drones. U.S. recognition of a coup would have required withdrawing this aid from Burkina. As Burkina prepares for elections next year, observers should remain focused on what Blaise’s departure means for the average Burkinabe who overthrew him. While he received praise for maintaining stability and holding elections, Blaise cannot call his tenure a success. Burkina’s GDP grew considerably – 6.5 percent in 2013 – but the corruption of the president and his entourage kept the country poor. GDP per capita in 2013 was just $1,500, the majority of roads are unpaved, and access to electricity, which itself is unreliable, is far from universal. The quality of education remains low and not even a third of the population is literate. Clearly, this did not dampen Burkinabe spirits. It was thrilling to witness the courage of Burkinabe protestors, and the photos were powerful. Burkinabe care about their country, and about democracy; when the army took over following Blaise’s departure, they protested that too. Kafando and Zida have daunting jobs ahead of them and an invested populace to whom they must answer—and the United States should make sure they do. At first, the United States called for power to be transferred to a civilian, and on Sunday, the U.S. ambassador spoke on French radio about the importance of a democratic transition. But the United States can—and should—support this process with more than words. Many Burkinabe appreciate American culture but not what they perceive to be hypocritical American policy toward their country—rhetoric about democracy accompanied by a partnership with Blaise. This is an opportunity for the United States to rectify that, and a recent visit to Ouaga by Bisa Williams, deputy assistant secretary for African affairs, suggests the United States is paying close attention. It should take advantage of this moment and work with Burkinabe to build a democratic government that truly serves its people.

The Nigerian media is reporting that Boko Haram is firmly in control of Mubi, a strategically important town in Adamawa state. Apparently based on telephone contact with city residents and a few interviews with those who have fled, the media is presenting a Boko Haram effort to return the city to normal, albeit run according to Islamic law. Boko Haram “leaders” in the city, not further identified, are urging residents who have fled to return. They have also ordered shops to reopen. A gasoline station has reopened in the neighboring town of Uba, and Boko Haram provided security for the weekly market in Mubi last week. There are reports that Boko Haram is paying for anything they take from the shops. The same “leaders” are also saying that residents are free to come and go and may use motorcycles, the use of which is banned in some parts of Adamawa still controlled by the government. Boko Haram is promising to provide residents with “security.” On the other hand, the media is also reporting that residents continue to flee. Boko Haram has renamed Mubi Madinatul Islam, “the city of Islam and peace.” Residents report that there are checkpoints everywhere. One resident is reported in the media as saying that the insurgents have warned against any attempts to hold an election in the state, and that Boko Haram would “capture the whole state in no distant time.” Meanwhile, military sources say that their efforts to retake Mubi continue. Media documentation of what Boko Haram is doing in Mubi is thin. But, if it is an accurate reflection, it may be a reflection of the direction in which Boko Haram is moving. Boko Haram’s focus appears now to be on the acquisition of territory, including the entire state of Adamawa. It also appears to be moving in the direction of providing services, especially security for the residents in the territories it controls. It remains to be seen whether residents who have fled Mubi and Uba will start to return. Boko Haram’s leadership remains as shadowy as ever.  

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from October 25 to October 31, 2014. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. Learn About Tableau October 25: The Nigerian army killed twenty Boko Haram insurgents in Damboa, Borno. October 27: Boko Haram invaded Kukawa, Borno, killing at least three. October 28: A communal clash in Plateau resulted in five deaths. October 29: Boko Haram seized Mubi in Adamawa, killing "dozens" (estimated at twenty-four). October 30: The Civilian JTF beheaded forty-one Boko Haram insurgents in Biu, Borno. October 31:  A bomb killed forty people in Gombe state. Boko Haram is believed to be the perpetrator. October 31: Gunmen attacked Jibia, Katsina, killing six.

The New York Times and other media are reporting a drop in Ebola infection rates and empty beds in the emergency field hospitals set up by the U.S. military in Monrovia. While there is Ebola all along the border between Liberia and Ivory Coast, Abidjan has not reported any cases. The World Health Organization has stated that Nigeria and Senegal are Ebola free. Perhaps even more important, no new Nigerian cases have been announced since the WHO’s declaration. Especially in Liberia, a public communications campaign on Ebola has taken off. But, it is too soon to break out the champagne. Dr. Bruce Aylward, MD, the WHO official in charge of the Ebola campaign, cautions that infection rates can oscillate, and that mishandled burials could “start a whole new transmission chain and the disease starts trending upward again,” according to the New York Times. He also noted that there is a case of Ebola in Mali, which up to now has been infection-free. According to Dr. Aylward, 13,703 people have been infected by Ebola, all but 27 in Liberia (where about half of the victims were found), Sierra Leone, and Guinea. The mortality rate is about 70 percent. Dr. Aylward’s caution is well placed. There is anecdotal evidence of families hiding Ebola victims from the authorities, of whom they are often deeply suspicious. The emergency field hospitals are mostly in Monrovia; Ebola established itself in rural areas first, many of which are nearly impenetrable because of the lack of roads and other infrastructure. There have been nine people in the United States diagnosed with Ebola, one has died and the others have recovered or have a good prognosis. The American experience may indicate that the horrific West African experience of Ebola is a reflection of a mostly non-existent public health system. Yet, an American hysteria about Ebola, in at least some places, seems unabated, with popular calls for draconian quarantine requirements and the severing of transportation links between the United States and West Africa.

Today, to nobody’s surprise, President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesman announced that he would accept the ruling Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) nomination for president. The presidential elections are scheduled for February 14, 2015. Within the PDP Jonathan was unopposed. However, numerous PDP personalities have left the party, most recently the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal. Others have left but subsequently returned. The leading opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), will select its presidential candidate in early December. Former military chief of state Muhammadu Buhari is the current favorite. If Buhari is successful, the 2015 presidential election will be a rematch of the 2011 elections. Those elections bifurcated the country with Buhari taking all of the predominately Muslim states and Jonathan the rest (with one exception). These elections were followed by the worst single episode of violence in the north since the 1966-70 civil war. Jonathan’s announcement comes one day after Boko Haram seized the strategically important city of Mubi in Adamawa state, the headquarters of the Nigerian army’s 234 battalion, one of the largest military units in the northeast. Mubi’s residents appear to have fled, joining a large and rapidly growing internally displaced population in the northeast. The much ballyhooed negotiations between the government and Boko Haram over a cease-fire and the release of the kidnapped Chibok school girls thus far have come to nothing. Corruption remains a feature of the Jonathan administration, with investigations still underway on alleged “mis-direction” of oil revenue. Jonathan’s signature power initiative has been launched, and has the potential for revitalizing the economy. However, in the short term, power generation has actually fallen. Given these circumstances, Jonathan’s candidacy would seem to be in trouble. Yet, such is the power of incumbency that the smart money must be on a Jonathan victory. Nigerian civil society groups are expressing concern about the state of electoral preparations. Then, too, there is the question of how balloting will be conducted in the parts of the northeast subject to Boko Haram. That region voted solidly for Buhari in 2011. If the elections in those areas do not take place, or if the turnout is miniscule because of security concerns, their credibility will be questioned, especially in the north. However, elections are an aspect of elite politics remote from the concerns and aspirations of the Nigerian people. For many Nigerians, they may not matter very much except as a spur to ethnic, religious, and regional identities. Hence, the question is whether the February 2015 elections will further exacerbate ethnic and religious tensions, and perhaps encourage increased support for Boko Haram and other radical movements.

I have written before about New York’s City’s African-born population. Here, I want to call attention to the current wave of African immigration to the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, on October 23, 2014, the population of the United States was 319,131,500, the third largest in the world, after China and India. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey conducted 2008-2012, there were 39.8 million foreign-born in the United States. Of them, 1.6 million were from Africa, that is about 4 percent of the foreign-born population. That is a big increase from 1970, when there were only about eighty thousand foreign born from Africa, representing less than 1 percent of the foreign born population in the United States. Our African immigrant communities are mostly new. About three quarters of our Africa-born population came to the U.S. after 1990. Census Bureau reports suggest specific milestones in African immigration. The U.S. Immigration Act of 1965 replaced the national origin quota system with a new law that prioritized skilled labor, family unification, and humanitarian concerns. In 2010, about a quarter of African immigrants came to the United States as refugees or received asylum. More generally, as the American economy pulled ahead of the old colonial powers and immigration to Western Europe became more difficult, the United States became increasingly attractive as a destination for African immigrants in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Many Africans also came to the United States in search of educational opportunities. The four countries that provide the largest number of immigrants are Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Egypt. (Unlike the U.S. Department of State, the Census Bureau includes the North African Mediterranean littoral states as part of Africa rather than the Middle East). The four states that have received the largest number of immigrants are New York, California, Texas, and Maryland. Together, they include over one-third of the foreign born from Africa. The metropolitan areas with the largest African-born population are New York City, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. African immigrants are well educated. Forty-one percent of our African foreign-born have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 28 percent of the foreign born population as a whole. As of 2011, according to the Census Bureau, about 30 percent of the entire American population that is twenty-five years or older has a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. The American Community Survey shows that the foreign-born population of African origin is still small relative to other groups, despite its rapid growth. Unlike Europe, China, or Japan, the American population is not graying, largely because of immigration. The relative youthfulness of the American population is a source of vitality, and Africans are making their contribution.