In the dusty border town of Adre, battered pickup trucks roar around the quiet streets with clumps of rifle-toting men clinging to the roof. Most wear the distinctive brown camouflage issued to the army, but others sport the gowns and turbans favoured by the local population. In this poor, but oil-rich nation, no one raises an eyebrow at unmarked trucks bristling with machine guns.
One month after the rebels chopped off both of Abubakr Kargbo’s hands with an axe, his son was born. ”I gave him my name,” said the father of four, gesturing towards the young Abubakr with a stump. ”I did not expect to live and I wanted my name to carry on.”
As word trickled through of the capture of former president Charles Taylor, huddles of Liberians began to congregate around the nearest radio. For the first time in years, the Champions League football was switched off in favour of the news. ”This is a great day,” said Jerome Verdier, head of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
As one of Charles Taylor’s closest advisers warns of ”bloodshed and chaos” if the former Liberian president is extradited, analysts say the international community must act quickly to prevent his supporters from re-arming. Taylor, currently in exile in Nigeria, faces 17 counts of crimes against humanity brought by an internationally backed special court in Sierra Leone.
High above the traffic jams and street vendors choking on exhaust fumes, Nigeria’s larger-than-life politicians stride majestically towards the edge of towering billboards, arms gesturing to the great visions that lie just beyond the paper borders. The elections might be more than a year away, but the country is throwing itself into one of its favourite sports — politics — with a vengeance.
The hymn We are Fighting for Jesus rang out across the Niger Delta as a boatful of balaclava-clad militants brandishing machine guns and rocket launchers greeted the international press corps. In a bizarre masquerade, the latest militia group to lay claim to the oil fields on the Delta handed astonished journalists a 69-year-old American hostage.
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/ 27 January 2006
Before the teargas canisters and burnt tires had all been cleared away, government supporters were embracing their opponents on the streets of Abidjan. For one afternoon at least, a passion even stronger than politics had taken over: football.
On Tuesday, fans of the Elephants filled street bars, to cheer the national team to victory in the African Nations Cup.
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/ 18 November 2005
After days of demonstrations in the Liberian capital, the woman poised to become Africa’s first female President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, has offered to team up with George Weah, the former world footballer of the year she defeated. Johnson-Sirleaf has said she would like him to be minister of youth and sport in her next government.
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/ 4 November 2005
On the potholed and bullet-scarred streets of Liberia, a former world footballer-of-the-year is trying to beat a 66-year-old politician at her own game. Next Tuesday, ex-Chelsea and AC Milan player, high-school drop-out George Weah will go head-to-head with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a grandmother with a Harvard degree, in the presidential run-off in this war-ravaged West African country.
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/ 4 November 2005
Ten years after the world watched in horror as Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were executed by the Nigerian government on trumped-up charges the Ogoni people living in the oil-rich Niger Delta are little closer to justice. Nigeria may be Africa’s biggest producer of crude but in Ogoniland oil from rusting pipelines contaminates farmland and police continue to attack residents.