Baobab

This post has been updated.

PROTESTS broke out across Nigeria's mostly Muslim north on Monday, as results from the weekend's presidential election seemed almost certain to hand victory to the southern incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.

Of the 39.5m votes cast, Mr Jonathan won 22.5m while General Muhammadu Buhari, a popular northerner and his main challenger, only picked up 12.2m, according to figures from the country’s 36 states which have since been confirmed by the national election commission. General Buhari's team has queried some of the results, especially those from some southern states where turnout was over 80%.

As results trickled in on Sunday night, riots broke out in the remote north-eastern states. By Monday afternoon the trouble had spread to Kano and Kaduna, key northern business and political hubs that have lost their shine as the region has declined.

In Kano, youths tried to burn down the home of a traditional Islamic ruler thought to be close to the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). In Kaduna, they set fire to the house of Namadi Sambo, the vice-president. Curfews have since been imposed in both of these states and several others.

This month's presidential race has stoked long-existing faultlines in Africa's most populous nation, home to 150m people and over 250 ethnic groups. Mr Jonathan hails from the oil-rich and mostly Christian southern delta. General Buhari is an austere former military ruler from the Hausa ethnic group that dominates the north.

Some northerners said the whole thing had been a dangerous misunderstanding. "These youths have only seen the huge turnout for Buhari in their neighbourhoods and they don't understand that that has not happened elsewhere," said Audu Grema, a development consultant living in Kano. The higher poverty and lower education levels that blight the landlocked north had perhaps caused just as much of the fury, he added.

General Buhari did not call the protesters out, said Yinka Odumakin, the challenger's spokesman. "These people were just reacting to the situation." Both Mr Jonathan and General Buhari have appealed for calm.

On Monday morning in Abuja, Nigeria's manicured capital, international observers had heaped praise on the presidential polls. These elections have been widely hailed as a great improvement on the series of violent and rigged polls that have kept the PDP in power for a dozen years. But the riots that were taking place at the same time, just a few hours' drive away, were a reminder that whoever wins the race will still have much work to do.

WE ARE in the cavernous entrance hall of the Hotel du Golf. Dozens of people, many in traditional African dress, sit around not doing very much. Some have been cooped up here with Alassane Ouattara for the past four months and now are waiting to go back to their towns and villages, as soon as it is safe. Others are hoping that they might be among the lucky few called to join the new president’s government. Yet others are just hanging around, with nothing better to do, wanting to be where the action is. In a corner, a soldier is selling (warm) bottled drinks from a crate. There is nothing else to eat or drink.

Suddenly, the ubiquitous torpor is broken as the great man sweeps through with his guests, a delegation from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Everyone rises to applaud him, shouting “Prési! Prési!” A slim handsome man, impeccably dressed in a well-tailored dark suit and looking far younger than his 69 years, he acknowledges their greeting with a regal wave, as befits the son of the late King of the Cong, a region in the north of Cote d’Ivoire, before disappearing to yet another meeting in the hotel. He is trying to put together a so-called “government of national unity”, including civil society representatives and members of Laurent Gbagbo’s party.

The former president is no longer at the hotel, where he had first been taken after his surrender on Monday. He has been flown up to the presidential residence in the north of the country, where he is being “protected” by UN peacekeepers. But his wife, Simone, his reputed eminence grise, is said still to be here, along with dozens of Mr Gbagbo’s staff and aides, captured at the time of his arrest. Most are being held in the hotel bar. Shortly after Mr Ouattara’s departure, a bedraggled string of them are led out across the hall to the lavatories. Many are women. Some have recently treated wounds. They look forlorn, even somewhat dazed, but otherwise seem to be being correctly treated.

Outside, the sun beats mercilessly down in the humid air. My transport has long since left, so I hitch a lift with a couple of Republican Force soldiers in a battered army jeep. The driver, who seems a lot more professional and on the ball than most of Mr Ouattara’s rag-tag army, tells me that he served for ten years in the government forces, before defecting to Mr Ouattara’s lot four months ago. Though claiming to be apolitical, he says he became disgusted at Mr Gbagbo’s attempt to hang on to power. “After the elections, it was the government troops that became the rebels,” he says.

The whole army has now rallied to Mr Ouattara, its generals having surrendered almost a week before Mr Gbagbo himself finally threw in the towel. Among them is General Philippe Mangou, Mr Gbagbo’s former army chief of staff. He is now at the Hotel du Golf, helping put together a new united Ivorian army. Given a 63% vote for Mr Ouattara among the rank and file in government barracks in November’s presidential election, the task may not prove as difficult as it might seem. In Abidjan, everyone appears to be taking their president’s call for reconciliation and a ban on reprisals to heart. “The Ivorians are a peaceful people, you know,” my driver explains. But doesn’t almost every African country, which has suffered violent civil conflict, claim the same thing, only to experience a further spate of revenge killings and other atrocities? One can only hope Cote d’Ivoire will prove different.

(Photo credit: AFP)

WITH the world's Africa-watchers distracted by bloody events in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire, and elections in giant and chaotic Nigeria, it's easy to forget about a presidential election in Djibouti. The tiny state in the Horn of Africa, wedged between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, has only 860,000 inhabitants. But Djibouti’s importance is underscored by the presence of 5,000 or so French and American troops, a legacy of its status as a former French colony (it won independence in 1977) and a current western ally in the wars against terror and piracy.

Results from the election on April 8^th were swift and predictable: President Ismail Guelleh of the People's Rally for Progress, who has ruled since 1999 (when he took over from his uncle), was re-elected by a landslide. According to Djibouti's electoral commission, around 80% of the votes were cast for Mr Guelleh, slightly down on the 100% he officially achieved in 2005. Turnout was also reported as high, with 70% of the 150,000 registered turning up to vote. Polling day itself was, according to most accounts, a serene affair by sub-Saharan African standards.

Closer examination reveals a less serene picture. Mr Guelleh's victory came in the face of weak opposition with only one candidate, an independent, standing against him. Last year, he forced through constitutional changes to allow himself a third six-year term in office. Opposition groups had called for a boycott of the election after the suppression in February of Middle-East-inspired protests, partly provoked Djibouti's high rate of unemployment, in which two people were killed. In early March, the president kicked a team of international election observers out of the country.

All sad, but should the world worry? Despotic behaviour is hardly unusual in Djibouti's neighbourhood. But as the presence of all those troops suggests, it should. Aly Verjee, one of the observers evicted in March, spells it out in an article in Foreign Policy:

Djibouti matters. It matters a lot. As the forward operating base of U.S. Africa Command, Djibouti's Camp Lemonnier is a friendly piece of real estate in the Horn of Africa, which includes Eritrea, Somalia, and Yemen. Approximately 2,000 U.S. troops are based at Lemonnier, in addition to the naval forces that periodically call at the port of Djibouti. With the nearest friendly African port located in Mombasa, Kenya—1,700 miles away—the United States, NATO, and the European Union have no alternative to using Djibouti's harbor as a sanctuary to conduct anti-piracy operations. 

Its unfettered cooperation on anti-piracy operations has endeared Djibouti to many other members of the international community. A score of countries—including Japan, Germany, and Russia—rely on the port of Djibouti to sustain their naval presence in East African waters. At the mouth of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, Djibouti is strategically located to protect some of the world's busiest shipping lanes, which have become increasingly vulnerable to ever more ambitious pirates. And the problem is not going away.  Despite some success in disrupting "pirate action groups," as they are termed by the multinational forces, 14 ships have already been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean this year, according to figures from the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center.

As the only US military toehold on the continent, Djibouti is also a vital link in the war on terror.  Unmanned anti-terrorism drones are deployed from Lemonnier against targets in the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia.

With the likes of Human Rights Watch lining up to condemn Mr Guelleh, and after the collapse of friendly regimes in the Middle East, the West may want to take a bit more interest in the actions of one of its few allies in a no less volatile and equally vital region further south too. 

AS NIGERIANS vote in parliamentary, presidential and state governorship elections this month, they are hoping that this time might be different. The ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) has kept a tight grip on all levels of government since the end of army rule in 1999. Flawed and violent polls have blighted Africa's most populous country during a dozen years of democracy.

All that might be changing. In the corridors of power, the electoral commission has a new and respected head. On the streets, voters are trying to monitor polls themselves. The parliamentary vote on 9th April—the first of this election season—was widely viewed as an improvement on recent years. Voters in Lagos, the frenetic commercial capital, waited at their polling stations from dawn until dusk to watch ballots being counted and ensure there was no foul play. The PDP lost some key seats. But the real test will be the presidential election on 16th April.

THE end to Côte d'Ivoire's nightmare is in sight. Following an overnight "final assault" on the presidential palace in Abidjan, the commercial capital, Laurent Gbagbo is said to have agreed to step down as president. His official spokesman reported at around 3pm GMT today that Mr Gbagbo, who has ruled the country with a despotic hand for the past ten years, was negotiating the terms of his departure with France, the former colonial power, acting as an intermediary.

Mr Gbagbo has been holed up in the presidential palace with his family and closest aides since losing presidential elections in November to his rival, Alassane Ouattara, a former deputy director of the IMF. Despite the proclamation of the results by the independent electoral commission, Mr Gbagbo insisted that there had been massive vote rigging in the northern half of the country, controlled for the past eight years by rebels backing Mr Ouattara, and got himself sworn in as president by a constitutional court packed with his men. But his claim was rejected by both the UN and the African Union.

Despite repeated international pleas that he step down, he refused to budge. A few weeks ago, the increasingly impatient pro-Ouattara forces started clashing with government troops still nominally under the control of Mr Gbagbo, capturing several towns in the west and seizing control of Abidjan’s working-class district of Abobo. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of lives were lost in this initial skirmishing. But still Mr Gbagbo refused to go. A week ago the former rebel army, now calling itself the Republican Forces, started their descent on Abidjan, still the real seat of power, sweeping all before them in just a few days.

But the final assault on the business capital met with fiercer resistance than they had expected. For four days and nights they slogged it out against Mr Gbagbo’s elite Republican Guard and Young Patriots youth militia, pounding the presidential palace with artillery and raking the city of 4m with gunfire. Looters, many of them armed, sought to take advantage of the chaos. But most people shut themselves up in their homes, not daring to go out, even to get food. Foreign embassies desperately sought to evacuate their staff and nationals under the protection of the UN and French troops stationed in the city. They are reported to have played a determinant role in the final battle.

The role of General Philippe Mangou, Mr Gbagbo’s army chief of staff, in all this remains unclear. Last Wednesday it was reported that he and his family had sought refuge in the residence of the South African ambassador in Abidjan. Many assumed he had defected. But early yesterday it was announced that he had rejoined Mr Gbagbo's forces, having apparently merely taken shelter in the embassy during the assault on the city by the pro-Ouattara troops. Today he pops up again, this time to announce—before an official ceasefire had even been concluded—that all his troops had stopped fighting. It will be interesting to see if Mr Ouattara decides to keep him on.

THE battle for Abidjan has begun. Troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognised president of Côte d’Ivoire, entered the country's business capital last night and have surrounded the presidential palace, in the upmarket Cocody district in the heart of the city, where Laurent Gbagbo has been holed up since losing the presidential elections three months ago. They had already seized Yamoussoukro, the new administrative capital to the north, and San Pedro, the main cocoa-exporting port of the world’s biggest cocoa producer. They have also taken over the state broadcaster.

There are rumours that Mr Gbagbo may have fled the palace with his family in the early hours of this morning. But, speaking from a cellar in the British Embassy near the palace this morning, where he and his staff have taken refuge, Colin Wells, Britain's acting ambassador, said that the fighting had been so fierce that he very much doubted that anyone could have got out. The booming of mortar fire could be heard over the line as he spoke, before it went dead. A spokesman for Mr Gbagbo told the BBC's World Service that his boss would not give up: "We are going to put up a fight." Mr Ouattara's spokesman said the earlier offer for Mr Gbagbo to go peacefully was no longer on the table.

The former president is being valiantly defended by his Republican Guard and mercenaries, the only forces left loyal to him. Most of the rest of the government troops have joined the former rebel Republican Forces now backing Mr Ouattara, following the defection of the army's chief-of-staff, General Phillippe Mangou. He and his family took refuge in the South African embassy yesterday. Blé Goudé, Mr Gbagbo’s youth minister and leader of the Young Patriot youth militia, is also reported to have sought refuge—with the UN.

All flights in and out of Abidjan have been cancelled. UN peacekeepers and French troops stationed in the former French colony are patrolling the now near-deserted streets in an attempt to keep some kind of order. But where the fighting is not going on, looters have taken over, terrorising the city's inhabitants. The French have evacuated about 500 foreigners, including 150 of their own nationals, to a military camp. One Swedish woman who works for the UN has been killed, apparently by a stray bullet.

Update: Mr Ouattara has apparently ordered that air borders be re-opened, though land and sea borders remained sealed.

A FEW years ago Baobab traversed the badlands separating Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. Following up on that story this week to investigate claims that Kenyan armed forces have attacked the al-Qaeda-linked Shabab militia inside Somalia, Baobab was struck by how little had changed. There are rather more displaced people than in 2006, little progress on education. The main advance has been in brutal Islamism, piracy and organised crime. The port of Bossaso continues to grow, but hunger is rife. A persistent drought has pushed up the price of wheat and other staples. Failure of the seasonal rains expected in the next weeks would be unthinkable.

THERE are plenty of departure-lounge stories in Africa that could get you deported. Then there are what Baobab calls car-boot stories, the publication of which might result in a shot in the back of the head at night in some isolated spot and an unexpected meal of filet de hack for a hyena. Baobab has skirted around several car-boot stories in recent years including extrajudicial killings by police, money received by generals for non-existent soldiers and weapons, and gold and platinum vanished from central banks. But the classic car-boot story is drug-smuggling. Drug cartels are colluding with the state in west and east Africa to transport drugs into Europe. More significantly, large amounts of drug money are being laundered in Africa through opaque investments in stockholdings and property.

Since this Baobab, in years hence, has ambitions to wade into a river in the Outer Hebrides and catch a sea trout and to sail the African bit of the Indian Ocean, then as things stand an investigative piece is not likely to happen. But a report issued this month by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) touches on some of the broad themes.

Cocaine is being transported to Europe through west African countries in larger quantities than ever. According to intelligence sources at least 20% of the cocaine in Europe has come through west Africa. Much of it makes landfall in Guinea-Bissau, brought by fast boat and plane from the Caribbean. Other landings are made in Liberia, the Gambia, Guinea and Senegal. A lot of cocaine ends up in Nigeria. Some is bought by plush locals. Far more is trafficked to Europe aboard commercial flights. A Nigerian politician was arrested last year with two kilos of cocaine packed in condoms in his stomach as he prepared to fly out of the country. Another route is through the Sahara directly to Italy.

Unrest in Libya is likely being exploited by cartels to move in large shipments of drugs. A lot of this will be heroin coming from east Africa. The INCB estimates that 15 tonnes of heroin is smuggled into Europe each year from east Africa. Some of it is taken by air crews and passengers on commercial flights. The bulk is believed to be hidden in the holds of cargo planes flying roses from Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Arusha airports.

ON NEW Year’s Eve in 1983, General Muhammadu Buhari seized power in Nigeria in a military coup. A series of counter-coups would leave the country under army rule until the sudden death of the last dictator fifteen years later.

General Buhari’s rule is best known for his "war on indiscipline," which aimed to stop officials from embezzling the state’s vast oil venues and bring order to a chaotic society. He had looting politicians jailed, drug traffickers executed and strikes banned. Elections were jettisoned.

These days, however, General Buhari seems more comfortable with the ballot box. Aged 68, he is running for president in April with the opposition Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). He faces a tough battle to unseat Goodluck Jonathan, the incumbent, whose People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has been in power since the return to civilian rule in 1999.

Some Nigerians say the austere General Buhari could be just what their country needs. Graft and disorder persist in Africa’s biggest oil and gas producer. He is particularly popular in the mostly Muslim northern states, where he hails from.

Baobab met General Buhari at his residence in Abuja, the capital. Wearing a simple white caftan and a traditional fez-style cap, he discussed his past and the upcoming polls.

Baobab: Some Nigerians are wary of voting for a one-time strict military ruler. How do you defend your past to your critics?

Muhammadu Buhari: Whether I was strict under military rule, or whether I am docile under the democratic system, is dictated by the system itself. I just try to operate in the system in which I find myself...I feel very strongly about certain issues—indiscipline and corruption—so people say I have been harsh and uncompromising...But, if you read the law, you will see that Nigerian law does not accept corruption. Why should someone be accused of being strict if he maintains fighting corruption?

Baobab: Many Nigerians remember your 1980s regime for its attempts to stamp out government corruption. Thirty years on, how is Nigeria doing on this front?

MB: It's even worse. We used to have a Nigerian shipping line, Nigerian airways, Nigerian railways, and better roads...If you look at what the state has earned over the last 12 years, versus the state of our infrastructure, then it will hit you how wasteful and corrupt the ruling party has been...It’s worse than not being productive; it’s destructive.

Baobab: You unsuccessfully ran for president against the PDP in previous elections in 2003 and 2007. Why are you confident this time?

MB: In 2003, we were rigged out and we were in court for 13 months. Again, in 2007, by the observation of international teams and our own local teams, it was a non-election. I was in court for 20 months...But this year we have a change in INEC [Nigeria’s electoral commission]. The new chairman is a man of personal and professional integrity. We are also sending a clear message to INEC that we will not accept rigging. We are mobilising people to defend their votes. 

Baobab: Do you regret any of your strict decrees as a military ruler—such as executing drug traffickers and banning strikes unless all negotiations had been exhausted?

MB: I don’t believe those measures were too harsh at the time we took them, and in the context of the stability of our country...[drug traffickers] destroy our society and they want to destroy others' societies. We didn’t need that and we executed them...Our economy could not afford those wildcat strikes. So we stopped them...We did those things for the good of the economy and the country.

Baobab: Are you now a convert to democracy?

MB: Yes, but don’t forget that since we started this democracy 12 years ago, it hasn't really worked as a democracy. But that doesn't mean it can't work. The CPC is here to make democracy work...I don’t believe [anything else] is acceptable anymore to ordinary people. Nigerians have got the message after seeing what is happening in north Africa and the Middle East.

ALL the talk, now, is how to get out "when the time comes". Everyone is making contingency plans, from the humblest shoe-shine boy to the grandest diplomat. Many have already sent their wives and children away. Those who can afford it have gone abroad. The rest have fled to their home villages in the country, where they hope at least to be able to get something to eat and, with luck, avoid the violence. Few have any doubt that it will get worse before it gets better. The end could come quickly now.

Some fear a bloodbath, perhaps before the end of this month, as the supporters of Alessane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo, each of whom claim to be the legitimate president of Côte d’Ivoire, slug it out among themselves, backed by the New Forces, the former rebel army now backing Mr Ouattara, and whatever of the government forces remain loyal to Mr Gbagbo, the defeated former president, who continues to cling to power.

For the past couple of months, foreign embassies have been warning their nationals against coming the country or, if already here, to leave promptly, before all possible exit routes are sealed. If they insist on staying, as many are, particularly those married to Ivorian nationals, they are being advised to stock up with several days of food and water. Long queues are already forming for cooking gas, as supplies begin to dry up. Petrol is expected to run out too. The prudent, especially taxi-drivers, keep their tanks topped up in preparation for a potential hurried escape.

Since the closure of all the banks a couple of weeks ago, cash, too, has become scarce. Even the big hotels are now demanding payment in cash. When I tried to change my booking with Kenya Airways, the national airline, they also refused a credit card. Even basic services, such as electricity and water, have to be paid for in person, with fistfuls of money. Those with cars and foreign accounts have been popping over the border into Liberia or Ghana to stock up on cash. Others have been flying in from abroad with suitcases literally stuffed with the stuff, or asking friends and relatives to do so. For those without access to ready money, life will soon become very difficult indeed. And that will cause anger and revolt—among both Ouattara and Gbagbo supporters.

In one of Côte d’Ivoire’s independent newspapers yesterday, Vincent Tohbi Irié, a respected former Ivorian ambassador to Paris and a self-professed supporter of Mr Ouattara, warned the internationally accepted winner of November’s presidential elections, that his backers’ patience was "not limitless". Many Ivorians had decided to support him, Mr Irié said—sometimes at the cost of their own lives—to champion the ideals of justice, liberty, equality and democracy. But the country was still in crisis. "If you are not the solution," Mr Irié warned the new, but impotent, president, "you could become the problem for us…If you don’t get Gbagbo to go soon, it’s you who must go. You must liberate us from yourself, or we shall do so."

The sudden upsurge in violence last weekend in Abidjan, the commercial capital, has died down again. No one knows why. No one knows who the perpetrators are. They carry no uniform and bear no insignia. But the tension is palpable. Everyone is afraid. A motorbike backfires and everyone jumps. A meeting of the African Union’s Peace and Security is took place in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital and the regional organisation’s headquarters yesterday. They reaffirmed Mr Ouattara as the legitimate president but far from ending the crisis, this is expected to ratchet it up a further notch or two.

On the verandah of a western ambassador’s residence, a white rabbit flops down exhausted under armchair as the large overhead fans turn the torpid air. Ice-cold drinks are brought out by a white-suited servant. The cool green of the garden, filled with tropical plants and exotic birds, looks out over the distant lagoon. Everything is calm. The evening air begins to fill with hum of crickets. It could be paradise…  

Read on: This is day three of a three-day diary. Return to day one or day two.

AS YOU get off the plane at Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s former capital, the first thing to hit you is the heat—heavy, humid, odorous. The next is the filth. It is everywhere, from the rubbish-infested slums that line the road into the city from the airport to the most fashionable district of Cocody, where most of the ambassadors hang out and where, more than three months after the polls that saw Alassane Ouattara elected head of state, his rival ex-president Laurent Gbagbo, continues to occupy the presidential palace.

The ubiquitous detritus has nothing to do with the latest upsurge in the violence that many fear will develop into civil war and some say already has. It is simply that the private rubbish removal companies are no longer doing their work. It has been like this for the past decade. In the 1960s and 1970s, the former French colony was the economic powerhouse of West Africa through its production of coffee and cocoa. But in the 1980s, following the first great oil shock and a series of droughts, it went into economic decline. It has never recovered from the social and political turmoil that followed.

Approaching the city centre from the airport, one can easily imagine the former sophisticated prosperity of what is still the country’s business and administrative capital. A clump of elegant sky-scrapers rise up from the palm-fringed shores of the now heavily polluted lagoon. On closer inspection, however, they look decidedly scruffy and down-at-heel, surrounded by deeply potholed, rubbish-strewn streets. It doesn’t help that today is a Sunday, so the usual bustle of hawkers, pedestrians and cars that enliven the empty drabness are missing. "Everything has gone to the dogs," my driver sighs. "At the moment, people are afraid to go out."

The past week has been particularly violent following a call by Mr Ouattara, holed up at the Hotel du Golf on the far side of town, to his supporters for an "Egyptian-style revolution". In the northern working-class suburb of Abobo, home to around 1.5m people of mixed ethnic groups, religions and political affiliations, dozens have been killed as pro-Ouattara and pro-Gbagbo youth militias slug it out, erecting barricades, burning cars, looting shops, torching houses and attacking anyone suspected of not supporting their particular side. Pro-Gbagbo police and troops, sent in supposedly to restore order, have exacerbated the situation, often using live ammunition and heavy artillery to fire on peaceful demonstrators. Thousands have fled their homes in terror.

I chance upon a taxi-driver, Matthias, who lives in Abobo and agrees to take me in. He has not dared go home for the past week, he says, but his brother has assured him that today everything is calm. The fighting comes and goes, he explains, as tensions rise and fall in response to the political situation. We drive along a tarred road, lined with rough wooden or corrugated-iron shacks, selling everything from sofas and car spare parts to mangos, hard-boiled eggs and cell-phone time. Although trade has resumed, it is slack. Scorch marks on the road, burn-out cars and the piles of tyres and broken wooden stands of hastily removed barricades bear witness to the recent fighting. But the corpses, which had lain rotting for days, are now thankfully gone. "A few days ago, you couldn’t get along these streets," Matthias marvels: "They were all blocked."

His relief is premature. At the roundabout by the Abobo town hall, near the spot where just four days earlier seven unarmed women were mown down by Mr Gbagbo’s security forces, we are stopped at an improvised barricade. A couple of youths, claiming to be searching for weapons, tell Matthias to get out and open the boot. "We want to protect our neighbourhoods," they explain. They are really checking to see who the car’s occupants are. If, by your accent or name, you are deemed to be the "enemy", you could be a dead man. We don’t even know what side the young men are on. But they are perfectly polite, even apologising for pleading for a few coins "so that we can eat". A few yards further on, there is another barricade and the same rigmarole is repeated. Again, we are let through.

At Abobo’s main hospital, a series of run-down single-storey concrete blocks, painted in blue and white and surrounded by the usual rubbish, we meet the doctor in charge. The sick and injured only dared to start coming to the hospital again the day before, he says. Which is just as well since most of the staff have also been too afraid or unable to come in. One nurse, unable to reach her home, has been sleeping in her office. The wards are virtually empty. Both sides in the conflict are equally violent, he says. "All we want is peace. So we can eat, do our work and live our  lives." He says he is relying on the "international community" to get the country out of its impasse. By doing what? I ask. He rolls his eyes and lifts his hands to heaven.

On the wall outside the hospital, a sign in the midst of the piles of rotting debris sternly warns would-be litterers "Défense de jeter des ordures: 5,000fr" (local francs, just over $10) for doing so. Further on, down a deeply rutted alley, where no car should ever be allowed to venture, another hand-written sign proclaims: "Défense de pisser; 15,000 fr". This is where Matthias lives and he is proud of his neighbourhood. "This is one of the best areas in Abobo," he proclaims. By this he means that it is one of the least violent. He lives in a decrepit concrete bungalow in a dirt compound, surrounded by a high breeze-block wall, together with his wife and four children, and his brother’s widow and her five children. All have been sent to relatives in the country for safety. He is relieved to find his home intact.

As we leave, a volley of gunshots rings out, then silence. Matthias is visibly nervous. The road back into town, totally clear when we came through a couple of hours ago, is now bristling with barricades. We are stopped, all the car doors torn open and a swarm of edgy youths in tank-tops and jeans enter the car, wrenching open pockets and diving under the seats in their search for hidden weapons. They find none, but demand money, a lot this time. A few yards further on, we are stopped again by more shouting youths, nervous, aggressive, angry. And then again, a third time, around the same roundabout in front of the town hall. One youth is so drunk he can’t even keep his eyes focussed. "We’re doing this to protect our communities," he slurs. I assure him that he’s doing an excellent job and, after a further dollop of cash, we are allowed to go on our way. It is only afterwards that Matthias admits he has a big machete hidden under his seat.

Read on: This day one of a three-day diary. Continue on to day two and day three.

AUTHORITIES in the Seychelles boarded a small tanker, MT Esperanza, earlier this week and found no living souls aboard. The vessel had been drifting on the high seas since December, when its crew had been rescued by an American destroyer, the USS Sterett. The Esperanza had been boarded by pirates and the crew had disabled its engines. The captain of the Sterett claimed to have made "heroic efforts" to get the Esperanza going again. But it was left to the Seychelles to locate the ghost ship and tow it to port.

The Esperanza is registered in Sierra Leone. Its Indian owner is elusive, perhaps worried by reports that the vessel was being used to illegally siphon fuel from bigger tankers at sea and sell it at a premium at small African ports. There may have to be an investigation as to why the foreign navies engaged in counter-piracy operations in the region did not secure the Esperanza.

The Sterett's motto is "Forever Dauntless". It is named for Andrew Sterett, an American naval officer who made a name for himself fighting pirates in the Barbary Wars. He vanquished a formidable Tripolitan corsair and fought off attempts by pirates to board his ship. He was presented with a sword for valour by Thomas Jefferson in 1802.

It was the Sterett which was engaged in chasing down a crew of Somali pirates who on February 18th captured a yacht with four American citizens aboard. An FBI negotiator on the Sterett began communicating with the pirates on the yacht. Too crudely, say Somali sources. What happened next is unclear. In Somalia, a pirate gang was preparing to take possession of the Americans hostages at the port of Eyl. Before that could happen, gunfire on the yacht on February 22nd left all four Americans dead, along with one of the pirates. Another of the Somali pirates had his throat cut by American special forces, who liberated the yacht and took the remaining pirates hostage. The Americans say that the Sterett, which was standing by the yacht, was fired on with a rocket-propelled grenade. It sustained no damage. It emerged later that Barack Obama had given orders for a raid on the yacht. Matters were complicated, in Somalia especially, by reports that the yacht was being used to distribute bibles around the world.

Suspicions that the Americans may have bungled the operation from the Sterett are raised by the lack of information. Who fired the shots? What was said to the pirates? Will the deaths push the Americans towards direct action against the pirates, in imitation of the Barbary War? Being of a nautical bent, Baobab also wonders what will happen to the 800 or so sailors held hostage by Somali pirates and to the hundreds of yachtsmen stranded in Oman and across the Indian Ocean, wishing to cross the sea, but given no help or assurance by the foreign navies.

Meanwhile, the piracy goes on.  A Danish yacht carrying Jan Quist Johansen, his wife and three children aged 12 to 16 was captured by pirates earlier this week. The yacht is now anchored off Hafun in Puntland. The Johansens have been transferred to a larger vessel nearby. Any attempt to intervene will end in more deaths, says a pirate source.