Baobab

UNIONS in Nigeria have announced that they will suspend the strike over the removal of fuel subsidies that paralysed the country last week and threatened to shut down oil production. The decision came as the president, Goodluck Jonathan, on Monday bowed to pressure and reduced petrol prices which had risen steeply.

The unions are painting the president's decision as a victory for the people. "In the past eight days through strikes, mass rallies, shutdown, debates and street protests, Nigerians demonstrated clearly that they cannot be taken for granted and that sovereignty belongs to them," said Abdulwaheed Omar, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress.

Mr Jonathan dissolved fuel subsidies at the beginning of the year causing fuel prices to double overnight from 65 naira ($0.40) to 140 naira ($0.86). Addressing the nation on Monday morning, the president said the government would cut the price to 97 naira, citing the hardships being suffered by Nigerians from the hike in fuel prices, but that it will continue to pursue full deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector and that the subsidies will be fully removed in the future.

Monday's announcement came amid reports of violence in the streets of Lagos where soldiers fired live ammunition and tear gas to disperse protesters. Some ten people are believed to have been killed in clashes between protestors and police with hundreds more injured since demonstrations began on January 9th.

Nigeria produces more than two million barrels of crude oil a day. But years of mismanagement and graft at its refineries mean it imports most of its petrol. Oil marketers buy more than they need, and sell the excess to neighbouring countries. The country's vast subsidy regime is thought to have cost Nigeria around eight billion dollars last year alone.

Many Nigerians want those who benefitted from the fuel subsidy to be brought to justice. That would mean investigating officials in top office including those who funded Mr Jonathan’s bid for the presidency. Mr Jonathan has buckled at a time when he is struggling to contain an insurgency by Boko Haram, an Islamist sect, in the largely Muslim north. The unions are revelling in their success. For the president, giving any further ground could threaten his wider reform agenda less than a year into his presidency.

Correction: In the original version of this article, we said that the petrol subsidies cost Nigeria eight million dollars last year. The correct figure is eight billion dollars. Sorry.

A STRIKE over fuel prices and government corruption has brought Nigeria to a standstill. Tens of thousands of workers in Africa’s second-biggest economy have vowed to continue their protests until a popular fuel subsidy is restored.

Shops, markets, banks and public offices have been closed for three days. Some international flights have been cancelled. Roads have been empty of cars and buses. Instead, the streets of cities across the country have been filled with thousands of protesters. The demonstrations have mostly been peaceful but at least three people were killed and dozens more injured when police fired on protesters accused of rioting in Lagos and Kano.

Nigeria’s two main unions called the strike after the government removed petrol subsidies, causing prices to spike from $0.40 to $0.93 a litre overnight. The average wage in Nigeria is $2 a day. Those protesting say the poorest in the country will be hit hardest by higher food and transport costs. But economists say the fuel subsidy is wasteful and has discouraged private investment in Nigeria’s oil industry.

Fury over the removal of the subsidy regime has fuelled public anger over decades of corruption and excessive spending by politicians. “How can they bear to spend that much when the president’s people go to bed hungry,” asked John Ogidi, one of the protesters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. “The money thieved over the years by the corrupt government should have been given to the people and used to restore the country. Instead they steal from the masses, punishing them for the mistakes they made.”

The government has threatened a “no work-no pay” policy for public servants who go on strike. Trade unions said that the “political disobedience” would continue until the government lowers fuel prices are restored. The strike is costing Nigeria millions of dollars a day. That, combined with rising fears about sectarian violence, means that Goodluck Jonathan is facing the biggest test of his presidency so far.

THE African National Congress (ANC), the continent’s oldest liberation movement, kicks off the new year with celebrations on January 8th to mark the centenary of its foundation in Bloemfontein, now also known by its African name of Mangaung. Some 100,000 members of South Africa’s ruling party are expected to attend along with 46 foreign heads of state and other dignitaries. Not a room is to be had within a 100km radius of the Free State capital.

Self-congratulatory celebrations are due to continue throughout the year leading up to the ANC’s national conference, held once every five years, to elect new leaders. The last time such a conference was held, in Polokwane in 2007, then-president Thabo Mbeki was unceremoniously ousted by Jacob Zuma (pictured, left) as the party’s leader before being “recalled” as the country’s president in September 2008, six months before his mandate was due to expire. It is now Mr Zuma’s turn to fight for his own political survival. Political infighting and manoeuvring between rival factions will continue all year.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe 87-year-old President Robert Mugabe (pictured, right), newly re-endorsed as his Zanu-PF party’s presidential candidate, continues to press for fresh elections this year despite the continuing lawlessness, violence and widespread intimidation of political opponents, human-rights activists and journalists. But a new constitution, still in the process of being drafted, has to be approved before any new poll can be held, first in a referendum and then by parliament. So elections are unlikely to be held before early 2013, by which time Mr Mugabe’s deteriorating health may prevent him from standing again.

In oil-rich Angola President José Edouardo Dos Santos has called for presidential elections in the third quarter of this year—the first since he came to power 33 years ago. But voters are sceptical. Under the country’s new constitution, elections do not have to be held until 2013. The 69-year-old Mr Dos Santos, Africa’s longest-serving head of state following the demise of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi in October, has not yet said whether he himself will stand. Over the past six months, youths have been taking to the streets to protest against his authoritarian rule and demand he step down. But so far these have been small and failed to spread following a severe police repression.

The impoverished Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, where André Rajoelina has been in power since a military coup three years ago, is also due to hold elections this year. Under the terms of an electoral “roadmap”, mediated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a 15-member regional club, and signed by all but one of the main parties last September, all exiled leaders are supposed to be allowed to return “unconditionally” to the island. But Marc Ravalomanana, the former president ousted by Mr Rajoelina and now living in exile in South Africa, is being threatened with arrest as soon as he resets foot on Madagascan soil. He was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment two years ago for his part in the massacre of unarmed protesters in 2009. Mr Rajoelina has said he wants elections to be held by May. Only then can Madagascar hope to see the resumption of the Western foreign aid it so desperately needs. But SADC may insist on Mr Ravalomanana’s safe return first.

In Zambia, the copper-rich country’s controversial new president, Michel Sata, is likely to come under increased scrutiny following the completion of his first 90 days in office. During his campaign, he pledged to carry out all his main election promises during that period. Although he has started dealing with rampant corruption in the public sector and has passed several pro-poor measures, including cutting taxes for low earners, he has unsettled investors by doubling mineral royalties, sacking the governor of the central bank, and blocking a previously agreed sale of a state-owned bank. But the one-time fierce critic of Chinese employers is now going out of his way to woo Zambia’s biggest foreign investors—with some success.

Meanwhile, neighbouring Malawi  teeters on the edge of economic and political collapse. Last year’s mass protests against President Bingu wa Mutharika’s repressive rule may have fizzled out, but the economic situation continues to deteriorate as drought threatens crops, medicines and fuel run out for want of foreign currency, and Western donors, angry over the absence of any meaningful reform, refuse to pay their normal hundreds of millions of dollars in budgetary aid. For the moment, Mr Mutharika remains defiant, but the pressures are building up.

Little Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarchy, is also in deep trouble. The government has run out of cash, and no one seems willing to lend it any without radical economic and democratic reforms, which King Mswati III refuses even to contemplate. In August South Africa, in which the pint-sized kingdom is embedded, offered it a 2.4 billion rand loan, but with strict conditions attached, which the king appears to have rejected. The government may run out of money to pay its civil servants, leading to the spread of last year’s mass protests.

Botswana, for long the region’s golden boy on account of its sound governance, political stability and healthy economy, also saw some unwonted unrest last year. Public-sector workers staged their first-ever nationwide strike in protest over the government’s pay-restraint policies. But the government refused to budge and the two-month dispute, backed by the main opposition parties, eventually fizzled out, allowing President Ian Khama (pictured, centre) to emerge with his hand strengthened. His main challenge now is to wean the economy off its dependency on its once rich but now fast depleting diamond resources—a task he has already begun.

Deemed the poorest country on the planet 20 years ago, Mozambique continues to steam ahead, with economic growth averaging around 8% over the past 15 years—one of the fastest rates in the world. Despite continuing poor infrastructure and rampant corruption, foreign investment is pouring in, thanks to the country’s sound macro-economic policies, political stability and rich mineral resources. In Mozambique’s north-west, the first shipments have begun to leave what is believed to be the world’s biggest unexploited coal fields, and now a massive gas field has been discovered offshore that is being hailed as one of the most significant finds of natural gas in the world in the past decade. With growth of over 7% predicted this year, the future looks bright. But for the moment the vast majority of Mozambicans continue to struggle to survive. 

(Photo credit: AFP)

CHRISTMAS celebrations were wrecked for a second year running in Nigeria when a radical Islamist sect detonated bombs that killed up to 40 people and injured dozens more. Boko Haram, which has been behind almost daily killings in northern Nigeria this year, claimed responsibility for several lethal bombings on December 25th, three targeting churches heaving with worshippers for Christmas services. The deadliest strike hit St Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madalla, a satellite town about 40 km from the capital, Abuja. In December last year Boko Haram claimed responsibility for bombings on Christmas Eve in Jos, which stoked violent clashes that subsequently killed over 80 people.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful”, is demanding the wider application of sharia law in Nigeria. It used to be largely confined to north-eastern Nigeria, but lately has been growing in ambition and capability. The Christmas bombings were preceded by a suicide attack on the UN headquarters in Abuja in August, which killed 24 people. 

Hours after the first attack in Madalla, a bomb rocked the Mountain of Fire and Miracles church in Jos, the ethnic and religious fault-line which divides the mainly Muslim north from the largely Christian south. Jos has endured years of outbreaks of brutal ethnic and sectarian violence.  Hundreds have died this year alone. A third explosion hit a church in Gadaka, in northern Yobe state. 

These attacks followed days of clashes between the security services and Islamist militants which left at least 68 people dead. The town of Damaturu has seen some Boko Haram's nastiest attacks. A wave of shootings and bombings there left 65 people dead on November 5th. Two explosions were reported in Damaturu on December 25th; three people died along with the bomber. 

The opaque nature of Boko Haram's structure and its indeterminate membership means the government has been unable to engage with key members of the group. Critics have accused the government of militarising the problem, treating it as a security issue rather than one rooted in political and social grievances that underpin the group and its domestic support. Some argue that a heavy-handed and bellicose approach from the police and army will intensify the threat in Nigeria’s north. Others believe that even devoting a quarter of the budget to security will be insufficient to overcome Boko Haram. For president Jonathan the year is ending with how it began, and little seems to have changed in between. 

A CONTROVERSIAL bill criminalising gay marriage in Nigeria may hinder the efforts of groups providing help to those most at risk of HIV/AIDS. The proposed law would punish same-sex relationships with up to 14 years in prison and outlaw the "public show of same-sex amorous relationships directly or indirectly." Those who facilitate or witness gay unions could end up behind bars for ten years. The bill still has to be ratified by the house of representatives and President Goodluck Jonathan before it becomes law but it is already causing a stir in Nigeria.

Critics say the bill scores easy political points: most Nigerians oppose homosexuality and many see it as "unAfrican". Bashing gays is one thing that opposing parties in Nigeria's Christian south and its Muslim north can agree on. In a debate about the new bill, one senator said of gays, "such elements in society should be killed." Another described homosexuality as a mental illness. Religion is generally seen as the cause of the country's homophobia: in parts of the north where sharia law has been enforced, gays can face death by stoning.

In October, Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, threatened to withdraw foreign aid from countries abusing gay rights. Some African countries relaxed their anti-gay laws in response but Nigeria, with its 2m barrels-a-day oil industry, has not. Lawmakers said donor countries threatening to cut aid over the bill could keep their money.

The government's opponents say the bill is a diversion from the real problems facing the country, including security in the northeast where hundreds have been killed this year. For Mr Jonathan it is a choice between appeasing his friends abroad or scoring a rare win with the critical Nigerian masses. Given the number of unpopular policies on the horizon, including the removal of fuel subsidies, he can ill afford to upset the public again. 

THE heavens opened and the rain came down, turning Kinshasa’s streets into rivers and cooling a sweaty election morning. After a weekend of violence in the capital left at least nine dead, many voters were apprehensive about casting their ballots in Congo's second democratic election since the end in 2002 of a bloody war that left several million dead. The rain did not help.

For some, the apprehension turned into exasperation and anger as they walked from polling station to polling station, looking for their names on the voter rolls. Jean-Pierre Ngoyi had already been to all five voting stations in his district by eight o'clock in the morning. By midmorning, several election officials in Kinshasa had been threatened by crowds of people with electoral cards but nowhere to vote. Police had to save one observer from a mob in a polling station. (The electoral commission said people could vote where they had registered even if their names were not on the lists, but not all local election officials enforced this.)

Congo's elections were always going to be difficult, given the size of the country and the near-complete lack of reliable roads, runways and communications networks. But the electoral commission was resolute about the election date, in part because the opposition was determined that the next president be named by December 6th, the last day of President Joseph Kabila's five-year mandate.

One man bent on making sure all votes were counted was Constantin Tshimenga. Mr Tshimenga arrived at his polling station by six o'clock on Monday morning with a plan. Congo's electoral law requires polling officials to choose people from among the last group of voters to witness the counting of the ballot papers. "I will sleep here if I have to," he said. Mr Tshimenga waited all day in the rain until casting his vote at the last possible minute to ensure his involvement in the count.

By evening he was too engrossed in monitoring the outcome to answer his phone. "It's the Congolese people who need to watch over our elections. The international community should leave us alone. We’re choosing our president ourselves." On Tuesday voting continued in various spots around the country after violence prevented people from getting to the polls in some places and voting materials failed to materialise in others.

But at Mr Tshimenga’s polling station the results were in: 60% for opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, 30% for Kabila, and 7% for former head of the National Assembly, Vital Kamerhe, said Mr Tshimenga. "We finished at 11:30pm," he said. "I'm happy. It was very calm."

GERTRUDE MANGA-AZIZA can tell the history of Congo’s politics through its currency. The 55-year-old has spent more than half her life surrounded by piles of cash on Wall Street, as the area where Kinshasa's black-market currency traders operate is known, sitting in the sun on a plastic chair and swapping dollars for francs.

In the 1990s she watched inflation hit 10,000 percent in the dying days of Congo's dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. "We lost a lot of money," she says. Under the current president, Joseph Kabila, who has tried to restore faith in the country's economy, she has seen the dollar take hold as the common currency. "We’re losing a lot of money with the dollar, too," she says.

Now she is watching a phenomenon she has seen only once before. Between 18th and 22nd November the Congolese franc rose by more than 13% against the dollar on the black market, a significant strengthening even by the volatile standards of Congo's currency. "It was like this in 1992, when Tshisekedi was elected prime minister and the dollar lost half its value overnight," Ms Manga-Aziza said.

Tshisekedi [TSHEE-Say-KAY-dee] is Etienne Tshisekedi, the main opposition figure in Congo's presidential election on November 28th. Kinshasa is one of his strongholds. About 700 moneychangers work around Wall Street. On election day, most will vote for Mr Tshisekedi, Ms Manga-Aziza says. "He's a man of rigor, he's a man of control, he's a good administrator, he's a good manager. All we're waiting for is for him to take over, and he'll bring order to the economy," she says.

Anyone coming to her table to change a dollar bill now will get 800 francs. A few days ago she would have handed over 920 francs. It is a sign of hope for Congo's future stability, Ms Manga-Aziza insists. It is also, of course, a shrewd piece of business by someone who knows how to play a market.

The main reason for the franc's appreciation is temporary scarcity, according to Michel Losembe, the head of the Congolese Banking Association. The government is paying its debts in dollars and holding onto francs to keep the currency stable. Companies have also been buying up francs to pay two months of salary before the uncertain election period.

The franc supply dropped even lower when nearly 19,000 candidates for the 500 seats in Congo's parliament raided the coffers before going off on their campaigns. Congolese politicians are trailed by moneymen as they travel through villages and towns, handing out 500-franc notes from duffle bags. Five hundred francs is only worth about 60 cents at the new exchange rate—but that is nearly half a day’s wage for the average person here.

Ms Manga-Aziza’s theory that a future with a strong franc will unfold after a possible Tshisekedi victory "is just speculation," Mr Losembe says. But you can’t blame her for hoping.

BOKO HARAM, a radical Islamic sect killed at least 63 people in a spate of coordinated gun and bomb attacks in Yobe, a state in Nigeria’s northeast.

The attacks in the towns of Damaturu and Potiskum, which took place on Saturday, followed a triple suicide bombing at Nigeria's military headquarters and three roadside bombs in Maiduguri, the capital of the remote north-eastern state Borno. The violence is some of worst seen in the north-east since the Islamist sect launched an insurgency against the government in 2009.

The mortuary in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, was overwhelmed as a single employee coped with the influx of dead bodies. Witnesses say the city resembled a war zone with bodies littering the streets and buildings reduced to rubble. Red Cross officials estimate over 100 were killed. Explosives in Damaturu destroyed police headquarters, the Joint Task Force office and five churches. Gunmen in Potiskum battled security forces for several hours.

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sinful", is demanding the wider application of sharia law in Nigeria. The group has been growing in ambition and capability in recent months, threatening Nigeria with terrorist violence almost daily. In August, a suicide bombing at the United Nations' offices killed 26 people, marking an escalation in the terrorist threat in Africa's most populous nation.

Recently, the sect has threatened to bomb universities and has killed politicians and police officers. In October, Malam Zakanya Isa, a newscaster and Hausa translator was the first journalist to be assassinated by the group.

More attacks are coming, threatened Boko Haram in a statement to the Daily Trust, a local Nigerian newspaper. The sect pledged to continue to attack federal government foundations until security forces stopped targeting its members.

President Goodluck Jonathan has deployed troops across the region but with little success; some critics say it has caused more harm than good. Nigerians are growing weary as the security forces fail to contain the growing threat. The military Joint Task Force has been accused of being heavy-handed in its approach, fueling Boko Haram's anger at the government.

Social problems in the north have fed the violence. The government's failure to deliver on promised programmes to tackle unemployment, improve infrastructure and provide adequate healthcare and education facilities, in northern Nigeria has created a climate of desperation allowing extremists to exploit those who feel marginalised and disenfranchised. Borno state is the poorest state in the country by every human-development indicator. Its residents are worse off than those of Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

On Sunday the American embassy took the unusual step of specially warning its citizens of possible attacks in Abuja during the Sallah holiday, picking out three big hotels as potential targets. Those venturing into big hotels had both their car engines and boots checked for bombs. The Transcorp Hilton hotel, usually full of diplomats, politicians and the business elite was deserted on Monday. The hotel's head of public relations said occupancy had suffered as a result of the security crisis in Nigeria. Suicide bombs are now becoming standard practice for Boko Haram. Many fear that the weekend's attacks could be followed by strikes in the nation's capital.

AS THE music industry searches for new voices and talent, entrepreneurs are pinning their hopes on emerging African artists both from the continent and the diaspora.
 
Africa Unsigned is an Amsterdam-based start-up music label founded by Pim Betist that promotes African artists. Under Mr Betist's watch, Africa Unsigned has invested €525,000 (about $725,000) in helping more than 40 artists and bands tour and release albums that represent what they deem the "new African sound," such as Kenya's acoustic vocal group Sauti Sol. "I like to call them the East African Boyz II Men," Mr Betist says.
 
"The music industry is broken, and we have to fix it," Mr Betist said. He is confident that can be done. Africa Unsigned relies heavily on a fan-funding platform similar to the one employed by Mr Betist's previous effort Sellaband.com, which eventually went bankrupt but has since re-launched.
 
Mr Betist is not the only taste-maker focusing his efforts on Africa. After promoting successful, Grammy award-winning American hip hop and soul artists like The Roots and Erykah Badu for more than a decade, the Brooklyn-based online hip-hop community OkayPlayer now has a sister site called OkayAfrica that promotes African musicians in similar genres. Unlike Africa Unsigned, OkayAfrica is not a standard record label, but it has committed $500,000 to developing an online platform for such artists as Seun and Femi Kuti, K’naan, Bajah + The Dry Eye Crew, and Afrikan Boy.
 
"We're looking to break the mold of 'world music' and highlight those on the continent really pushing the boundaries and innovating with cutting edge music," said Ginny Suss, OkayAfrica's site manager. "Forward-thinking stuff that fuses hip hop, electronic music, and reggae with more traditional sounds."

Sales fluctuate. K'Naan, for example, sold 70,000 albums in 2009 but dropped to 44,000 in 2010. But his digital album sales rocketed from 233,000 in 2009 to 485,000 in 2010.
 
A 2010 UN report claims that demand for music and other "creative industry" products has remained stable during the global recession, and global exports of creative goods and services, e.g. music, more than doubled between 2002 and 2008. The report concluded that for developing countries, creative industries could prove to be "one of the most dynamic sectors of world commerce." Africa is mentioned throughout the report, as is the Creative Africa initiative, a long-term strategy to help the continent benefit economically from its creative talents and cultural heritage.
 
Earlier this year Wired Magazine described an "entrepreneurial boom" in Africa full of "vast new tech opportunity." Aware of this, Africa Unsigned makes their music available through mobile phones, whose availabilty and use have soared throughout Africa since the late 1990s.
 
Last March, at a "Marketing 21st Century Music in Africa" discussion panel at the annual South By Southwest festival (SXSW) in Texas, Ngozi Odita, who lives in New York and describes herself as a curator of comtemporary African culture, argued that music and culture is Africa's strongest export. As evidence, she cites Kanye West, the award winning hip-hop artist and producer who earlier this year signed Nigerian musicians D’Banj and Don Jazzy to G.O.O.D music, the record label and artist management firm he founded in 2004. Artists on African record labels such as Storm 360 regularly tour Africa and overseas.
 
Ms Odita, originally from Nigeria, runs the media site Society HAE, a hub for contemporary African culture and music. This summer she organised "Live From the Continent," an event at the Lincoln Center at which African artists such as South Africa's Spoek Mathambo performed. She is producing a music showcase of 12 African music acts this spring at SXSW.
 
"In the 90s, they always said there was a brain drain in Africa. People got their education, and then left the country. Now, people believe they can be successful in their own countries," she argues. "It's indicative of the opportunities now available on the continent, and the direction the country is moving in. People have their own vision. There's been a changing of the guard. Artists are making music, but are conscious of what their role is, wanting Africa to be different than the Africa they have known."

THE thieves came just before three o'clock in the morning. They scaled the compound walls, skipped past the guards and broke through a security grill on a first-floor balcony. I awoke to see shadowy figures with torches in my bedroom. I shouted for the guards. The men came closer but then fled, dropping a knife and the boltcutters they had used to force their way in.

No one was hurt, but the thieves made off with a laptop, and my wallet, telephone and watch. For the insurance claim I needed a police report. I was reluctant to go to the police station; my previous encounters with the Sierra Leonean force had consisted mostly of my refusing their requests for bribes when they pulled my car over. But I needed the report.

At Freetown's Congo Cross police station we explained our situation. An officer informed us that we would have to pay 150,000 leones ($34 dollars) to get a crime report. I protested. He insisted it was not a bribe and that we could get a receipt from the Central Bank for the payment. I objected again. I was foolish, the officer said. He pointed out that in  the west travellers are charged a commission when they change money at the airport. Why should it be any different here?, he asked. I capitulated.

The constable who eventually took our statement had large earrings and frustrated literary ambitions. The first draft she produced described the intruders as "gallant". A later version put the value of the contents of my wallet at $40,000 rather than $40. But we got there in the end.

There was an element of the absurd to the whole procedure. But the Sierra Leonean police, an institution that I, and many Sierra Leoneans, would go out of their way to avoid, performed better than I had expected. Afterwards I found out that the payment for the crime report may be distasteful, but it seems to be policy, rather than a bribe. Locals are charged a third as much as foreigners but 50,000 leones (just over $11) is still a high price when many live on less than a dollar a day.

While I have little hope that the thieves will be caught, I did receive the paperwork I needed within a few days, which by the standards of west African bureaucracy is swift. In a country where government institutions are often spectacularly dysfunctional, that is no small achievement. Posters proclaim the Sierra Leone police to be "A Force for Good." With a presidential election coming up next year, they will need to be.

AS MONKEYS howl in the jungle canopy above, a weary Congolese army lieutenant makes no secret of his frustration. Deployed to the isolated forests in a vast north-eastern swathe of the Democratic Republic of Congo to hunt down Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), his troops are short of ammunition and have had no rations or pay for months. But his ire is reserved most of all for his supposed allies, the Ugandan army. "It's a crooked war the Ugandans are fighting with the LRA," he vents. "They have all the weapons in the world but they’re not serious."

It has been almost three years since Uganda sent troops into Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic to pursue their fanatical compatriots, but the coalition’s performance to date has been dismal. Joseph Kony, the LRA’s psychopathic leader, has eluded capture, as have his top commanders. The rebels, meanwhile, have since slaughtered some 2,400 villagers and abducted at least 3,400 more.

It was against this grim backdrop that the American administration says it will send military advisers and backup staff numbering around 100 troops in all to help co-ordinate the hunt for Mr Kony and his men. Though no guarantee of success, this modest deployment may, it is hoped, salvage a mission on the brink of failure.
Crippled from the start by a long history of bad blood, the Ugandan-dominated coalition has been falling apart. South Sudan, newly independent and embattled, has little stomach for fighting the LRA. The Central African Republic, with virtually no army of its own, ordered Ugandan troops to withdraw from certain areas last year, amid suspicions of diamond smuggling. And, though most of the killings of civilians have occurred on its soil, Congo wants Ugandan troops to pull out completely ahead of Congo’s presidential elections next month.

Renewed American backing for the operations may boost the coalition’s ebbing morale and strengthen Washington’s diplomatic leverage with the reluctant allies. Although American soldiers will not take a direct part in the fighting, it is hoped that their presence will improve the behaviour of some local forces, help with intelligence and bring some much-needed order to the effort. "It’s a step in the right direction," says Anneke Van Woudenberg of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby that is one of several such groups endorsing the move. "But if it’s not enough, they should be prepared to do more."

There’s the rub. Barack Obama may well hesitate to send more than this limited force if his Republican opponents continue to seize on the issue to criticise him for embarking on what they say is another reckless foreign adventure. Rush Limbaugh, an influential right-wing radio host, has pointed to the "Lord" in LRA and complained that Mr Obama’s "invasion" of Uganda would "wipe out Christians". And Senator John McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate, has chimed in with warnings of a Vietnam-style quagmire.

Back in the jungle, the lieutenant says he’s received word that LRA fighters are heading his way. But, since his unit has not been equipped with a radio, it’s taken a day for a courier to bring the message from the next army position. “They’re probably already here,” he says with a shrug.

ON OCTOBER 11th, eight years after the end of their civil war, Liberians went to the polls. During a recent spell in the capital, Monrovia, Baobab observed some of the questions best avoided during election season.

What are your policies?

Elections in Liberia are an ideological vacuum. A set of beliefs or even a sense what you might want to do if elected are largely absent. Some politicians Baobab spoke to in Liberia were surprised even to be asked. The experience was similar in neighbouring Sierra Leone. Their attitude is probably wise. Ethnicity—particularly in Sierra Leone—and patronage are important to the electorate, policies less so. Why should candidates care?

Are you really running your election yourselves?

Probably not. The best thing is to ask how many international consultants are involved. This election in Liberia is much more locally run than the last one in 2005, but foreign staffers are still working in the national elections commission.

What percentage of the population can read the ballot papers?

The literacy rate in is Liberia 57.5%. For women the figure is 41.6%. Anecdotal reports suggest the real figures may be lower still. But there are ways around such situations; notably putting photos of the candidates on voting papers and allowing voters to bring a friend.

How many acts of violence have been directly connected to the poll?

Mercifully few thus far. But the time to watch is when the results are announced (see Côte d’Ivoire last year).

What did you do in the war?

In a country such as Liberia still recovering from war politicians often have colourful pasts. Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf be banned from politics for 30 years for initially supporting Charles Taylor's rebellion. She ignored the suggestion. In 1990 Prince Johnson, a former warlord, oversaw the killing of then President Samuel Doe. Mr Johnson sat drinking a Budweiser while his men cut off Doe’s ears, all of which was caught on camera. Mr Johnson is now running for president.

Where should your peacekeepers come from?

Eight thousand UN troops are stationed in Liberia. Western nations are now reluctant to put their soldiers under UN command so peacekeeping missions draw their troops from armies from developing countries. The UN’s pay makes it worth their while. Nigerians and Bangladeshis and Jordanians, among others, do the work in Liberia. They are well-intentioned, but lack sufficient training and equipment.