West Africa, and especially the poverty-plagued Sahel region, saw a significant increase in conflict-related violence and deaths. After eleven years of instability, insurgency, and organized crime, some inhabitants are hoping that Russian mercenaries may hold the power to bring peace. Other major players, notably France, are taking a lower profile. At its origin is a combination of syndicates protecting smuggling routes and an increasing inability of governments to govern. No-go areas where Islamists and other insurgents have free rein provide bases and parallel states.

Burkina Faso, after succeeding in bringing to trial some of those responsible for the 1987 murder of the iconic President Thomas Sankara in April 2022,  started unraveling, with a military coup, a wave of insurgency, and social chaos. 

Nigeria remained locked in political in-fighting while crime and Islamist movements controlled more and more of the countryside. 

West African regional organization ECOWAS slapped increasing sanctions on the Military Junta ruling Guinea to try to urge a return to civilian rule. 

Tropical paradise island group Seychelles gave its Truth and Reconciliation Commission until March 2023 to review all cases pertaining to rights abuses since the 1977 coup, hoping to exorcise all remaining distrust and grievances. The Central Bank of this tourism-dependent nation decided to keep its monetary policy rate at 2%, a sign that the badly damaged economy is recovering. 

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan scrapped the pomp of Independence Day celebrations and allocated the money to education. Tanzania will join forces with Mozambique to develop the oil and gas resources in their bordering territories. At the same time, the insurgency in that area, triggered by a lack of governance and displacement of local populations, remains a problem despite regional forces and Rwandan troops being deployed. 

Nearby, Comoros saw the trial and sentencing to life imprisonment of the first President to come to power peacefully, Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, on charges of treason after the court had to define the term, which was not on the statute books. Accusing Sambi of massive corruption and misuse of funds, the prosecutors presented no accounts or proof or deposits. Rumors circulating in the last days that Sambi had been poisoned in prison suggest that forces are at work setting him up as a martyr. The signs are not good for the stability of these Islands of the Moon. 

Uganda seems set to follow suit in the oil exploitation stakes. Total Energy, having had to lock down its plants in Mozambique due to civil resistance, is now set, together with China National Offshore Oil Corporation, to develop a crude oil pipeline from Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga. Environmental groups see this pipeline as a carbon bomb that does not take into account the ecological sensitivity of the area or the needs of the people living there. 

And in South Africa, politicians are too busy fighting among themselves to see the country crumbling around their ears. 

Here's to 2023!