In the early hours of Wednesday morning, 12 military officers appeared on Gabon’s national television to announce they had cancelled the results of the latest elections, dissolved all state institutions, and closed the country’s borders. This latest military coup against a puppet of French imperialism continues a process that has already seen seizures of power in a number of African countries, including Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, last Thursday to discuss how to respond to the recent coup in Niger. The deadline put forward by ECOWAS for the coup leaders to step aside and restore President Mohamed Bazoum to power elapsed the previous Sunday without the military intervention that countries like Nigeria had threatened.

As reported previously, the recent coup in Niger and the response from surrounding West African states is intensifying the rising tensions and political instability in the region.

The establishment of military rule in Niger represents a turning point in the Sahel. Considered an important bastion of stability by western powers, the rapid fall of the French-backed government in Niamey is only the latest in a series of anti-French coups in a region beset by instability and imperialist interference. Whilst using anti-colonialist rhetoric, which is echoing powerfully across Africa, these new regimes are turning to Russia for support, setting up a new, important front in the clash between western imperialism and Russia.

On Saturday, 29 July the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), celebrated their 10th anniversary with a mass rally of 100 000 supporters at Johannesburg’s FNB stadium. This was an impressive turnout, which shows the party’s mass appeal particularly with the active layers of the youth.

In his inaugural speech as President of France in 2017, Emmanuel Macron said that he wanted to “convince our compatriots that France’s power is not declining, but that we are on the threshold of an extraordinary renaissance”. Since then, the decline of French imperialism has accelerated, both economically, geopolitically and militarily. This is particularly the case in Africa.

An open clash within the Sudanese counterrevolution has plunged the country into violence, which has already killed around 100 people and wounded hundreds more. This long-anticipated battle to determine which clique of murderous gangsters gets to plunder Sudan is a tragic consequence of the failure of the masses to take power after the 2018-9 revolution.

South Africa is currently experiencing one of its worst energy crises in its history. Rolling blackouts have become part of daily life because Eskom, the country’s energy supplier, is battling to keep the lights on.

Despite a near media blackout the world is facing one of its greatest humanitarian crises in history in the Horn of Africa, where climate change, civil war, and poverty are combining to create a mass tragedy of epic proportions. The reaction of most politicians in the West is closing their eyes and hoping the problem will all go away. The reason for this is obvious. This is a crisis caused by capitalism and imperialism.

In recent weeks a wave of vicious racist attacks targeting black migrants has swept Tunisia. Across the country, entire families are being evicted by their landlords, and wages are being withheld by the bosses. On the order of the president, Kais Saied, police have detained hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, who have come to the country in search of work or to study.

With 8,794,726 votes, representing 36.61 percent of the total vote cast; Bola Hammed Tinubu, candidate of the ruling APC, won a highly contested and contentious general election. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the PDP, came second with a total vote of 6,984,520 votes, representing 29.07 percent of the total. But, the greatest upset in this particular election was the performance of the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, who scored a total vote of 6,101,533 (25.40 percent) coming in third but with an almost non-existing party structure. This is a clear indication that the Nigerian masses are looking for an alternative on the political front.

Just a week before the ANC’s 55th National Conference, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa is embroiled in a scandal involving the theft of huge sums of undisclosed foreign currency from his Phala Phala game farm in the Limpopo province. This scandal has deepened the factional fighting that has seen the ANC lurch from one crisis to the next for nearly two decades. At bottom though, this is part of a struggle within the ruling class for control of the party.

On Sunday 25 September, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in the Tunisian capital of Tunis. The protests were ignited by the severe social and economic crisis, which has engulfed the country. The workers and poor of Tunisia are being crushed under rising inflation and food shortages, which have made the living conditions unbearable for the majority.

William Ruto was sworn in as Kenya's fifth president on Tuesday 13 September, a week after the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by his opponent in a close-fought election, in which Ruto received 50.5 percent of the vote against 48.8 percent for Raila Odinga. Neither of these reactionary bourgeois politicians offered any way forward for the Kenyan masses, who face increasingly intolerable conditions.