The tensions that had been simmering between the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the Abiy administration eventually boiled over.
President John Magufuli won a second term by a contested landslide and looks set to take even greater control of Tanzania's democratic space.
The country must urgently address the politics of ethnicity before it can move towards a workable democracy.
COVID-19 travel restrictions are adding to the growing pressure on observer missions to prove their worth.
Jerry John Rawlings remains the most polarizing political figure in Ghana since Kwame Nkrumah