Letter from Africa: Anxious start to 2015

In our series of letters from African journalists, Ghanaian writer Elizabeth Ohene, a former government minister and member of the opposition, gives her predictions for 2015 on issues ranging from the Ebola crisis to the fate of Africa's rulers.

How I wish we could wipe away many of the things that happened in 2014 and that this New Year brings a totally fresh beginning.

Top of such a list would be the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

I feel thoroughly depressed at the very idea that we are carrying over Ebola into 2015.

Unfortunately, the year is starting with the three countries still in the grips of the deadly virus and the rest of the sub-region will continue to be nervous about the entry of another Patrick Sawyer - who took the disease to Nigeria, even though it was successfully contained - to spark an outbreak in their country.

If we didn't know it before, the Ebola outbreak has brought it home forcefully to us that we, in this region, live in a country called West Africa.

There might be some 18 countries in West Africa and 54 on the continent and Ebola might be in three of them, but to outsiders, everybody from the continent is damned as an Ebola carrier.

Talent scouts The first big event on the continent is the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament which kicks off on 17 January in Equatorial Guinea.

Thanks to Ebola, the competition is unlikely to have the fiesta atmosphere that normally comes with it.

And English football clubs will moan, as usual, about their players being taken away to play for their national teams but that won't be news.

The talent scouts will, however, hesitate to make a trip to Equatorial Guinea to watch matches as they will be afraid of contracting Ebola.

I am looking forward to Ghana winning the Cup even though I suspect we haven't yet exorcised the ghosts of Brazil 2014.

Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who came to the rescue of the Confederation of African Football by offering to host the competition after Morocco pulled out at the last moment for fear of Ebola, will be hoping he has bought some political breathing space for himself by his hosting heroics.

After long-serving Burkina Faso ruler Blaise Compaore was chased out of office when he was trying to negotiate yet another presidential term for himself, a number of leaders on the continent are going to be nervous this year.

Togo, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, Angola and Uganda are all ripe for Burkina Faso moments.

Their presidents will deny any personal interest in staying in office and will claim that they remain only because their people want them to, but if push comes to shove would they stand aside?

Lucky Jonathan? Elections are scheduled to be held in nearly 20 countries, including Ivory Coast, Togo, Chad and Tanzania. But the big one will certainly be in Nigeria next month.

Will President Goodluck Jonathan remain the man with all the luck or will he lose to opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari?

Unfortunately on voting day, most eyes will not be on people casting their ballots but on militant group Boko Haram. The insurgents will doubtless try to stage a dramatic attack on the day.

It is heart-breaking but I fear the first anniversary of the abduction of more than 219 girls from the north-eastern town of Chibok will come in April and most of them still won't not be back home with their families.

One hopes that a few of them will find their way back so we can keep hope alive and the news of the abductions in the headlines.

Escaping to Europe Commodity prices will be very much in the headlines this year since they affect the economies of so many countries on the continent.

If the current trend of low oil prices continues, it will spell very bad news for the producers - especially Nigeria and Angola - and will cause major problems for their budgets.

It should mean good news for importing countries but there is no guarantee it will mean those economies will perform better.

And struggling economies on the continent will mean there will be more desperate young African migrants washing up on the shores of Lampedusa in Italy and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

The African Union (AU) will hold regular summits and our leaders will make speeches that will make no reference to why our young people are so desperate to leave our countries.

I make one bold prediction: There will be no power outages in Ghana this year. I have the word of President John Mahama, uttered solemnly before the altar of the Almighty, that darkness will be banished from our country this year.

The light will shine from Ghana and beam onto the rest of the continent in 2015.