Badger about to leave African capital by ship (6)
I believe the answer is:
harass
'badger' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'to leave african capital by ship' is the wordplay.
'to leave' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (I've seen 'left' mean this).
'capital' indicates taking the first letters.
'by' becomes 'rah' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ship' becomes 'SS' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
The first letter of 'african' is 'a'.
'a'+'rah'='arah'
'arah' backwards is 'hara'.
'hara'+'ss'='HARASS'
'about' is the link.
(Other definitions for harass that I've seen before include "Harry" , "Vex - pester" , "Pester constantly" , "Bother and annoy continuously" , "Annoy persistently, persecute" .)