AFRICA

The United Nations refugee agency has criticised Nigeria for breaching international treaties after forcefully deporting a Cameroonian Anglophone separatist and his supporters. UNHCR said Thursday that most of those handed over to Yaoundé authorities had applied for asylum in Nigeria. Julius Ayuk Tabe and 46 others were extradited at Cameroon’s request on 26 January. Cameroon says the 47 are “terrorists” …

Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga has been sworn in as the ‘people’s president’. Odinga took the controversial oath at Uhuru Park Grounds in Nairobi on Tuesday at 2.45 pm in a ceremony skipped by his co-principals Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetangula. Kenyan authorities forced independent television and radio stations reporting on the gathering off air as supporters of …

The Federal Government of Nigeria has been sharply criticized for delivering Cameroonian separatist leaders into the hands of the government of President Paul Biya in a move seen as very unusual in international diplomacy. The Nigerian government on Friday deported 12 Cameroonian separatist leaders who were arrested earlier this month, their lawyer said Monday. Julius Ayuk Tabe and 11 others …

“Today we launch the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM). We are nearly ready to launch the Continental Free Trade Area, and freedom of movement of persons is achievable in 2018,” President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has said. The Rwandan leader made the commitment on Sunday while delivering his acceptance speech as the new chairperson of the African Union at …

Liberian President George Opong Weah promised his country men and women yesterday he would not let them down. He spoke at a jam-packed Samuel Doe International stadium in Monrovia shortly after he took his oath of office as the 24th president of his country. It was the first time since 1944 that power was transferred from one president to another …

Killings carried out by people suspected to be Fulani herdsmen are causing widespread insecurity in Africa’s most populous country. The worldwide community of Nigerian citizens in the diaspora has now issued a press release on the burning national issue. “The massacre of scores of human beings by Fulani herdsmen in Benue State on New Year’s Day in cold blood sent shockwaves …

Ghana’s economy is rebounding and the major commodity exporter is poised to wean itself off bailouts through sustained fiscal discipline and a battle against corruption, President Nana Akufo-Addo said on Wednesday. The former opposition leader, sworn into office a year ago, said his government spent the past year stabilizing the economy, including clearing huge debts while rolling out infrastructure such …

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea has spoken out for the first time on the recent alleged attempt to overthrow him. Speaking in the capital Malabo, he also reacted to last year’s conviction in absentia of his son, Teodorin Obiang, in the high-profile “ill-gotten gains” corruption trial in France. In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24 and RFI, Equatorial …

Kidnappers have abducted two Americans and two Canadians in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna, killing two police officers, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. The North Americans were ambushed by unknown gunmen around Kagarko on their way from the city of Kaduna to the capital Abuja, Reuters quoted Mukhtar Aliyu, a spokesman for the Kaduna state police, as saying. …

The United Kingdom and Germany have praised the Ethiopian government for releasing political prisoners, charging Addis Ababa to follow through with its promises on political reforms and opening up the democratic space. Their comments came in the wake of the release of over 500 politician prisoners on Wednesday as promised by government earlier this month. Among those freed is Prof …

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is in the last days of her reign as Africa’s first democratically elected female president. She has, however, set a political battle for her days out of office. According to her spokesman Jerolinmek Piah, Sirleaf regarded the Unity Party (UP) decision to expel her as illegal and that she will return to the party to seek redress …

Clashes last week between rival elements of Côte d’Ivoire’s security forces appear to be a destructive extension of a tussle at the highest levels of power. As such, they bode ill as the country gears up for presidential elections in 2020. On 9 January in Bouaké (the country’s second largest city and between 2002 and 2011, a rebel stronghold), soldiers …

Liberia’s ruling Unity Party has expelled the country’s outgoing president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is accused by party leaders of meddling in last year’s presidential elections in which its candidate suffered a bruising defeat. Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been in power for 12 years, denies the party’s allegations that she held inappropriate private meetings with …

More than 200 people were arrested and dozens were injured on Tuesday as a wave of demonstrations continues to shake several cities in Tunisia following new austerity measures in the 2018 budget, which are expected to increase the cost of living. The spokesman for the Tunisian interior ministry Khalifa Chibani told local media outlets on Wednesday that 49 police officers …

Nigeria’s political parties must select their candidates for the country’s 2019 presidential election between 18 August and 7 October this year, the electoral commission said on Tuesday in a timetable of the polling process. Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on 16 February 2019, marking the end of President Muhammadu Buhari’s first term. Buhari has not said if he …

The African Union (AU) has condemned an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea stressing that it will not condone any unconstitutional power seizures on the continent. The United Nations through its special envoy to the Central African nation, Francois Fall, had also condemned the attempted takeover promising to help Malabo with stabilization efforts. The AU Commission’s position was contained in a …

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn dropped a veritable bombshell last week, when he announced that political prisoners would be released and that a detention centre in the capital that had become notorious for torture would be closed. What made this all the more surprising was that the government had never before even acknowledged the existence of political prisoners (when dissidents …

The Ethiopian government will drop charges against political prisoners and close a notorious prison camp in a bid to ‘widen the democratic space for all.’ Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn says the move to release all political prisoners is critical for national dialogue. The unprecedented pardon is expected to apply to both convicted political prisoners and those currently facing court …

Editors of the news agency IRIN* sketch out the gloomy-looking horizon in five African countries in the new year. Congo unravels You know the situation is bad when people start fleeing their homes, and it doesn’t get much worse than the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Here, violence in its eastern provinces has triggered the world’s worst displacement crisis – …

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea said a war was being organised against his regime, days after a government official announced the discovery of a “destabilisation attempt”. A “war” is being prepared “because they say I have spent a lot of time in power,” the president said on Saturday, without saying who he was referring to. Neighbouring Cameroon had …