The Nigerian military and Cameronian Defences Forces have resolved to collaborate in border patrol and counter-terrorism operation. To clear Boko Haram from the border area.

Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Maj Gen Farouk  Yahaya disclosed on Wednesday while briefing newsmen after the visit of the Cameronian defence forces led by Commander of Operation Emergence 4, Gen Saly Muhamadou and troops of Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTK) at the Theatre Command Maiduguri.

“This is a visit by our counterparts in the Multi National Joint Task Force (NNJTF)  from Cameroonian defense forces. We had a fruitful discussion on how best to enhance our operations to end Boko Haram insurgency at our borders and within our countries,” Hahaha disclosed.

He said the meeting with the Cameroon forces was aimed at improving collaboration and synergy, as members of the MNJTF. “This is not the first time we are having joint operations that concerns our border and fight against terrorism,”Gen Yahaya said.

He said  the visit would further cement the relationship between the countries in the operations against “common enemy,  the Boko Haram insurgents.”

 Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon are members of the MNJTF Lake Chad Commission.

Source: Sunnewsonline

The special envoy of the African Union to Mali and the Sahel, Pierre Buyoya has resigned from his post.

The former Burundian simply confirmed to the AFP that he had submitted his resignation, without further details or reason for the resignation.

Buyoya was sentenced to life imprisonment in his country in October for the 1993 assassination of his predecessor Melchior Ndadaye.

He denounces a “political trial” and said he would appeal the ruling.

A senior AU official told AFP on condition of anonymity that ‘Mr. Buyoya resigned because he wants to “devote all his time and energy to his defense and wants to avoid a situation in the AU that would become embarrassing for a member state.’’

Another senior official who also spoke on condition of anonymity added that Buyoya’s resignation “was accepted with gratitude for the excellent work done in Mali on behalf of the AU.”

The African Union has not made any comment on Buyoya’s conviction since the verdict was announced on October 20 in Bujumbura.

The Burundian judiciary convicted Mr. Buyoya, along with about twenty of his relatives, for “attacking the head of state, attacking the authority of the state, and attack tending to bring about massacre and devastation”.

Mr. Buyoya’s name had already been mentioned in connection with the assassination of President Ndadaye, without any proof being provided.

Source: Africa News

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has chosen a new leader to replace Abdelmalek Droukdel, who was killed in June by French forces, the SITE monitoring group reported Saturday.

Algerian Abu Obaida Yusuf al-Annabi, the head of AQIM’s “Council of Dignitaries”, was named as Droukdel’s successor, SITE said.

Al-Annabi has been on the American “international terrorist” blacklist since September 2015, according to the Counter Extremism Project.

He has regularly appeared in the group’s propaganda videos, and in 2013 famously demanded that Muslims retaliate against France’s intervention in Mali.

AQIM also confirmed the death of Swiss national Beatrice Stoeckli, who was abducted in Timbuktu while working as a missionary in 2016.

It blamed her death on an attempt by “French crusaders” to free her.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb emerged from a group started in the late 1990s by radical Algerian Islamists, who in 2007 pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.

The group has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on troops and civilians across the Sahel region, including a 2016 attack on an upmarket hotel and restaurant in Burkina Faso that killed 30 people, mainly Westerners.

France has more than 5,000 troops deployed in its anti-jihadist Barkhane force in the Sahel.

Source: AFP

Ethiopian government forces have reportedly liberated two towns in the rebel-held northern region of Tigray and are further advancing to retake the regional capital, Mekelle, as violence continues to rage in the East African country for a second week.

Redwan Hussein, a spokesperson for the state of emergency task force, told CNN on Wednesday that the government forces had retaken the towns of Shire and Alamata and “are closing in [on Mekelle] but it will take about 100-200 km from several directions.”

The embattled leader of Ethiopia’s Tigray region has confirmed the losses, which he called a “temporary setback,” vowing to defeat the government.

Debretsion Gebremichael, leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), said his forces were inflicting “heavy defeats on all fronts” against Ethiopian forces, calling on all Tigrayans to mobilize and join the “struggle.”

Ethiopian officials have accused the TPLF of destroying four bridges on the road to Mekelle in an effort to stop government forces from advancing. The group has denied the claim.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has vowed the mission would “save the country and the region from spiraling into instability.”

Abiy said on Tuesday that a three-day deadline given to rebel forces in Tigray to lay down their arms had ended, warning of a final push to retake Mekelle.

Source: Presstv

Governance progress slowed across Africa for the first time in a decade, even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, with commitment to democracy and civil rights faltering, a major report said Monday.

The Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance, published every two years, gives each country’s government a score according to criteria including anti-corruption measures, protection of civil liberties and caring for the environment.

More than 60 percent of Africans live in countries that made progress in good governance over the period 2010 to 2019, this year’s report said.

But progress has slowed in the last five years and this year, for the first time in the last 10 years, the combined score for all the countries fell year-on-year, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation added.

The foundation, set up in 2006 to focus on the need for good political leadership and public governance in Africa, cited growing curbs on people’s ability to exercise their democratic rights and take part in civil society.

The results use data from last year and do not therefore include the impact of coronavirus.

Since the pandemic began, some elections have been postponed while “the continent had been going through a deterioration of civil society space, participation and rights long before Covid-19,” the report said.

There is “an increasingly precarious environment for human rights and civic participation” as well as a “deteriorating security situation,” it added.

– ‘Worrying declines’ –

Also this year, the incumbent presidents of Guinea and Ivory Coast succeeded in pushing through constitutional changes allowing them to stand for a third term, sparking deadly unrest while adding their names to a long list of leaders with similar playbooks.

Post-election clashes have claimed scores of lives in Ivory Coast and at least 21 in Guinea, where several opposition figures are in police custody over the violence.

In Nigeria, largely peaceful youth-led protests against a hated police unit spilled over into looting and violence.

The UN last week called for urgent measures to protect civilians in Mozambique’s northeastern Cabo Delgado province, where jihadists are wreaking havoc, warning that the population was “desperate”.

Since 2015, countries’ scores for security and rule of law and participation have slowly worsened while scores for rights and inclusion have fallen more sharply, the report said.

Only one country, Ethiopia, has made progress across all areas measured over a decade, the report said — but the continent’s second most populous country is now embroiled in a military conflict pitting the federal government against the dissident northern region of Tigray.

Across Africa, progress in some areas such as economic opportunity has come alongside “worrying declines in participation, rights, inclusion, rule of law and security,” the report said.

– Covid inequality –

Coronavirus threatens gains in economic opportunity, “worsening an already alarming situation,” it added.

For the first time, the report looked at new areas such as digital rights and inclusiveness as well as environmental sustainability.

South Africa, ranked sixth, has declined over the decade, falling more steeply since 2015, and is on a “concerning trajectory,” the report found.

The country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, was forced out by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) over a slew of corruption scandals.

ANC secretary general Ace Magashule was charged last Friday with multiple counts of fraud, corruption and money laundering allegedly committed under Zuma.

Source: Africa News

Prof. PLO Lumumba, who is widely acknowledged in Africa as a fearless and outspoken statesman and an advocate of change, was the latest guest to be hosted on Real Talk with Nana, a virtual talk show based in the UK.

Speaking on the topic, The Impact of Slavery and Colonisation on Africa, he applauded and acknowledged a few African leaders, who he said were beginning to realise the need for change on the continent and successfully taking on the African agenda; one which seeks to make the continent and it’s people, major stakeholders, in the discussion and implementation of global issues and policies for the benefit of Africa.

He described them as leaders who were thinking in the right manner and direction. These Presidents are Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Mogweetsi Masisi of Botswana, John Magufuli of Tanzania and Hage Geingob of Namibia. He expressed gratitude for such leaders and their dedication towards a new Africa.

He quickly lamented and expressed disappointment in certain African leaders, who through their actions and policies have inevitably opposed the development of Africa and inhibited the nation and her people. These were presidents, Alpha Conde of Guinea, Alassane Ouattara of Cote D’Ivoire, Paul Biya of Cameroon, Edgar Lungu of Zambia.

Source: Ghanaweb

Jihadists have killed around 20 people in attacks in three villages in northern Burkina Faso, the epicentre of a five-year-old jihadist insurgency, government officials said on Thursday.

The attacks took place on Wednesday in the villages of Demniol, Bombofa and Peteguerse in Seno province, government spokesman Remis Fulgance Dandjinou said in a statement.

“The provisional count of these attacks perpetrated in markets and villages shows about 20 victims, as well as wounded and missing persons,” he said.

Regional governor Salfo Kabore confirmed the attack in another statement.

An area resident told AFP at least 24 people were killed in the attacks.

“Wednesday is the day of the weekly market in the area,” said the resident, adding that the toll could be much higher as many people were still missing.

“The government condemns these cowardly and barbaric attacks against the peaceful civilian population,” said Dandjinou, adding that security forces have been deployed to the three villages.

Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, is being battered by a jihadist insurgency that came in from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

Hundreds have been killed in dozens of attacks on civilians this year.

Earlier this month 25 civilians, most of them people displaced by jihadist violence, were killed in an ambush in the central-north of the country, according to the UN’s refugee agency.

According to UN figures, around 4,000 people died from violence in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso last year.

Source: AFP

Three men suspected of involvement in the 1994 Rwanda genocide have been arrested and charged in Belgium with serious abuse of human rights, the prosecutor’s office said Saturday.

The office gave no details about the three but said their identities had been established with the help of witness testimony collected in Rwanda by a Belgian investigation.

“Two were arrested Tuesday in Brussels and the third Wednesday in Hainault (province),” said Eric Van Duyse, spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office.

“All three have been charged with serious human rights abuses,” the spokesman said, confirming a report in the weekly publication Vif/L’Express.

One of the men has been put under electronic surveillance while the two others are in detention, he said.

Whether the men face trial will be “decided in the end by the dossier compiled by the investigating magistrate and the prosecutor’s office,” Van Duyse said.

The 1994 genocide claimed 800,000 lives, mostly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus.

Belgium has held five trials since 2001 of Rwandans implicated in the killings, with four that year — including two nuns — sentenced to terms of up to 20 years for handing over Tutsis in their shelter to Hutu militants.

Last December, former senior Rwandan official Fabien Neretse was found guilty of genocide and sentenced to 25 years prison.

Source: AFP

Hoping to escape the war, death and destitution rampant in their home countries, thousands of African workers embark every year on a grueling journey to the affluent Persian Gulf countries looking for employment.

The more fortunate ones will end up doing backbreaking manual labor earning a pittance, barely enough to make ends meet.

Should they be unlucky, a fate worse than death awaits them, as the thousands of Ethiopian workers stranded in Saudi Arabia in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic can attest.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, has absolutely no excuse for its treatment of the Ethiopians, nor the terrible conditions they are forced to live under.

Far from the inquisitive public eye, the Saudis have been keeping thousands of African workers in squalid places under deplorable conditions. Given the Saudis’ mistreatment of African labor, Black Lives seem to be that last issue to matter in the Saudi kingdom.

We are humans

Every year thousands of African workers go on a grueling journey to the rich Persian Gulf countries in the hope of escaping war, death, and destitution. With luck on their side, they might end up in finding hard manual labour with meager wages just to continue their hand-to-mouth existence.

Inhumane living conditions

A shocking expose was published by The Sunday Telegraph in August. It disclosed that thousands of African workers were locked in detention centers across the country under inhumane, unsanitary conditions. With their smuggled mobile phones, some of the migrants gave the newspaper a snapshot of life – or to be blunt, death – in these hellish centers.

According to Adam Coogle of Human Rights Watch, “Photos emerging from detention centers in southern Saudi Arabia show that authorities there are subjecting Horn of Africa migrants to squalid, crowded, and dehumanizing conditions with no regard for their safety or dignity.”

“Lots of people gone to Saudi Arabia know just how dreadful the treatment of émigrés and refugees and actual workers are and this thing about the Ethiopians is just consistent with all the terrible things they do to third-country nationals.”  William Spring, Peace Campaigner and Political Commentator

Source: Presstv