Botswana votes on Wednesday in the most closely fought general election in the history of the southern African country, long known as one of the continent’s most stable democracies.

Former president Ian Khama has shaken up the country’s traditionally calm politics by dramatically renouncing his hand-picked successor Mokgweetsi Masisi.

Khama left the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in May, accusing President Masisi — who had been his deputy until last year — of autocracy.

The bitter feud has threatened to fracture the BDP, which has governed the diamond-rich country since it gained independence from Britain in 1966.

The split came after the ruling party saw its share of the vote fall below 50 percent for the first time in the last elections in 2014.

It has faced an increasing challenge from a coalition of opposition parties, the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), which has added another group to its ranks since the last election.

“It’s the most contested election we have seen, and genuinely the outcome is in doubt to some extent,” said Botswana economic analyst Keith Jefferies.

“It’s possible that the BDP could be unseated.”

The UDC has received a boost from an unlikely source: Khama.

The opposition group was his fiercest critic when he was president, but Khama has urged voters in many regions to cast their ballots for the UDC in a bid to oust Masisi and the BDP.

Khama’s father co-founded the BDP and served as the country’s first president. He retains plenty of influence, particularly in the central region — a BDP stronghold — where he is a traditional chief.

– Khama ‘the wild card’ –

The rift between the president and his predecessor started last year, when Khama resigned near the end of his constitutional limit of two five-year terms.

Khama handed the reins to Masisi in April 2018, 18 months ahead of the next election, as part of the BDP’s carefully crafted process for transferring power.

But Masisi quickly started reversing several of Khama’s key policies, including lifting his ban on elephant trophy hunting, infuriating his predecessor.

Peter Fabricius, an analyst at the Pretoria-based think tank Institute of Security Studies, said “Khama is the wild card”.

“This is quite a close election and it could go either way,” he added.

Masisi told AFP that Khama’s policies had hurt the ruling party.

The BDP is “definitely going to perform far better” without Khama, Masisi said, predicting an “overwhelming victory, landslide”.

UDC leader Duma Boko was also confident, telling AFP: “I think we will win this election and we should”.

Voter Alice said: “It’s time for a new government, enough of the BDP”.

“Things are not right in our government… the corruption is just too much,” she told AFP, asking to be identified only by her first name to protect her job.

– ‘We are never going to fight’ –

The unprecedented political drama has raised fears that Khama’s defection could unsettle Botswana after more than five decades of peace and stability.

But Masisi ruled out any such scenario, urging everyone to “accept the results” of the vote.

“I have already accepted the results whatever might come,” he told AFP.

“Botswana is never going to be in crisis if one person wins or the other doesn’t win, there will be another opportunity.”

“We are never going to fight,” Masisi said, adding that stability is in the DNA of Botswana’s people.

But past elections have never been this close. If the opposition wins, the country’s democratic credentials and reputation for good governance will face a new test — a peaceful transfer of power.

Analysts said a BDP loss would be unlikely to send people into the streets. However, they did warn that an unexpected landslide for the ruling party could spark opposition protests claiming the election was rigged.

Duma said at the weekend that the vote would not be free and fair because of unbalanced media coverage by the public broadcaster.

Nearly half of Botswana’s 2.2 million people are expected to cast their ballots in the parliamentary and local elections.

The BDP, UDC and two smaller parties will vie for 57 parliamentary seats. The party with the most seats chooses the president.

Thanks to Botswana’s diamond-spurred wealth it is ranked as an upper-middle-income country, but it has one of the world’s highest rates of income inequality.

Source: AFP

Guinea erupted in protest this week over proposals to draft a new constitution that could allow President Alpha Conde to extend his legal mandate and run for a third term in 2020.

If Conde tries to stay, he would be copying from an established playbook in Africa, where incumbent presidents have sought, often successfully, to remain in power by massaging, bending or outright breaking laws often meant to ensure democratic handovers of power.

Below are details on how some of Africa’s longest-serving leaders have managed to stay in power, or are trying to do so, denting hopes of a dawn of democracy across the region.

* BURUNDI – President Pierre Nkurunziza

Nkurunziza, in power since 2005, announced in 2015 he would run for a third term in what his opponents saw as a breach of the constitution which only allowed leaders to rule for two terms. Since his re-election, hundreds of Burundians have been killed in clashes with security forces and half a million have fled abroad.

A referendum in May 2018 overwhelmingly approved changes that extended the length of presidential terms to seven years. Under the new constitution, Nkurunziza is now able serve a further two terms, potentially extending his rule until 2034. The opposition rejected the results and the United States said the process had been marred by voter intimidation.

* CAMEROON – President Paul Biya

Biya, 86 and sub-Saharan Africa’s oldest leader, took over the presidency in 1982. The national assembly adopted a constitutional bill in April 2008, removing a two-term presidential limit to allow him to extend his rule past 2011. He has won two elections since then that opposition candidates have said were fraudulent.

* CHAD – President Idriss Deby

Deby has ruled Chad since coming to power after a 1990 coup. A 2005 referendum removed a two-term limit from the constitution. Parliament approved a new constitution in 2018 reimposing the two-term limit, but it will not be applied retroactively, meaning Deby could serve two terms after the next election in 2021, potentially ruling until 2033.

* COMOROS – President Azali Assoumani

The president, a former military officer who first seized power in a coup in 1999, won a referendum in 2018 to extend term limits and end a system of rotating power among the archipelago’s three main islands off Africa’s east coast. The vote allowed him to run for two more five year-terms. The opposition dismissed the referendum as illegal.

* CONGO REPUBLIC – Denis Sassou Nguesso

The constitution in Congo Republic was changed by referendum in 2015, lifting term and age limits that would have excluded Nguesso from running again. He won a new five-year term in a 2016 election, although the opposition rejected the outcome, alleging fraud. He has ruled for all but five years since 1979.

* DJIBOUTI – President Ismail Omar Guelleh

Lawmakers in Djibouti approved a constitutional amendment in 2010 that paved the way for Guelleh, in power since 1999, to run for a third term. He has won two subsequent elections.

* GUINEA – President Alpha Conde

Conde’s second and final five-year term expires in 2020, but the 81-year-old leader has refused to rule out running again. In September, he asked his government to look into drafting a new constitution, raising concerns he might use it as a reset button on his presidency and run again. Conde was first elected in 2010.

* IVORY COAST – President Alassane Ouattara

Ouattara, in power since 2010, has claimed the adoption of a new constitution in 2016 would allow him to run for a third term in the 2020 presidential race because a new constitution would mean the first two terms did not count. He has not yet said if he will stand for re-election.

* RWANDA – President Paul Kagame

In 2015, Rwandans voted to extend the constitution’s two-term limit. Under the changes, Kagame could seek another seven-year term and two five-year terms after that, potentially remaining in power until 2034.

Kagame, who won a third term in 2017, has faced mounting criticism for what human rights groups say are widespread abuses, a muzzling of independent media, and suppression of political opposition. He denies wrongdoing. He first came to power in 2000.

* TOGO – President Faure Gnassingbe

Togo changed its constitution in 2019 to cap the presidential mandate at two five-year terms ostensibly in response to opposition calls for an end to a political dynasty that started when Gnassingbe’s father seized power in a 1967 coup.

However it does not take into account the three terms Gnassingbe has already served since coming to power in 2005, the latest of which ends in 2020. Gnassingbe could therefore remain in power until 2030.

* UGANDA – President Yoweri Museveni

Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986. A term-limiting clause that would have prevented him from seeking re-election was deleted from the constitution in 2005.

In 2017, lawmakers voted to remove a constitutional limit on the age of presidential candidates, paving the way for 75-year-old Museveni to stand again in the 2021 election.

Source: Reuters

People are voting in presidential, parliamentary, and provincial elections in Mozambique, amid concerns that a recent peace deal between the country’s ruling party and opposition could come under threat in the event of election-related violence.

Polls opened for almost 13 million voters in the southern African nation early on Tuesday morning.

Authorities will start counting the ballots after polls close at 6 pm local time and are expected to continue through the night.

Preliminary results are expected no earlier than Wednesday.

The vote is a competition between the ruling Frelimo Party of President Filipe Nyusi and former rebel group-turned-opposition Renamo, which is led by Ossufo Momade.

The results are likely to see the president’s party secure a second term. Frelimo has been in power for 44 years, since Mozambique’s independence from Portugal in 1975.

The opposition, meanwhile, is expecting an opportunity for a strong performance in the provincial and legislative races.

A peace deal was signed between President Nyusi and Momade in August, ending years of an armed conflict between government and rebel forces in the country.

Rights groups are now concerned that the deal could be jeopardized since elections have historically been a trigger for violence in Mozambique.

At least 44 people were killed during the election campaign, although most of them died in campaign-related road accidents and some in a stadium stampede at a pro-Nyusi rally.

The United States Embassy warned on Friday of “credible threats” of violence in Nampula. It warned its citizens to avoid the northern city.

Source: Presstv

Tunisia’s Kais Saied won the presidential election with 76.9% of votes, according to state television.

Kais Saied, 61, got more than 50 percent ahead of Nabil Karoui, a media mogul who was prosecuted for tax evasion. He had 23.11% of votes.

The announcement elicited tears of joy from supporters of Saied in the streets of Tunis. But official results will only be available from Monday.

The independent candidate thanked “the young people who opened a new page of history”, in front of his supporters in a hotel in central Tunis shortly after the announcement of his victory on Sunday.

AFP

The so-called Igbo “scare” in the British Cameroons between 1945 and 1961 allegedly led the southern part of the British mandate to opt to leave the federation of Nigeria on the 11th of February 1961.

The fear of Igbo domination in all the sectors of social and political life in the former German and British territory was given as a major factor. Kumba, Mamfe, Bamenda, Tiko and Victoria had a large number of NdiIgbo who dominated the economy. This led to local resentments, which politicians like Dr E.M.L.Endeley, Chief Manga Williams and J.N.Foncha exploited for selfish interests.

Stereotyping the Igbo did not change the natural disposition of the latter to hard work, aggressiveness, showiness and ethnic pride—all of which may be interpreted as the Igbo hubris, which in literary parlance is a tragic flaw.

Yet local resentment did not stop Igbo migration to Cameroons. The Igbo helped to build the Nigerian-Cameroonian Highway.

They became petty and full time traders, engaged in farming, sometimes dispossessing original land owners of their lands through legitimate purchases, and held sway in the plantations.

Because of their education, Ndigbo became dominant in government services and commerce, especially with the departure of the Germans in 1939. Menial jobs were the reserve of the less educated Cameroonians.

There were monopolies like the United African Company and John Holt, all owned by the British. Yet the Igbo, not the British, were accused of marginalizing the Cameroonians.

The Igbo, they cried out, controlled the local administration and made it impossible for locals to occupy high government posts. They had a point but the Igbo did not ask them to be laid back and not to go to school.

A British Resident administrative officer in Cameroon also accused the Igbo of injustice and, in his own words, as behaving as” if they were a law unto themselves and not wont to recognize ‘local authority”(See Resident, Cameroon Province, Buea, to Secretary, Eastern Provinces, Enugu, 29 June, 1948).

Such reports did not reduce tension; rather the emerging Cameroonian business and political elite fuelled it to advance their political agitations and encouraged many other unproven allegations against the Igbo.

Unsubstantiated Igbo misdemeanor, too numerous to bother the reader with here, occupied the social and political space in the late 1940 Southern Cameroons.

The Buea Native Authority demanded the expulsion of the Igbo in 1948 accusing them of dominating the plantations, especially. Earlier, the Bakweri Native Authority had specifically issued the following orders:

1. Nobody is allowed to sell his or her house to an Ibo; neither must anybody give his or her house for rentage to an Ibo.
2. No farmland must be sold to an Ibo or rented to an Ibo
3. Nobody must allow an Ibo to enter any native farm or forest for purpose of finding sticks for building or for any other purpose.
4. House or farm already sold to any Ibo man shall be purchased by native Authority who will afterwards resell same to some suitable person.
5. Nobody shall trade with Ibos for anything of value or not.
6. All landlords must ask their Igbo tenants to quit before 15 March 1948.
7. No Cameroon woman is allowed to communicate with the Igbos in any form
8. Anybody disobeying those rules shall be liable to a fine of £5 or five months imprisonment.
9. Any Ibo native disobeying Rule (3) above will be liable to prosecuting in the Native Court.
10. All Ibo Government officials are exempted from Rule (5) above.
(Cf: Bakweri, N.A. Buea to Senior D.O, Victoria, 21 Feb.1948.).

It is believed that Chief Manga Williams and Dr Endeley, two parliamentarians in the Eastern House of Assembly, were behind these anti Igbo laws.

We have seen similar sentiments directed against the Igbo in Nigeria, in colonial and postcolonial times, since NdiIgbo began their endless adventure outside Igbo hearth and heartland.

It is also to say that quit notices against Ndibanyi did not start today. Hate speech and hate literature did not start with Nigerians.

As we write English speaking Southern Cameroon is directing its angst against Yaoundé and the minders of power in their capital city. The same Cameroonians are also terrorizing Bakasians.

They were in hearty collaboration with Nigerians during the civil war and were rewarded with a good chunk of Biafra land and its mineral deposits.

The aggravations Ndibanyi receive from our neighbours and hosts require a different and more robust approach than what is available now.

It requires a vision with a homeland ideology, to show we have a home that is prosperous and could be second to none in the world. Is history a farce? Is the Cameroonian narrative a matter of marrying two husbands and knowing which is better?

After demonizing the Igbo and seceding from Nigeria to join their supposed kit and kin in French ruled Cameroons, in 1960, the battle cry has changed.

South Cameroons is clamouring for another secession. A case of the other perceived as the evil? The Devil now is not the Igbo, but Biya and his fellow Fulani.
Of course there are many possible readings of this story plot.

Contextually, it is all about the quest for self-apprehension. I am however, interested as a social historian, in what our people can learn from our sublime encounters with history whose outcome need not be quixotic or Sisyphean.

A laundry list of anti Igbo prescriptions such as the above should provoke deep reflection on our part, especially in the context of our recent experiences from our country men in the northern and western parts of the country which reveal a deep rooted resentment against Ndibanyi.

Certainly, there is an Igbo complex just as there is the Igbo Question in Nigeria. Both need resolution. Said the Hon Nnamdi Azikiwe in 1949 while addressing NdiIgbo in Aba:

It would appear that God has specifically created the Igbo people to suffer persecution and bear victimization because of their resolve to live. Since suffering is the label of our tribe we can afford to be sacrificed for the ultimate redemption of the children of Africa”.

Is Zik’s position anachronistic or is it messianic? Can we deny our Igboness? Does being cosmopolitan mean abandoning our homeland? There is a man in the Igbo, which must be saved for the sake of humanism.

Causal factors have been important in determining Igbo journey in the pluriverse and that journey has been dramatic.

Can we, NdiIgbo, control the natural instincts and impulses, which drive our relationship with our environments and social political spaces? Should there be a change in our foundational approaches and rethink strategies in our efforts at self and group fulfillment, a rethink of our approaches to constitutive freedoms?

I am calling for a consequential reasoning and re-examination or even prioritization of our freedom rights, especially when our libertarian rights seem and are violated?

I am also calling on Attorney Chris Aniedobe and Dr Okenwa Nwosu to do a distillation of all the currents of ideas through our contributions on this forum and publish it timeously—a humongous task indeed— but not an impossible one.

It would be a worthy and ageless contribution to Igbo phenomenology and scholarship, subjects of our direct experiences—one from which future generations will gain a lot—a tribute to all who believe in the relevance of communal enquiry, valent episteme and solid good ideas. I am just thinking aloud.

Source: The News Nigeria

Cameroon President Paul Biya on Monday signed a decree creating a consulate in Equatorial Guinea.

The new consulate will be located in the city of Mongomo in the continental part of Equatorial Guinea.

According to the decree, the consulate will cover Kie-Ntem, Wele-Nzas and Centre-South Provinces of the country.

The consulate is expected to improve relations between both countries along the border, according to officials of Cameroon Ministry of External Relations.

The over 180 km border between Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea is often a source of conflict.

Source: Xinhuanet

Catholic bishops in Burundi came under fire from authorities for “spitting venomous hatred” over a damning message read out in churches Sunday denouncing intolerance and political violence ahead of 2020 elections.

The message issued by the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Burundi and read out in churches expressed their “concern” eight months ahead of the May 20 presidential election comes five years after President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term plunged the country into crisis.

In the letter seen by AFP, the bishops raised the alarm over efforts to “suffocate and assault certain political parties and to persecute their members. Criminal acts go as far as murders with political motives… perpetrated against those with different opinions to the government.”

They also said the ruling party’s youth league — the feared Imbonerakure which the UN has accused of atrocities — had “taken the place of security forces”.

Presidential spokesman Willy Nyamitwe lashed out at the bishops on Twitter after the message leaked on social media ahead of the church services.

“Some bishops should be defrocked because it is becoming a habit: on the eve of elections they spit their venomous hatred through incendiary messages,” he wrote on Saturday.

The secretary general of the ruling CNDD-FDD Evariste Ndayishimiye meanwhile accused the bishops of “sowing division”.

“It is shameful to spread hatred among the faithful,” he told a  political gathering Saturday.

A team of investigators from the United Nations earlier this month warned of a climate of fear in Burundi ahead of the elections, with crimes against humanity and other serious violations continuing with impunity.

“The commission found that the eight common risk factors for criminal atrocities are present in Burundi,” it said, insisting that “the evolving situation must be monitored with the greatest vigilance.”

The Imbonerakure especially have carried out killings, disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, acts of torture and rape against actual or alleged political opposition members, the investigators said.

At least 1,200 people were killed in violence in the wake of the 2015 election and more than 400,000 were displaced in violence between April 2015 and May 2017 the UN says was mostly carried out by state security forces.

In a surprise development, Nkurunziza announced last year that he would not stand for election in 2020, confounding critics who accused him of working to extend his grip on power.

Relations soured between the government of Nkurunziza, a devout evangelical, and the Catholic Church after it opposed his third-term bid in 2015.

(AFP)

War is “no longer an option” for Sudan and South Sudan, their leaders agreed Thursday during talks which focused on border disputes and the oil trade, but also resolving protracted conflicts in both nations.

Sudan’s new prime minister Abdalla Hamdok met with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on his first official visit since becoming premier, following the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir.

“I am very delighted to be here in my second home, Juba. We are looking for a very strategic, very distinguished relationship between our two nations, and the sky is the limit for this relationship,” Hamdok said upon his arrival.

After the two-hour meeting, South Sudan’s Foreign Minister Awut Deng said the two leaders had discussed issues that had never been resolved under the 2005 peace deal that ended two decades of war with Khartoum and paved the way to South Sudan’s independence in 2011.

This includes the demarcation of the border between the two nations, trade issues and the movement of citizens.

“I think the time has come for us in the two countries to silence the guns. War is no more an option for our people. We need to have peace, and sustainable peace in our two countries,” said Deng.

“We can only do this in an environment where all of us have agreed to come out with a road map and work for peace.”

‘Brothers and sisters’ 

South Sudan plunged into its own war two years after independence that has left almost 400,000 dead and displaced millions.

Tensions have also remained high between Khartoum and Juba over border disputes and the oil trade, however the two nations are increasingly moving to normalize ties.

“We are brothers and sisters. We have been one country and now we are two countries but we are still one nation and we hope to develop our relations,” said Sudan’s Foreign Minister Asma Mohamed Abdalla.

Analysts say the two nations have been pushed together by the grinding war in South Sudan — which has defied several peace attempts — and an economic crisis in Sudan, which was hard-hit by the collapse of the south’s oil industry.

The worsening economic crisis sparked nationwide protests that triggered the fall of Bashir.

One of Bashir’s last moves before his ouster was to broker a peace deal between Kiir and his rival, rebel leader Riek Machar, at a time when much of the world had wearied of trying to solve the crisis.

However, the 2018 peace deal has stalled as Sudan has been roiled by its own crises in recent months.

Observers are anxious to see if Khartoum’s new government will push Kiir and Machar to advance on the implementation of the deal.

The two men met this week in Juba for the first time in five months, with a power-sharing government meant to be set up by November.

Sudan’s conflicts 

In a further sign of rapprochement between the two countries, Kiir offered in 2018 to mediate peace talks between Khartoum and rebels in the Blue Nile, South Kordofan and Darfur conflict zones.

The Blue Nile and South Kordofan fought alongside the south for independence, however were left north of the border in 2011 and have continued their own insurgency against Khartoum.

Rebels in Darfur also waged a long war over marginalization in the western region.

Hamdok has vowed to end these conflicts which have left thousands dead and millions displaced.

This week armed groups from those areas held talks in Juba which ended Wednesday in the signing of a deal on “pre-negotiation principles” with Khartoum.

“We assure them and the people of Sudan in general that all the suffering and the killing and marginalization will end,” said General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, deputy chairman of the Sudan Sovereign Council.

(Source: AFP)

Nearly eight months after former opposition chief Felix Tshisekedi was elected president, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has unveiled a coalition government dominated by supporters of his predecessor, Joseph Kabila.

“The government is finally here. The president has signed the decree and we will begin work soon,” Prime Minister Sylvestre Ilunga told reporters.

In gestation for seven months, the new government will see most of the 66 portfolios handed to Kabila’s Common Front for Congo (FCC), with Tshisekedi’s Direction For Change alliance accounting for most of the rest.

Tshisekedi, 56, has vowed to enact sweeping reform and root out corruption but has been hampered by the need to share power with the legislature, which is dominated by FCC MPs.

Forging the coalition government took time as both sides had to “remove everything that could be an obstacle to the functioning of the government,” Ilunga said.

The new team will get down to work as soon as its members are approved by the National Assembly, he added. The parliament has been convened in special session until September 7 to approve the government.

“I believe this has been worth waiting for,” Ilunga said.

“Here we have a government that manifests the vision of the head of state, in the direction of change. So change starts now. Let’s get to work!”

Female foreign minister

Ilunga said 17 percent of government positions were now occupied by women.

“This percentage is still low but it is balanced by the importance of the portfolios attributed to women,” he argued.

The foreign ministry was handed to Marie Tumba Nzeza, a member of Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS).

She becomes only the second female foreign minister in the country’s history. The first was Ekila Liyonda, who briefly served in the 1980s under former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who had renamed the country Zaire.

Women have also been named in charge of the employment ministry and ministry for gender affairs.

The new government also includes a female vice prime minister from Kabila’s party, Elysee Munembe, who takes the planning portfolio, Ilunga said. There are five vice prime ministers in all.

The defense ministry went to Aime Ngoy Mukena, a close Kabila supporter and the finance portfolio to another Kabila-era veteran, Jose Sele Yalaghuli.

The interior ministry was attributed to Gilbert Kankonde, a pro-Tshisekedi figure from UDPS ranks, who will face the thorny task of dealing with future protests.

Ilunga declared that three-quarters of members were serving in government for the first time, which he regarded as the “most important innovation.”

Tshisekedi emerged victorious in elections on December 30 that marked the DRC’s first peaceful transition of power since the mineral-rich nation gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

Poverty, instability

But the unstable country’s politics remain overshadowed by Kabila, who despite stepping down voluntarily wields extensive clout after 18 years in power.

He came to office in January 2001, less than two weeks after the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila, while the armies of at least six regional nations waged war on Congolese soil.

Swathes of the eastern provinces are still unstable, a haven for rebel militias regularly accused of atrocities against civilians.

Moreover, an Ebola epidemic has claimed almost 2,000 lives in one year in the troubled provinces of North and South Kivu, presenting a grueling challenge for the incoming health minister, Eteni Longondo.

Despite cobalt, copper, diamonds and other natural treasure, the DRC ranks just 176th out of 189 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index. Poverty is widespread, and inequality is glaring.

Another hot potato has landed in the lap of the minister in charge of primary education, Willy Bakonga.

He has to implement a plan to make state schools free from September 2 — a scheme announced by the outgoing minister only on Saturday and at a cost of some $2.6 billion (2.3 billion euros), roughly half the government’s entire budget.

(Source: AFP)