Sahel
Chad accuses CAR of killing six of its soldiers
The Chad government on Monday accused the Central African Republic (CAR) of killing six of its soldiers in an attack on an outpost in the south of the country. “The Central African armed forces attacked the outpost of Sourou in Chad on Sunday morning … killed a Chad soldier, injured five and kidnapped five others who were then executed in Mbang on the Central African Republic side,” Chad’s Foreign Minister Cherif Mahamat Zene said in a statement. The CAR regularly accuses its northern neighbour of supporting armed rebel groups from inside Chad. The identity of the alleged CAR rebels is yet to be confirmed but a senior Chad security official told AFP news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity, that the rebels were members of Unity for Peace in Central Africa (UPC). The UPC is one of CA...
President Buhari seeks international support for peaceful transition in Chad
President Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday called on the international community to support a peaceful transition from military to democratic government in Chad. He made this known at a summit put together to discuss recent developments in Chad after the death of President Idris Deby last April. At the summit, Mr Buhari called on: “development partners and countries particularly France, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Russia; the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union, as well as other friendly and partner nations to support the transition framework put in place by Chad’s Transition Military Council led by General Mahamat Idris Deby.” ‘‘The need to support the Chadian government to effectively carry out its planned 18-month transition is sacrosanc...
President Buhari presides over extraordinary summit of Lake Chad Basin Commission
President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an extraordinary summit of Heads of State and Government of Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja. Newsmen report that other sub-regional leaders participating in the summit include the Presidents of Niger Republic, Mohamed Bazoum and Central African Republic, Faustin Touadera. Others are Mahamat Idriss Deby, President of the Transitional Military Council of the Republic of Chad, while Cameroon’s President Paul Bryan, was represented at the meeting. Other participants at the summit include representatives of Mohamed Al-Menfi, Chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya, and the Sudanese President. Newsmen report that the leaders would be discussing the growing security threats in Sahel and Lake Chad region, politica...
President Buhari arrives Paris for Financing Africa Summit
President Muhammadu Buhari has arrived in Paris for the Financing Africa Summit. The president left Abuja Sunday for the summit which is being hosted by President Emmanuel Macron of France. According to Buhari’s spokesperson, Garba Shehu, the summit will draw major stakeholders in the global finance institutions and some Heads of Government, who will, collectively, discuss external funding and debt treatment for Africa, and private sector reforms. “During the visit, President Buhari will meet with the French President to discuss growing security threats in Sahel and Lake Chad region, political relations, economic ties, climate change and partnership in buoying the health sector, particularly in checking spread of Covid-19, with more research and vaccines. “Before returning to Nigeria, Pres...
Three UN peacekeepers wounded in Mali attack
Three United Nations peacekeepers were on Sunday seriously injured in a rocket attack on a military base in the north of the conflict-ridden Sahel state, UN and local officials said. Olivier Salgado, the spokesman for the UN’s MINUSMA mission in Mali, said the attack took place on a base in Tessalit – in the north – which houses Malian soldiers, UN peacekeepers and French troops. Three peacekeepers were “gravely wounded” in the attack, he added. A Tessalit tribal leader, who declined to be named, said that the camp had come under rocket fire, hitting the barracks of peacekeepers from Chad. “The situation is currently calm and under control,” he added. Mali has been battling a brutal jihadist insurgency since 2012, when Islamist fighters first emerged during a rebellion by ethnic Tuareg sep...
DR Congo’s president becomes African Union chairman
The DRC’s President Félix Tshisekedi has now taken over the helm of the African Union to serve as the chairman for one-year. He replaces his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa, following the AU’s 34th summit on Saturday. But Tshisekedi faces big challenges this year with the coronavirus pandemic hitting health service and economies hard. The continent has so far been hit less hard than other regions, recording 3.5 percent of global virus cases and 4 percent of global deaths, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). But many African countries are battling damaging second waves while straining to procure sufficient vaccine doses. African leaders are speaking out against hoarding by rich countries at the expense of poorer ones. “There is a vaccin...
World Bank predicts 4% global economic growth, 1.1% for Nigeria in 2021
ABS-CBN The World Bank says global economy is expected to grow by 4 per cent in 2021, assuming an initial COVID-19 vaccine rollout becomes widespread throughout the year. It said this in a statement issued in Washington D.C. on Tuesday at the presentation of the January 2021 Global Economic Prospects. It added that the said recovery would likely be subdued unless policy makers moved decisively to tame the pandemic and implement investment-enhancing reforms. The bank also said that growth in Sub-Saharan Africa was forecast to rebound moderately to 2.7 per cent in 2021, while Nigeria’s growth was expected to resume at 1.1 per cent. For the region, it said that while the recovery in private consumption and investment was forecast to be slower than previously envisioned, export growth was expe...
Ever-present Boko Haram threat casts shadow in Niger
Seven years after the first Boko Haram attacks in southeastern Niger, people in the city of Diffa, dare not even speak the group’s name. Residents live in a state of siege, frightened and struggling with the economic impact of the Islamist threat. For fear of reprisals, people speak of “insecurity”, of the “problems” or the “current situation”. The fear is well-founded, according to one security source who says Boko Haram sympathisers in the city pass on information to the group. Among the poorest countries in the world, Niger, which is holding presidential elections on Sunday, faces jihadist groups from the Sahel in the west and Boko Haram in the east. “I don’t have 1,000 CFA francs (1.5 euros) in my pocket. I have been unemployed for four years,” says Abdou Maman, 46, who has two wives a...
Mali shuts bars, schools, restaurants to fight novel coronavirus
Mali on Friday said it would close bars and restaurants for two weeks, close fairs and shutter schools until January 10 to fight the novel coronavirus. Hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases in the vast Sahel country, torn by jihadist attacks and currently under a shaky caretaker government following an August coup. The closure of bars and restaurants will start from midnight Saturday, government spokesman Hamadoun Toureh said after a cabinet meeting. The cabinet also decided to declare a six-month health emergency, he said, adding that public gatherings would be limited to under 50 people until January 10. Mali has so far officially recorded 6,049 Covid-19 cases of which 211 have been fatal in a country of 20 million. Daily cases this month have surpassed 150 and hospitals in the c...
Our plans to preserve Fulfulde language – Fulani leader
The Sarkin Fulani of Lagos State and chairman, association of Fulani Chiefs, South West, Alhaji Mohammed Bambado, yesterday, lamented that the Fulfulde language is gradually going into extinction but promised to preserve the language. The post Our plans to preserve Fulfulde language – Fulani leader appeared first on TODAY. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
UN delegation visits Nigeria, Ghana, others over virus pandemic
A delegation of the United Nations led by Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, is visiting Nigeria and three other West African countries – Niger, Sierra Leone, and Ghana to discuss with the governments and other stakeholders on strategies to rebuild after the devastations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the visit scheduled for November 8 to 11, 2020, the delegation would meet with President Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. A statement on Sunday from the UN office in Nigeria explained that Mohammed would also join Osinbajo to launch the ‘Nigeria UN Plus Offer For Socio-Economic Recovery: 2020 -2022,’ as an offer for immediate and medium-term support to the government and people of Nigeria in response to the socio-economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It s...
West African delegation ‘very hopeful’ after meeting Mali junta
A West African delegation visiting Mali to push for a speedy return to civilian rule following a coup said it was “very hopeful” on Saturday after meeting with the country’s military junta and the president it ousted. The head of the delegation from the regional Ecowas bloc, former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, said that detained Malian president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was doing relatively well. “We saw him, he’s very fine,” said Jonathan, who had earlier met for half an hour with the soldiers who seized power on Tuesday, including new strongman Colonel Assimi Goita. Jonathan told AFP that negotiations were going well and he was “very hopeful”. Rebel soldiers seized Keita and other leaders after a mutiny on Tuesday, dealing another deep blow to a country already struggling with a b...
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