Uganda’s long-time leader Yoweri Museveni held a commanding lead in a presidential election according to partial results on Saturday morning, with final results expected later in the day, though his main rival Bobi Wine alleged widespread fraud. With ballots from 86% of polling stations counted, Museveni had won 5.3 million, or 58.8%, while main opposition candidate Wine had 3.1 million votes (34.6%), the electoral commission said just after 9 a.m. (0600 GMT). The government ordered the internet to be shut down the day before voting on Thursday, and the blackout was still in place. Wine, 38, had galvanised young Ugandans with his calls for political change after 35 years of Museveni, 76, ruling the country. The run-up to the election was more violent than in previous polls. Security forces...
Katsina State governor, Aminu Bello Masari, says the schoolboys kidnapped last week have been moved by their captors to a forest in neighbouring Zamfara State. Gunmen invaded the Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, on Friday, December 11, 2020, with over 300 students unaccounted a week later. In an interview with BBC Hausa on Wednesday, December 16, 2020, Masari said most of the abducted students are believed to be in the forest in Zamfara. “Right now the security forces have surrounded all these places where the children are thought to be,” he said. Masari had said earlier this week that the government has already commenced negotiations with the kidnappers. He reiterated on Wednesday that this was to ensure the students are returned unhurt. He also disclosed that 400 students ar...
Guinea’s Constitutional Court on Saturday declared incumbent Alpha Conde had been re-elected for a controversial third term as president at the age of 82, while his main opponent called for resistance “by all legal means”. With 59.5 percent of the votes cast, Conde’s support was above the absolute majority needed to win in the first round, judges found, throwing out challenges to the October 18 ballot from figures including his main opponent Cellou Dalein Diallo. The official count from the Ceni national election commission gave Diallo 33.5 percent. But the 68-year-old insists that data his activists gathered at polling stations shows he won the vote and is the victim of fraud. While observers from other African countries have backed the official results, France, the European Union and Uni...
File Photo A magistrate in Abuja has remanded six detained protesters in custody on ‘trumped up charges,’ according to their lawyer. Newmen earlier reported that a small group of protesters were attacked by security forces at the National Assembly as they were rounding off their protest demanding widespread governmental reforms. Six protesters were arrested, including five males and one female. Human rights lawyer Tope Akinyode, who is defending the accused, told newsmen that the protesters were being held on “allegations of unlawful assembly and wanting to distort the societal peace.” “Of course, those are clearly trumped up charges because the protesters protested in accordance with the law,” he said. The magistrate in charge of their case decided to strike out the lawyer’s oral applicat...