Across Africa in five minutes or less

GHANA

Attorney General, Godfred Dame, says some clauses in the Health Ministry’s $64 million contract with Dubai-based businessman Sheik Maktoum to supply Sputnik vaccines to Ghana are biased and skewed against the government.

BENIN

The Court D’Appal of Cotonou has ordered that Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho should be kept in prison custody pending investigation. The court, however, declined immediate extradition of Igboho to Nigeria.

BURKINA FASO

The attacks on civilians and security forces by jihadist groups are increasing in frequency and in the level of violence. Over the past two years, more than 1.3 million people, or 6 percent of the population, have become displaced inside the country.

GAMBIA

The future of the Gambia will be determined by one of two options. It will either be determined by people who see the Gambia as the common property of the Gambian people whose wellbeing and general welfare must be considered uppermost in any alliance for elections.

SENEGAL

Senegal and the European Commission are in a partnership to build a vaccine manufacturing plant whose initial focus will be to produce the Covid-19 vaccine for Africa.

LIBERIA

There is a new twist in the trial of former Sierra Leonean rebel commander Gibril Massaquoi. The Finnish court that is trying him plans to return to Liberia to hold new hearings, provided Liberian authorities agree. According to the prosecution, Massaquoi may have been able to evade the surveillance of a UN tribunal to commit crimes in Monrovia in 2003.

SIERRA LEONE

Members of Parliament on Friday took a crucial decision as they unanimously abolished the death penalty from the statute books of Sierra Leone despite no execution has taken place in the country since 1998. Life imprisonment would now mean imprisonment for a minimum of 30 years with a “maximum penalty of imprisonment for life,” according to the Leader of Government  Business in Parliament, Honourable Sahr Mathew Nyuma. “We are a progressive nation,” that has abolished death, said Hon. Nyuma, as the country joined 21 other African Countries penalty as part of Government efforts to protect the fundamental human rights of Sierra Leoneans.

COTE D’IVOIRE

Tuesday’s meeting between Ivory Coast’s current president, Alassane Ouattara, and his rival, Laurent Gbagbo — who recently returned after being acquitted of committing war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) — has raised tensions in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan. But amid the uneasiness, there seems to be a sense of optimism among many citizens.

MALI

The only suspect in an alleged attempted assassination of Mali’s interim President has died, authorities announced on Sunday. The man died in detention amid investigations into the attack on Colonel Assimi Goita, the government said in a statement.

NIGERIA/TOGO

Nigeria’s renewed interest in trade and commerce with Togo was communicated to the President of the Republic of Togo, Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe at the weekend by Nigeria’s Ambassador to the West Africa country, Adebowale Adesina.

ANGOLA

The Minister of State for Social Affairs, Carolina Cerqueira, recommended the permanent or temporary closure of childcare centres without minimum conditions, in consideration of the principles of child rights protection. Available data indicates that of the 23 childcare centres in Luanda, only one (the Kuzola home) meets the requirements and is legal.

SWAZILAND

The US government and the Eswatini opposition have condemned the country’s government for arresting two dissident members of Parliament on Sunday. The US embassy in Eswatini said it was “deeply troubled” by the “unacceptable” arrests of Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube.

BOTSWANA/ MOZAMBIQUE

Botswana sent 296 troops to Mozambique Monday to join soldiers from other Southern African Development Community, or SADC, countries. The SADC troops are being deployed for the first time to quell a deadly Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s northernmost province.

SOUTH AFRICA

The treatment of drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (DR-TB) has been transformed over the last decade with treatment becoming more effective, safer, and treatment duration in many cases dropping to under a year. Even so, treatment can still come with serious side effects and for some, it can still last over a year and a half and involve taking many different pills every day.

ZAMBIA

ENSIONS are spiralling out of control slightly over a fortnight before Zambia holds elections projected to be the fiercest in the nation’s history. Tempers flared this past weekend when the main parties traded blame on a number of killings linked to the pre-election violence.

ZIMBABWE

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government says it will viciously crackdown on businesses that may take advantage of the turmoil in neighbouring South Africa to “sabotage the economy” by hiking prices of goods.

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