Author: AFP

African leaders gather for conflict, Ebola talks

African Union Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. (Pic: AFP)

African leaders meet on Friday for their annual summit with conflict topping the agenda, especially Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgents, as well as efforts to stem Ebola.

While the official theme of the African Union meeting will be women’s empowerment, leaders from the 54-member bloc will once again be beset by a string of crises across the continent.

Preparatory talks this week ahead of the two-day meeting at the AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital have seen promises by AU chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to drum up “collective African efforts” to tackle the Islamists.

Late Thursday, the AU Peace and Security Council called for regional five-nation force of 7 500 troops to deploy to stop the “horrendous” rise of the insurgents.

More than 13 000 people have been killed and more than one million made homeless by Boko Haram violence since 2009.

Leaders are also expected to elect Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to the organisation’s one-year rotating chair, replacing Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Mugabe, a former liberation war hero who aged 90 is Africa’s oldest president and the third-longest serving leader, is viewed with deep respect by many on the continent.

But he is also subject to travel bans from both the United States and European Union in protest at political violence and intimidation.

Elections and Ebola

With over a dozen elections due to take place this year across Africa, the focus at the talks will also be on how to ensure peaceful polls.
The Institute for Security Studies, an African think-tank, warns that “many of these are being held in a context that increases the risk of political violence”.

Wars in South Sudan and the Central African Republic – both nations scheduled to hold elections – as well as in Libya are also due to draw debate.

South Sudan’s warring parties met Thursday in the latest push for a lasting peace deal, with six previous ceasefire commitments never holding for more than a few days – and sometime just hours – on the ground.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in more than a year of civil war, with peace talks led by the regional East African bloc IGAD due following the summit.

Also topping the agenda is the question of financing regional forces, amid broader debates on funding the AU, a thorny issue for the bloc, once heavily bankrolled by toppled Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

African leaders will also discuss the economic recovery of countries affected by the Ebola virus, setting up a “solidarity fund” and planning a proposed African Centre for Disease Control.

The worst outbreak of the virus in history has seen nearly 9 000 deaths in a year – almost all of them in the three west African countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone – and sparked a major health scare worldwide.

10 years ago

Zambians vote in special presidential election

A Zambian woman casts her ballot for the Zambian presidential elections at Kanyama Primary School in Lusaka. (Pic: AFP)

Polling opened on Tuesday in Zambia’s tightly contested vote to elect a president after a ruling party power struggle following the death of Michael Sata in office last year.

The two top contenders are Defence Minister Edgar Lungu (58), representing the ruling Patriotic Front (PF), and opposition candidate Hakainde Hichilema (52) of the United Party for National Development (UPND).

At stake are the remaining year and a half of Sata’s five-year term in Africa’s second biggest copper producer, where new taxes on the metal have become a surprising election issue.

Lungu’s party introduced the tax in January, while Hichilema has promised to scrap it, pledging a business-friendly Zambia.

The rivals – Lungu the lawyer and Hichilema the businessman, affectionately know as HH – drew huge crowds at last-minute rallies.

But in the absence of opinion polls analysts hedged their bets.

“It’s a two-horse race,” said Oliver Saasa, CEO of Premier Consult, a business and economic consultancy firm. “It’s quite clear this is a very closely run race.”

Election-weary Zambians, who voted in scheduled elections that brought Sata to power three years ago and are also due to cast ballots next year, formed long queues despite early morning cold weather.

‘No need to start afresh’
In Lusaka’s Kanyama working class suburb, excited voters applauded and ululated when a presiding officer declared the crowded polling station open.

“My vote is going to make a difference, we are going to remove this …(PF) family,” said 55-year old vegetable vendor Matron Siyasiya. “They can claim all the good work, but God’s favour is on my candidate, and that is HH.”

But Grace Nyirongo, who runs a food take-away business said she was satisfied with the government and echoed the ruling PF’s campaign slogan of continuity.

“We want the government to continue with the projects started by Sata. Frankly there’s no need to start afresh,” said Nyirongo.

Shortly after the polls opened it began raining heavily in Lusaka, but that did not deter the voters.

Standing in rain-drenched clothes on muddy ground, with no umbrella or raincoat, PF supporter Allan Kabwe’s spirits could not dampened.

“I know many people will be discouraged, but after I finished voting, I am going door to door to encourage people to come and vote. We have to put Edgar into state house,” said the 24 year old street vendor.

“I hope UPND supporters fail to come.”

Analyst Neo Simutanyi of think-tank Centre for Policy Dialogue said: “We can safely conclude that the opposition will win this election, but I don’t think the margin will be very wide.”

Hichilema’s camp is seen to have received a boost from the infighting within another major opposition party, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), whose candidate Nevers Mumba is given little chance.

Lungu’s Patriotic Front went into the vote badly fractured by a bitter power struggle after Sata’s death in October, just three years into his five-year term.

Two opposing camps – one led by Lungu and another by interim president Guy Scott – nominated rival presidential candidates.

After many weeks of mud-slinging, Lungu emerged as the sole candidate – but of a weakened party.

Scott, Africa’s first white leader in 20 years, cannot stand for the presidency himself as his parents were not born in Zambia.

With ideological differences between Zambia’s political parties difficult to pin down, voting patterns are often determined by personalities and ethnicity rather than issues.

Despite growth-oriented policies and a stable economy over the past few years, at least 60 percent of Zambia’s population of about 15 million lives below the poverty line, according to World Bank figures.

About 5.2 million people are eligible to cast ballots.

Polling opened at 6am and is due to close 12 hours later across 6 000 polling stations.

Whoever is elected will serve out the remaining 19 months of Sata’s term.

10 years ago

Senegal bans ‘Charlie Hebdo’ and ‘Liberation’ daily

People wave posters featuring Charlie Hebdo cartoons, “Je suis Charlie (I am Charlie)” and “All Charlie” in a Unity rally in Paris on January 11. (Pic: AFP)

The Senegalese government banned the dissemination of Wednesday’s editions of the satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo and the French daily Liberation, both of which put a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad on their front pages.

“It is forbidden to distribute and disseminate, by any means, today’s editions of the French magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ and the French newspaper ‘Liberation’ throughout the national territory,” the Senegalese news agency APS reported, citing a statement from the interior ministry.

No Senegalese newspapers or news sites have reprinted the controversial Charlie Hebdo cover, the magazine’s first edition since two Islamist gunmen attacked its Paris offices last week, killing 12 people.

The Charlie Hebdo weekly has repeatedly been the target of threats for its cartoons mocking Muhammad and Wednesday’s edition drew fresh anger from many in the Islamic world, including in Turkey where a court blocked websites from reproducing the latest cartoon.

But the magazine sold out in record time in France and will have a print run of five million copies this week, instead of the usual 60 000.

The image shows the prophet shedding a tear and holding a sign with the slogan “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”), under the headline “All is forgiven”.

The weekly is not widely available in Senegal but can be found in some newsagents. Censorship of the press is rare in the mainly-Muslim country but several local religious leaders have spoken out against the cartoon.

Senegal’s President Macky Sall took part in a massive unity rally in Paris on Sunday that saw millions pour onto the streets to condemn terrorism.

10 years ago

Suspected child suicide bombers hit north Nigeria town

Investigators at the scene of the Kano Central Mosque bombing on November 29 2014. Gunmen set off three bombs and opened fire on worshippers at the main mosque in north Nigeria’s biggest city Kano, killing at least 81 people. (Pic: AFP)

Two suspected child suicide bombers blew themselves up in a market in northeast Nigeria on Sunday, witnesses said, killing three people in the second apparent attack in two days using young girls strapped with explosives.

The blasts struck around mid-afternoon at an open market selling mobile handsets in the town of Potiskum in Yobe state, which has frequently been attacked by the Sunni Muslim jihadist group Boko Haram.

A trader at the market, Sani Abdu Potiskum, said the bombers were about 10 years old. “I saw their dead bodies. They are two young girls of about 10 years of age … you only see the plaited hair and part of the upper torso,” the trader said.

A source at the Potiskum general hospital said three people had been killed, excluding the bombers, while 46 were injured.

The town was hit by a suicide bomber in November when at least 48 people, mainly students, were killed during a school assembly. On Saturday, a bomb exploded at a police station in Potiskum.

Sunday’s explosions came a day after a bomb strapped to a girl aged around 10 years old exploded in a busy market place in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 20, security sources said.

Boko Haram has been waging a five year insurgency to establish an Islamic state in the northeast of the country and the army’s inability to quash the movement is a headache for President Goodluck Jonathan, who is seeking re-election in February.

Last year more than 10 000 people died in the violence, according to an estimate by the Council on Foreign Relations

The military lost ground in worst-hit Borno state last weekend after insurgents took over the town of Baga and nearby army base, killing over 100 people and forcing thousands to flee. The defence headquarters said on Saturday that the army was regrouping to retake the area.

In the city of Jos in Plateau state, Jonathan’s campaign team was hit by two days of violence.

The driver of a campaign vehicle was killed on Sunday by youths who also set fire to a police station, police spokesperson Abu Sunday Emmanuel said. On Saturday, two other campaign vehicles were burnt.

“The youths were chanting no PDP, no to Jonathan Badluck,” a witness said, referring to the ruling People’sDemocratic Party.

PDP spokesperson Olisa Metuh said in an emailed statement that the government “decried last Saturday’s unprovoked attack on President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign vehicles in Jos”.

10 years ago

Nigeria’s Cafe Neo: Hoping to become the African Starbucks

There are three Cafe Neo branches in Lagos and one in Kigali. (Pic: AFP)

Men in suits order takeaway cappuccinos at the counter. A trendy young crowd occupies comfortable sofas, armed with laptops for a brain-storming session over cafe lattes, frappuccinos and soft jazz.

The morning scene wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in New York, London or Paris but cafe culture is a new phenomenon in Nigeria’s biggest city, where until recently finding a decent espresso was a battle.

The bright young things and senior managers were in Cafe Neo, on Victoria Island in Lagos, which has been specifically designed to cater to the tastes of “repats”.

Ngozi Dozie and his brother Chijoke created the chain with returning Nigerians in mind, in the full knowledge that years spent abroad alter views, tastes and expectations.

Now the brothers hope to conquer Africa’s major cities with 100% African coffee before giants of the business such as Starbucks try to capture the market.

“The demand (in Lagos) is very high. There’s a significant minority of people who love coffee and want to drink coffee but haven’t had access to coffee,” Ngozi told AFP.

The “significant minority” have studied and worked abroad, coming back in their thousands from the United States or Europe as austerity measures kicked in after the global financial crisis.

While they were away, Nigeria – already Africa’s most populous nation with some 170 million people – became the continent’s leading economy — and a country ripe with opportunity.

With economic growth has come an emerging middle class, which has increased six fold to 4.1 million households between 2000 and 2014, according to a recent study by Standard Bank.

Indian inspiration
A number of US chains such as KFC and Domino’s Pizza are already in Nigeria and increasingly popular, despite the astronomical costs of running a business in the country.

Poor or non-existent infrastructure forces businesses to rely on huge electricity generators to keep the lights on when the public supply goes off, sometimes for up to 12 hours a day.

The brothers’ idea is to first conquer the Nigerian market before Starbucks, which has more than 20 000 cafes in 65 countries across the globe but none in sub-Saharan Africa.

A Cafe Neo barista prepares iced coffee for a customer. (Pic: AFP)

Ngozi Dozie is not yet 40 and is himself a “repat”. Before embarking on the business venture, he knew friends who would bring back bags of coffee from the United States.

He said he was inspired by India, where Cafe Coffee Day has largely cornered the market, despite the increasing presence of international chains such as Britain’s Costa Coffee or Starbucks.

“India is a fantastic example with Cafe Coffee Day,” he explained. “We aim at something similar.

“We’re starting young right now and our aim is to grow as such that yes, Starbucks may come, but we want to be the choice of Nigerians, because there’s that affinity with something that comes from here, in Africa.”

Produce and consume
Neo has three cafes currently in Lagos and two others are scheduled to open early this year.

There is another outlet in Kigali. All the cafes only serve 100% Rwandan arabica, which has become one of its main selling points.

The chain is hoping to branch out across Africa and expects to have between 20 and 30 cafes in Lagos alone within the next four years.

“Neo, in Tswana, the language in Botswana, means ‘gift’, and of course it also means ‘new’ in Latin,” said Dozie.

“So, it’s a new way… a new approach to coffee, a new approach where we, as Africans, drink the coffee that we produce, that’s been a gift for us, as opposed to exporting it and importing sub-grade coffee.”

Africa’s main coffee producers such as Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda currently export most of their products to the United States and Europe.

Kayitana John Bosco was brought over to Nigeria from Rwanda to train locals on how to make a proper coffee at Cafe Neo – and said it was time for a change.

“Our first coffee tree was planted in 1904,” he said of his homeland. “We’ve been producing coffee for more than a century. But brewing, the consumption… it’s really still down.

“I visited a coffee farmer in 2007. That old man had been doing coffee farming for 20 years, but he didn’t know the taste of it.

“So, his job was to do farming, harvest, send. He didn’t know where it was going or what it was used for.”