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DNA NEWS NIGERIA
Missing pro-Biafra leader Nnamdi Kanu not in our custody: Nigeria police
The Nigerian Police, Southeastern Abia State have reiterated that they do not know the whereabouts of pro-Biafra leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
The Commissioner of Police Anthony Ogbizi told the local Punch news portal that as far as they were concerned Kanu has a case before court. That he had been granted bail with three sureties, those persons according to Ogbizi were best placed to tell where Kanu was.
Nnamdi Kanu was charged to court; he still has a case in court. He was granted bail by the court, but we heard that he jumped bail.
“The sureties, who secured the bail conditions for Nnamdi Kanu, should tell us his whereabouts,” he stressed.
Abuja Federal High Court granted Kanu bail in April 2017 after over a year in detention on treason charges. He, however, went missing after members of his group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) clashed with the army at his family home in September 2017.
The army insists it is not holding him and the government has since secured a court order proscribing the group. Kanu failed to show up at the last hearing date for his trial. The trial judge has since ordered his lawyer to produce him at the next sitting on March 28.
The three sureties who signed his bail bond were: Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, a Jewish High Chief Priest, Immanuu-El Shalom and a Chartered Accountant, Tochukwu Uchendu.
Nnamdi Kanu is leading a secession movement pushing for the independent state of Biafra. The earlier push for a separate republic of Biafra was championed by Chief Ojukwu nearly 50 years ago.
The declaration of independence sparked a civil war which left more than a million people dead. President Buhari has previously said the unity of Nigeria was non-negotiable.
DNA NEWS KENYA
Kenya maintains African cross country dominance in Algeria
The 18-year-old Kenyan running phenomenon Celliphine Chespol won the African Cross Country Championship senior women’s title in the Algerian city of Chlef despite thinking she had finished with a lap still to go and then falling on the final circuit.
On the day when Kenya maintained its domination of this five-year-old event, with Alfred Barkach taking the senior men’s title and both teams earning gold, Chespol’s win was the most dramatic contribution to the cause.
Kenyan news portal the nation reported that there was confusion when Chespol thought she had finished the race only for officials to ask her to continue.
“The competition was very tough,” she said after her first win as a senior.
“I almost ruined my race when thought I was in the last lap.”
Chespol – who last season won a junior bronze medal at the World Cross Country Championships and set the second fastest ever 3,000 metres steeplechase time despite losing a shoe at the final water jump in Eugene – had broken away in the third lap with Rosemary Njeri in tow.
She recovered from her miscalculation, and fall, to win the women’s 10 kilometre race in 35min 10sec, with her compatriot Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi, the African 5,000m champion, making it a Kenyan 1-2 in 35:13.
Ethiopia’s Yeshi Kalayu claimed the last podium place in the senior women’s race in 35:26, with Kenya’s trials winner Stacy Ndiwa finishing fourth in 35:27 and Sandra Chebet taking sixth place in 35:47 to ensure Kenya retained the women’s team title.
Barkach won a sprint finish on the final lap with Julius Kogo to see off the challenge of Uganda’s trials winner Thomas Ayeko in the men’s 10km race.
Having finished second at the National Championships in Nairobi last month that doubled up as the trials – winner Geoffrey Kamworor, the world cross country champion in 2015 and 2017, decided to concentrate on retaining his world half marathon title in Valencia next weekend.
Barkach duly clocked 30:47 for his first major victory, narrowly beating Kogo, who was given the same time.
Ayeko settled for the bronze medal, followed by Ethiopian trials winner Enyew Mekonnen, who recorded 31:01.
Kenya’s Emmanuel Bor clocked 31:14 for fifth place, thus securing the team title for his nation.
DNA NEWS TANAZNIA
'This is a beauty of life after Presidency!' - Ex-Tanzania president Kikwete
“There is life after retirement with more time for things I had less time for, like enjoying quality time with my family, my cattle & farm,” these were the words of former Tanzanian leader Jakaya Kikwete in June 2017.
Fast forward to March 2017, Kikwete still holds the view that there is lots to savour after holding the highest political office in a country.
The 67-year-old shared pictures on Twitter where he was seen sharing a meal with his kith and kin. He adds that the event was at a village of Msigi during the funeral of an uncle who died aged 101.
Kiwete had a career in politics before rising to become President, the trained economist served in various capacities including as a member of Parliament (1995 – 2005). He served as Minister of Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs during the period.
The Ex-president served as Tanzania president between (2005 to 2015) before handing over to the current President, John Pombe Magufuli who incidentally belongs to the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (ruling party).
Despite being out of office, Kikwete has lots of global engagements in the area of education. He is Chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam Mwalimu Nyerere and High Level Representative of the African Union to Libya, he also serves as Co-Chair of the World Refugee Council.
During his presidency, he was elected the 6th president of the AU serving between January 2008 and February 2009. He is hailed as one of the few African leaders who finish their tenure and peacefully exit power. He is a practising Muslim married to Salma Kikwete and the couple have 5 children.
DNA NEWS ZIMBABWE
Zimbabwe's first post-Mugabe vote slated for July 2018 - President confirms
The Zimbabwe’s first presidential and parliamentary elections since the end of former strongman Robert Mugabe’s long rule will take place in July, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Saturday.
The polls will be the first major test of the new leader, who took power in November after a de facto military coup forced the 94-year-old Mugabe to resign.
They will also be the first without Mugabe’s name on the ballot since independence from Britain in 1980.
“As a nation, party and government, we are looking forward to very peaceful, transparent and harmonised elections in July this year,” Mnangagwa told reporters after a meeting with South Africans President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday night.
Mnangagwa, 75, said the elections would be free of the violence that gripped previous polls and which was one of the reasons for strained relations between Zimbabwe and the West.
“I have already invited all political parties in Zimbabwe to a roundtable where we all commit ourselves to non-violence,” he added.
Mnanaggwa will have to announce a date in an official notice. He has said he would invite Western observers, who had been banned under Mugabe’s rule.
The state-owned weekly Sunday Mail said a European Union pre-election team was expectewd in Harare on Monday.
The EU head of mission in Zimbabwe, Phillipe Van Damme, told the paper it would meet the president, political party leaders, and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
Mugabe, in his first comments since he stepped down, said last week that Mnangagwa’s rule was “illegitimate” and a “disgrace”.
DNA NEWS CAMEROON
Suspected Cameroon separatists abduct top civil servant, attack bus
Top Cameroonian civil servant has been abducted by suspected Anglophone separatists.
Ivo Leke Tambo, recently-appointed chairman of Cameroon’s Anglophone educational board, GCE, was abducted just outside the southwestern town of Lewo .
In a video circulated on social media on Saturday, Leke Tambo could be seen seated on the ground in a bush semi-naked.
Elsewhere, social media footage showed an attack on a bus carrying some 30 people by suspected armed members of the self-declared Ambazonia Defence Forces.
A section of Cameroonians have condemned the acts.
“I just want to tell them that everyone wants peace. Nobody wants war in this country. I think we are all Cameroonians and we want to live in peace,” said Esther Ngala an opposition MP.
Authorities did not immediately confirm the abduction of Leke Tambo, the latest in a slew of abductions in recent weeks.
Tension has soared in Anglophone parts of Cameroon accounting for about a fifth of the population, since separatists on October declared the self-proclaimed republic of “Ambazonia”.
The tension was ramped up further in January when 47 separatists, including their leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, were extradited from Nigeria.
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