Zone 2- Africa Summary, week # 136

POLITICS OF SECURITY AND CONFLICT ISSUES

West Africa: Ghana: According to reports President Atta Mills has been accused of secretly sponsoring persons within the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to run down ex-President Jerry John Rawlings and his family.

Meanwhile in Nigeria Voter Registration is clashes with Hajj, according to a Muslim Group that has faulted the election timetable released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), especially the voter registration, fearing that Muslims on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina could be disenfranchised.

President Goodluck Jonathan has met the governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at Aso Rock, Abuja, and made known to them his decision to run in the 2011 presidential poll.

The U.S.-Nigeria Bi-national Commission convenes its third full working group met on September 13 in Washington for two days of talks that focused on the Niger Delta and Nigeria's role in regional security.

Central Africa: According to reports relatives of victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi may sue the Belgian government for having withdrawn its peacekeeping troops from Rwanda at the peak of the Genocide.

Meanwhile a former chief of staff to Rwandan President Paul Kagame says the draft U.N. report that accuses the Rwandan army of committing war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo should be made public.

D. R. Congo: The U.N. peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo are extending special patrols another week in an area where more than 240 women and children were raped in recent weeks.

Elections: Cote d’Ivoire: The agreement reached on the final list of voters for next month's long-delayed presidential polls signals a major breakthrough in Côte d'Ivoire's electoral process, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the West African nation said today.

For many Ivorians, it is hard to shake off the feeling that a long overdue election now scheduled for Oct. 31 is just another mirage, tantalizingly close but destined to evaporate as the date approaches.

Guinea: Two senior Guinean election officials were sentenced to a year's imprisonment each over irregularities in the first round of the presidential election in June.

Nigeria: It’s Official: After extensive legal and administrative brainstorming, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released the timetable for the conduct of the 2011 general election, fixing the presidential election for January 22 next year.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN DOMESTIC POLITICS

Central Africa: Rwanda: Human Rights Watch called for Rwanda President Paul Kagame to allow open political space and permit opposition voices as he began his second term in office.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he will continue discussions with Rwanda's President on a soon-to-be released United Nations report on serious human rights violations committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

D. R. Congo: The aid organization OXFAM says the number of women, children and even men who were raped recently in the Eastern DRC is now about 500. That’s about double the figure currently being used by the United Nations.

Nigeria: Nigerian billionaire businessman, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has donated $2 million to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to help the survivors of the devastating floods in Pakistan.

Christian-Muslims Peace Movement (CMPM),Group Condemns Insecurity in Nigeria and has called on the Federal and state governments to as a matter of urgency put in place pragmatic policies and solutions aimed at ensuring security of the lives and property of the citizenry.

Gambia: The Director of African Democracy and Good Governance Edwin Nebolisa Nwakame was last week sentenced by Magistrate Abeke of Banjul Magistrates' Court to a mandatory jail term of six months imprisonment with hard labour.

A Scottish Missionary man serving a jail sentence for sedition in the Gambia has been freed from Gambian jail, the Foreign Office confirmed.

HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT AND DOMESTIC POLITICS

West Africa: Ghana: The country has been able to save close to $300million, following the vigorous campaign throughout the country on energy conservation since 2007, the Energy Foundation (EF) has revealed.

The country, especially Accra, has been hit by a devastating shortage of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), leading to many households resorting to the use of charcoal.

Nigeria: The incessant setting and shifting of deadlines for ending the flaring of Gas by associated gas (AG) in Nigeria in spite of the 2005 ruling of Justice C. V. Nwokorie of the High Court of Benin that such practice had become illegal and it has been alleged attributed to the interest of some legislators.

The Federal Government of Nigeria came up with an update on the rampaging scourge of cholera epidemic in some parts of Northern States of the country, saying that 13,000 people have been infected by the disease, while 781 have lost their lives.

Central Africa: DR. Congo: The World Health Organization said polio is spreading in Democratic Republic of Congo from neighboring Angola, creating an international threat. Despite the vaccine for polio discovered more than 50 years ago, yet the disease is gaining a foothold in central Africa.

POLITICAL ECONOMY

West Africa: Ghana: India has sought a greater role in Ghana’s energy sector, pitching for more tie-ups between ONGC Videsh (OVL), the overseas exploratory and acquisition arm of the state-run upstream major, and oil companies of the African nation.

The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) said on Monday that it had lifted about one million barrels of crude oil from Equatorial Guinea under an agreement signed between Ghana and Equatorial Guinea last May.

Liberia: The Governments of the Republic of Liberia and the Federal Republic of Germany on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 signed a Comprehensive Financial Cooperation Agreement.

Sierra Leone: London Mining's extended drilling programme at its flagship Marampa project in northern Sierra Leone has uncovered two structures with an estimated inferred resource of 111 million tonnes grading 33% iron.

Nigeria: The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) owes petroleum suppliers between $3 billion and $6 billion for previous imports, trade sources told Reuters, although the corporation said it was meeting its obligations.

Nigeria and the United Kingdom have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate the authorization of employment for dependants of Mission officers to engage in gainful employment during the period of the officers' posting.

Central Africa: ZIJIN Mining Group Co has dropped a plan to acquire a Congolese copper miner, the second time this year it withdrew from an overseas investment plan. §

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