Militarising The Sahel Will Not Defeat Terrorism

BY AYODELE S. OWOLABI

ASSOCIATE LECTURER  IN INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS, AT LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES

UNIVERSITY

After launching what he called “a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS [ISIL] terrorist scum” in northwest Nigeria on December 25, United States President Donald Trump promised “many more”, reaffirming his stance that the US “will not allow radical Islamic terrorism to prosper”. The strikes occurred less than a week after the newly formed Alliance of Sahel States (AES) commissioned a joint military force comprising a 5,000-strong contingent, presented as a symbol of collective self-reliance and security autonomy, in a concerted effort to combat terrorist groups in its member states. They also followed moves by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to establish an ambitious plan announced in August 2025 to activate a 260,000-strong joint counterterrorism force, backed by a proposed $2.5bn annual budget for logistics and front-line support.

While these developments may be presented by their proponents as decisive steps against terrorism, there is little evidence that militarised escalation alone can defeat armed groups in the Sahel. Instead, they signal an accelerating militarisation of the region. Not only does this fuel emerging geopolitical tensions in West Africa, but it also, more importantly, edges the Sahel towards interstate armed conflict, posing far graver risks to regional peace and stability.

A friendship turned sour

Until 2021, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations in the Sahel were governed by a loosely coordinated, non-hierarchical security architecture built around diplomatic and military collaboration among regional and extra-regional actors. This architecture brought together ECOWAS, the European Union, the United Nations, the African Union, external powers such as the US and France, as well as regional powers such as Algeria and Nigeria, with ECOWAS playing a central coordinating role.

A typical example was the 2013 African-led International Support Mission to Mali, organised by ECOWAS in collaboration with the AU, UN and France to confront Tuareg rebels and allied armed groups in northern Mali. More prominent was the EU-financed G5 Sahel counterterrorism force, which brought together African and European troops and operated between 2017 and 2023. While these arrangements were often marked by tension, competition and uneven outcomes, they functioned within a shared security framework that limited direct confrontation between states.

This balance was disrupted after the 2023 coup in Niger. By threatening the use of force to restore constitutional order, ECOWAS crossed a political threshold that transformed its role from intermediary to perceived adversary in the eyes of the Nigerien junta. That threat was widely interpreted as an act of aggression, and it proved catalytic. In response, Niger’s military rulers, alongside their counterparts in Mali and Burkina Faso, moved to establish the Alliance of Sahel States as a deliberate effort to reclaim security autonomy, dismantle the existing multilateral security regime and sever ties with longstanding partners including ECOWAS, the EU, the US and France.

Notably, the AES institutionalises a mutual defence pact that codifies this break with the previous multilateral security order by explicitly framing ECOWAS and its Western partners as threats to the sovereignty and national security of its member states. Beyond deepening the rift between former allies, this posture signals a dangerous shift towards the securitisation of neighbouring states, raising the spectre of interstate conflict in West Africa, a phenomenon largely absent since the 1990s.

Emerging geopolitical tensions

In severing security ties with the West, the AES have pivoted towards Russia as a principal security partner to counterbalance decades of US and European influence in West Africa, signalling a deepening but still evolving security partnership with Moscow. While these strategic choices reflect an emerging self-help posture with new preferences for non-conventional allies, they are also intensifying geopolitical tensions across the region.

Nigeria’s military role in countering an attempted coup in neighbouring Benin was praised as a major win for ECOWAS. But when a Nigerian Air Force C-130 aircraft made an emergency landing in Burkina Faso two days later, the AES interpreted this as a violation of its airspace and sovereignty, authorising its air force to neutralise any aircraft involved in further violations. Tensions were heightened by reports that France had provided Nigeria with surveillance and intelligence support during the Benin intervention, fuelling apprehension about France’s potential re-entry into the AES security landscape. With Nigeria now willing to extend security cooperation with the US following the Christmas Day strikes, the stakes have risen further for the AES. Although aimed at militants operating in northwest Nigeria, the strikes appear calculated to bolster US strategic legitimacy as a counterterrorism actor in the region, potentially opening the door to further operations in Nigeria’s northeast, where ISWAP and Boko Haram remain active.

Given Nigeria’s influence within ECOWAS, this emerging security partnership with the US is likely to shape the operational capacity of the proposed 260,000-strong ECOWAS force. This does not bode well for the AES, which is intent on insulating its member states from Western security influence in the name of sovereignty. Because ECOWAS forces would be deployed in member states at the epicentre of terrorist violence, many combat engagements would take place in locations adjacent to AES territories. With AES troops also operating in these areas, military clashes between the two sides become increasingly likely, particularly given the region’s porous borders and fluid combat environments. Given that the Christmas Day strikes reportedly hit unintended targets, the risk that future air strikes by a US-backed ECOWAS could spill into AES territory cannot be dismissed. For deterrence, the AES may seek to leverage Russia’s military backing, evoking echoes of Cold War-era security brinkmanship.

Implications for regional stability

Without reconciliation between the AES and ECOWAS, two major risks loom for regional peace and stability. First, rising geopolitical tensions could draw AES and ECOWAS member states into direct interstate military confrontations, potentially plunging West Africa into a regional war. Such a conflict would serve neither side’s counterterrorism objectives. Beyond devastating the region, it would create space for armed groups to expand their operations amid fractured and distracted security responses. Second, the standoff risks turning West Africa into a new theatre for global power rivalry, with a Russia-backed AES on one side and a US and France-backed ECOWAS on the other. In the context of an emerging New Cold War, the use of veto power by these global actors at the UN Security Council could further complicate conflict resolution, with profoundly destabilising consequences for the region.

The AES and ECOWAS now face a stark choice: to revive Cold War-style bloc politics in West Africa while the region slides towards chaos, or to negotiate a security sub-coalition that prioritises human security alongside national sovereignty. Regardless of how the AES views ECOWAS, the burden lies with the latter to manage the unintended consequences of escalating tensions. While there are few indications that the AES is willing to cooperate directly with a West-backed ECOWAS on counterterrorism, ECOWAS could pursue diplomatic engagement to negotiate a concept of operations that guarantees respect for AES sovereignty. As Africa’s most experienced regional security organisation, ECOWAS possesses the diplomatic capacity to do so. For progress to be made, Francophone ECOWAS member states should take the lead in these efforts, while Nigeria exercises its influence more discreetly. Whether ECOWAS can reclaim ownership of its security agenda and define the terms of external engagement will shape not only West Africa’s future, but that of the continent as a whole.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Trump’s USAID Freeze Must Serve As A Wake-Up Call For Africa

BY TAFI MHAKA

On January 20, President Donald Trump sanctioned a 90-day halt on foreign aid, a decision that affected all financial support distributed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The decision has had a profound impact and generated widespread alarm worldwide, none more so than in Africa.

In 2023, USAID had allocated a total of $12.1bn to countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with the objective of improving healthcare, delivering food assistance, and promoting security. Critically, USAID distributes funds for the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the global fund to fight AIDS.

The 90-day funding freeze has caused considerable distress across Africa, as millions of people dependent on services supported by the US government now face a daunting and uncertain future.

On February 6, in a comprehensive briefing to Parliament, South Africa’s Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi outlined the widespread effect of PEPFAR on the country’s HIV response. He revealed that PEPFAR contributes 17 percent of the total funding, which surpasses 7.5 billion rand ($407m), and supports various programmes for the 7.8 million South Africans living with HIV/AIDS, the highest figure in the world. He also pointed out that more than 15,000 healthcare personnel, including nurses, pharmacists, and directors, are remunerated through PEPFAR.

South Africa’s HIV/AIDS response is certainly in a precarious state now, subject to the Trump administration’s whimsical, aggressive and vindictive political agenda. Nevertheless, the truth is that this “USAID crisis” might have been averted if the Southern African nation had assumed responsibility for its socioeconomic issues in the first place, instead of delegating them to a foreign nation that has now become hostile.

As the most advanced, diversified, and productive economy in Africa, South Africa should not have relied excessively on PEPFAR, particularly to the extent that USAID funding becomes a fundamental component of its health budget.

This dependence on USAID funding is actually a symptom of a more critical problem within the healthcare system and the government as a whole: widespread, high-level mismanagement and corruption. Each year, due to gross maladministration and unchecked corruption, South Africa loses billions of rand, funds that are essential for addressing vital service delivery needs, including those related to HIV/AIDS healthcare.

Tembisa Provincial Tertiary Hospital (TPTH), a public facility under the auspices of the Gauteng Department of Health, serves as a prominent example of the extensive deprivation caused by corrupt practices. In August 2024, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), an independent agency of the South African government responsible for investigating malfeasance in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), reported that corruption networks had caused financial losses exceeding 3 billion rand at the institution, with evidence pointing to the involvement of senior hospital staff in these illicit operations.

For several years now, the hospital has struggled to meet its service delivery obligations and faced substantial resource limitations, including critical shortages of specialised staff and equipment, which have, in certain instances, resulted in preventable deaths.

The overspending, wasteful expenditure, and fraud seen at TPTH is, unfortunately, representative of a widespread trend.

Last year, the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) found that the Gauteng provincial government – just one of the nine provincial authorities in South Africa – incurred 9.879 billion rand in irregular expenditure in the 2023-24 financial year. Moreover, irregular expenditure in 2024 reached 50.65 billion rand across 38 government departments, while 27 SOEs recorded a total of 69.35 billion rand.

When contextualised, such high figures demonstrate that the $7.5bn in yearly assistance from the US to South Africa is minor in comparison to the substantial billions that are lost as a result of fraud, mismanagement, and corruption.

By fostering a culture of clean and accountable governance, South Africa can substantially lessen or wholly eliminate its problematic dependency on assistance from the US in healthcare and beyond. A similar situation exists in Kenya, where the US has committed to providing $207m in assistance for the year 2024.

The suspension of aid from Washington has, in one instance, endangered the health of HIV-positive orphans residing at Nyumbani Children’s Home in Nairobi. Between 1999 and 2023, USAID and PEPFAR contributed more than $16m to the orphanage, allowing it to support approximately 50,000 children through its rescue centre and two outreach initiatives, Lea Toto and Nyumbani Village.

Without the requisite funding in place, thousands of vulnerable children could fall seriously ill or die. Many more youths might be deprived of vital HIV/AIDS counselling services.

Kenya, like South Africa, has the opportunity to extricate itself from the grip of the US aid industry and to support orphanages such as Nyumbani Children’s Home through its own funding. This, however, can occur only if the Kenyan government adopts a strong position against corruption, re-evaluates government expenditure, and focuses on enhancing effective governance

According to the findings of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, corruption is costing an estimated 608 billion Kenyan shillings annually ($4.7bn) to Kenya, equivalent to 7.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).

Nairobi has a responsibility to care for its most disadvantaged citizens. The children of Nyumbani Children’s Home should not have to rely on Washington for HIV/AIDS services. The primary reason these orphans are in such a challenging situation is the indifference of Kenya’s self-serving politicians towards their wellbeing and the overall welfare of the nation.

About 37.5 percent of the Kenyan population is regarded as multidimensionally poor, signifying they experience deprivation in multiple facets of life, including health, education, and living standards, as measured by the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). However, Kenyan President William Ruto, on March 16, 2023, appointed the most bloated administration in the East African nation’s recent history.

Ruto, a veteran politician, was also ranked second in the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project’s (OCCRP) 2024 Corrupt Person of the Year award, after Syria’s former strongman Bashar al-Assad. This award, embarrassingly, honours leaders who are believed to be actively promoting global organised crime and corruption.

Meanwhile, in West Africa, Nigeria presents an even more compelling case than Kenya.

On February 14, Nigeria approved a funding allocation of $200m to mitigate an anticipated deficit in 2025, resulting from cuts in US health aid. In 2023, the US provided more than $600m in health support to Nigeria, accounting for over 21 percent of the nation’s annual health budget, primarily towards malaria prevention, HIV eradication, and vaccine distribution.

Nonetheless, many of Nigeria’s socioeconomic challenges are largely self-imposed. It must strive for greater self-sufficiency rather than relying on US assistance. The country has vast economic potential – a potential that cannot be fulfilled due to, among other things, significant corruption and waste. Nigeria loses approximately $18bn each year to financial misconduct and corrupt procurement processes. Corruption, according to a study compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Nigeria in 2016, may well reach 37 percent of the country’s GDP by 2030.

The report identified three main ramifications of corruption, notably a decline in governance effectiveness, which is primarily attributed to a reduced tax base and the ineffective distribution of government resources.

Nigeria – which experienced a wave of #EndBadGovernance protests in 2024 – certainly possesses the resources and capabilities to liberate itself from US aid permanently. To achieve this, the country must prioritise the implementation of strong, progressive, and principled governance.

From Zimbabwe to Uganda and Tanzania, gaining independence from the so-called benevolence of the West must be seen as a crucial element of Africa’s postcolonial success.

The painful and often humiliating contradiction of Western countries providing billions in aid to inefficient and sleazy African governments that preside over resource-rich countries should not remain the norm.

African nations must immediately shoulder full and unqualified responsibility for the persistent challenges faced by so many of their underprivileged communities.

The lives of everyday Africans should not be contingent upon US aid and the whims of Western politicians. Africa can and must look after its people.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Israel Orders Al Jazeera To Close Its Local Operation And Seizes Some Equipment From Channel

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel on Oct. 28, 2023. Netanyahu pledged Tuesday, April 30 to launch an incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering from the almost 7-month-long war, just as cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas appear to be gaining steam. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)

BY TIA GOLDENBERG AND JON GAMBRELL

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (AP) — Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance.

The extraordinary order, which includes confiscating broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites, is believed to be the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet.

Al Jazeera went off Israel’s main cable provider in the hours after the order. However, its website and multiple online streaming links still operated Sunday.

The network has reported the Israeli-Hamas war nonstop since the militants’ initial cross-border attack Oct. 7 and has maintained 24-hour coverage in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s grinding ground offensive that has killed and wounded members of its own staff. While including on-the-ground reporting of the war’s casualties, its Arabic arm often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other militant groups in the region.

“Al Jazeera reporters harmed Israel’s security and incited against soldiers,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “It’s time to remove the Hamas mouthpiece from our country.”

Al Jazeera issued a statement vowing it will “pursue all available legal channels through international legal institutions in its quest to protect both its rights and journalists, as well as the public’s right to information.”

“Israel’s ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to conceal its actions in the Gaza Strip, stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law,” the network said. “Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation and threats will not deter Al Jazeera.”

Israeli media said the order allows Israel to block the channel from operating in the country for 45 days.

The Israeli government has taken action against individual reporters over the decades since its founding in 1948, but broadly allows for a rambunctious media scene that includes foreign bureaus from around the world, even from Arab nations. That changed with a law passed last month, which Netanyahu’s office says allows the government to take action against a foreign channel seen as “harming the country.”

Israeli Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi later published footage online of authorities raiding a hotel room Al Jazeera had been broadcasting from in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to one day have for their future state. He said officials seized some of the channel’s equipment there.

“We finally are able to stop Al Jazeera’s well-oiled incitement machine that harms the security of the country,” Karhi said.

The ban did not appear to affect the channel’s operations in the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, where Israel wields control but which are not sovereign Israeli territory.

The decision threatens to heighten tensions with Qatar at a time when the Doha government is playing a key role in mediation efforts to halt the war in Gaza, along with Egypt and the United States.

Qatar has had strained ties with Netanyahu in particular since he made comments suggesting that Qatar is not exerting enough pressure on Hamas to prompt it to relent in its terms for a truce deal. Qatar hosts Hamas leaders in exile at a political office in Doha.

The sides appear to be close to striking a deal, but multiple previous rounds of talks have ended with no agreement.

In a statement Sunday, Hamas condemned the Israeli government order, calling on international organizations to take measures against Israel.

The Foreign Press Association in Israel criticized the order.

“With this decision, Israel joins a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station,” it said. “This is a dark day for the media.”

Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, criticized the Israeli order as “an assault on freedom of the press.”

“Rather than trying to silence reporting on its atrocities in Gaza, the Israeli government should stop committing them,” he added.

Shortly after the government’s decision, Cabinet members from the National Unity party criticized its timing, saying it “may sabotage the efforts to finalize the negotiations and stems from political considerations.” The party said that in general, it supported the decision.

Israel has long had a rocky relationship with Al Jazeera, accusing it of bias. Relations took a major downturn nearly two years ago when Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was killed during an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.

Those relations further deteriorated following the outbreak of Israel’s war against Hamas on Oct. 7, when the militant group carried out a cross-border attack in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Since then, the Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed over 34,000 people, according to local health officials there, who don’t break figures down into civilians and combatants.

In December, an Israeli strike killed an Al Jazeera cameraman as he reported on the war in southern Gaza. The channel’s bureau chief in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh, was wounded in the same attack. Dahdouh, a correspondent well-known to Palestinians during many wars, later evacuated Gaza but only after Israeli strikes killed his wife, three of his children and a grandson.

Al Jazeera is one of the few international media outlets to remain in Gaza throughout the war, broadcasting bloody scenes of airstrikes and overcrowded hospitals and accusing Israel of massacres.

Criticism of the channel is not new, however. The U.S. government singled out the broadcaster during America’s occupation of Iraq after its 2003 invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and for airing videos of the late al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

Al Jazeera has been closed or blocked by other Mideast governments. Most notably in 2013, Egyptian authorities raided a luxury hotel used by Al Jazeera as an operating base after the military takeover that followed mass protests against President Mohammed Morsi.

Three Al Jazeera staff members, Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed received 10-year prison sentences, but were released in 2015 following widespread international criticism.

Gambrell reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Jack Jeffrey in Jerusalem contributed.

2021: The Year Of Failed Political Leadership

BY NANJALANYABOLA

AL JAZEERA

A protester holds a placard during a demonstration demanding more action while G20 climate and environment ministers hold a meeting in Naples, Italy, July 22, 2021 [File: Reuters/Guglielmo Mangiapane]

This year has shown that governance guided only by ideology without any concern for moral outcomes is dangerous.

2021 was the year of political leadership, or more importantly, lack of it, and an invitation to reflect on the social consequences of leadership failures. I think for many of us, it was the year that felt like when time slows down while you are witnessing an accident happen – two seconds that feel like two minutes – or in this case, twelve months that feel like a decade of closings, openings, lockdowns, mandates, curfews, hoarding and devastation.



In this year, in which millions of people lost everything, we are reminded that the purpose of leadership goes beyond telling people what to do. We are prompted to consider – in the spirit of recently departed philosopher bell hooks – how governance that has no love for the people it oversees is vulnerable to tyranny and failure.

Since the end of World War II, the dominant thinking in political science was that we were all stuck in a battle for ideas, that ideology was the most important thing to debate and that everything would flow from that. Communism versus capitalism was the thing, never mind the violence that proponents of both ideologies inflicted all around the world in the name of ideology.

Capitalist governments assassinated communist leaders in poor countries and funded shadow wars while ignoring the leadership vacuums they created, while communist governments sponsored never-ending conflicts while discounting their human cost.

From the so-called Third World, we watched as each side went to exactly the same extreme as the other, often in our countries, but tried to reassure us that when they enacted violence on us, it was out of love and when the other side did it, it was out of greed and hatred.

There was only limited engagement with the moral claims that the various leaders made: what mattered was that they sang from the correct ideological hymnbook.

2021 has reminded us that governance guided only by ideology without any concern for moral outcomes is a dangerous and deadly trap. Around the world, countries of various political persuasion are making a mockery of the claim that ideology can be an accurate predictor of how a country will perform in the middle of a crisis.

The main challenge is of course the COVID-19 pandemic, crashing into its third year and causing unprecedented upheaval and devastation. At the time of writing there were 280 million cases reported worldwide and up to 5.4 million deaths – i.e. the equivalent of a country the size of Slovakia being wiped out.

With the Omicron variant, countries like France and the United States are reporting their highest number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic, despite having vaccines in abundance. At the same time, there is a real anxiety in countries that have been denied access to vaccines through the complicity of the world’s wealthiest nations that this is the wave that will break through their meagre defences and the cycle of lockdowns and travel bans they have been depending on.

But it is not just COVID-19 that has revealed the paucity of moral leadership in the world. The global refugee and migrant crisis continues, with an increasing number of people on the move all over the world because of conflict, economic collapse and climate change.

The return of the Taliban in Afghanistan left hundreds of thousands of Afghans scrambling for an exit, the vast majority ending up in neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Iran without a plan except to avoid the reprisals that have since been enacted against those considered to have collaborated with the US occupation. In Myanmar, minorities persecuted by the junta are arriving in Bangladesh and Thailand by the hundreds, while the slow collapse of several Central American nations into political uncertainty and gang violence continues to send caravans towards the US-Mexico border.

The Mediterranean Sea remains a watery grave for thousands of people denied safe routes to asylum or migration while the English Channel and the Belarussian-Polish border have turned into new fronts where European countries can play politics with the lives of vulnerable people. Uighur people are still languishing in detention camps in China and the war in Yemen rages on, driven by Gulf countries and fought with weapons manufactured in the West.

2021 was also the year that the climate crisis hinted at the scale of devastation that is knocking at our doors. Flood waters rushed through and destroyed towns and cities in countries as far apart as Germany, the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia and Brazil. Unprecedented rainfall all over the world surged rivers that had quietly run their course for hundreds of years and they suddenly burst their banks.

In 2021, temperatures in the Arctic peaked, while scientists warned that Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier threatens to collapse in the next three years and could raise sea levels by more than half a metre (about 20 inches), damning coastal cities like New York, Mumbai, and Mombasa. And yet, the UN Climate Conference held in Glasgow culminated in a mealy-mouthed statement and a heartbroken conference chair softly weeping at the podium as a result of the failure.

2021 is an invitation to reconsider ideology as the be all and end all for measuring how governments perform, inviting us instead to judge them by what they do and not just what they say. The capitalism of the United States has failed to deliver a meaningful response to the COVID-19 pandemic; it has secured a glut of vaccines but failed in establishing a functioning COVID-19 testing system or retaining medical staff, as doctors and nurses leave the profession for lack of support.

Meanwhile tiny communist Cuba has developed its own vaccine, fully inoculated 85 percent of its population and kept a low mortality rate of 0.9 percent compared to the US’s 1.6 percent.

Canada, often vaunted as an example of democracy and progress has been one of the worst offenders in regards to hoarding vaccines and taking discriminatory political action, including racist bans against Southern African countries for flagging the emergence of the new strain.

Russia is spoiling for a war in Ukraine even while the COVID-19 death rate in the country hovers at around 2.9 percent.

By contrast, the leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Adern in New Zealand continues to set a new global standard for what governance beyond rhetoric and ideological competition should look like – providing for people, maintaining open lines of communication between government and the governed, responding swiftly to emerging challenges.

All of these contradictions and more are an invitation to think beyond ideology as a simplistic frame of reference. 2021 has reminded us that there is an emptiness behind the simplistic “us-versus-them” narratives that currently dominate political thinking and practice. These are approaches to politics that are centred on competition rather than cooperation, and jingoistic nationalism that privileges the political survival of the few over the collective well-being of the many.

In the spirit of bell hooks, whose untimely death has robbed the world of a scholar who created a framework of thinking about politics and society rooted in values like love, 2021 was the year that a tiny virus invited us to remember why we enter society in the first place – to make sure that we are all better off and not to pursue empty ideological triumphs at the expense of others. Political leaders should take heed if 2022 is to be any better.

Nanjala Nyabola is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is the author of "Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics", a book on the impact of the internet on Kenyan politics (Zed Books, 2018)

Ethiopia Arrests Associated Press Freelance Journalist

News agency calls for immediate release of Amir Aman Kiyaro, says he has done ‘important work on all sides’ of Ethiopia’s conflict.

Freelance video journalist Amir Aman Kiyaro [Handout via AP Photo]

Police in conflict-hit Ethiopia have arrested a freelance video journalist working for The Associated Press (AP), the United States news agency and state media said.

On Wednesday, AP called for the immediate release of Amir Aman Kiyaro, who it said was arrested in the capital, Addis Ababa, on November 28 after returning from a reporting trip.

Two other local journalists, identified by state media as Thomas Engida and Addisu Mulneh, were also arrested.

Journalists working in Ethiopia face restrictions under a nationwide state of emergency declared last month by the government, which has been locked in a brutal 13-month conflict with fighters from the country’s northern Tigray region.

The declaration, valid for six months, allows suspects to be detained without trial for as long as the state of emergency lasts and allows house-to-house searches without a warrant.

The emergency rules banned the sharing of non-official information about military movements and battlefield outcomes, with residents also barred from “using various types of media platforms to support directly or indirectly the terrorist group” – a reference to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which is fighting government forces.

Ethiopian police inspector Tesfaye Olani accused the three journalists of breaching the state of emergency laws by seeking to disseminate “propaganda” about the TPLF and its ally, the Oromo Liberation Army. He said their actions could be punishable by prison terms of seven to 15 years.

Images of the three journalists, as well as their ID cards, were broadcast by state media in a video report on their arrest.

“The Associated Press is extremely concerned that AP freelancer Amir Aman Kiyaro has been detained by the Ethiopian government, accused of promoting terrorism,” AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Julie Pace said in a statement.

“These are baseless allegations. Kiyaro is an independent journalist who has done important work in Ethiopia on all sides of the conflict. We call on the Ethiopian government to release Kiyaro immediately.”

Separately, the state-affiliated Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said on Wednesday it was monitoring the situation of four other detained local journalists, including two whose whereabouts are unknown.

In a statement on Twitter, called for the immediate disclosure of the whereabouts of both detainees to their families and legal counsel and to guarantee their visitation rights.

“The commission also reiterates that the relevant authorities should closely monitor that the state of emergency proclamation is implemented in a manner that strictly adheres to human rights principles.”

Much of the conflict-affected zones in northern Ethiopia is under a communications blackout and access for journalists is heavily restricted.
Journalists behind bars

Meanwhile, in a new report on Thursday, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said there are 488 media professionals imprisoned around the world, the highest since the NGO began counting more than 25 years ago.

“The number of journalists detained in connection with their work has never been this high since RSF began publishing its annual round-up in 1995,” the NGO, which battles for freedom of the press, said in a statement.

The number of journalists killed went down to 46, but the 20 percent increase in imprisoning media professionals is largely due to the government crackdowns in Hong Kong, Belarus, and Myanmar.

RSF said it had also never seen so many female journalists detained, with the overall number of 60 representing a third more than 2020.

The report follows the review by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), who put the number at 293 reporters behind bars in its own report last week – a new global high.

According to CPJ, Ethiopia has imprisoned 14 journalists since declaring a state of emergency on December 2.

“The Ethiopian government should release all journalists detained for their work and stop using the state of emergency as a pretext to infringe on freedom of expression,” said CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Nigerians Mark 50 Years Of End Of Bloody Civil War

Most people died from disease and starvation during the 30-month Biafra civil war [File: Getty Images]

BY FIDELIS MBAH

ABUJA, NIGERIA (AL JAZEERA) - Fifty years ago, a devastating civil war that killed more than one million people in Nigeria came to an end.

Most of those who lost their lives in what became known as the Biafran war died from fighting, disease and starvation during the two-and-a-half-year conflict.

In 1967, Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the military governor of Nigeria's then-Eastern Region inhabited mainly by Igbo people, accused the federal government of marginalising and killing thousands of ethnic Igbos living in the north.

On May 30 of that year, Odumegwu-Ojukwu declared the former Eastern Region a sovereign and independent republic under the name of Biafra - a unilateral move rejected by the federal authorities.

A bloody civil war ensued, with federal troops deployed to stop the secessionist movement.

The Nigerian forces cut off aid and access to the area throughout the war, which ended with the surrender of Biafra in January 1970.

The Republic of Biafra ceased to exist and General Yakubu Gowon, the leader of the federal government, famously declared that there was "no victor, no vanquished" in the war.

Fifty years on, the scars are yet to heal for many, including former fighters who suffered injuries and others who lost their loved ones and suffered huge economic losses.

On Monday, at a "Never Again" conference held in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, Igbo leaders from the southeast urged the government to step up development efforts in the region and called for increased political inclusion and economic support to end fresh calls for a breakaway Biafra state.

In 2017, a regional court ordered the Nigerian government to pay 50 billion nairas ($138m, today's prices) in damages to civil war victims. The Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice also ruled that 38 billion nairas ($105m, today's prices) should be put towards evacuating abandoned lethal weapons which deprived southeast communities of farmland since the civil war ended.

But for Canada-based Igbo leader Benjamin Allison, financial reparation is not enough.

"You cannot compensate anyone for past injuries without an acknowledgement that a damage or harm had been done to them. Nonetheless, the only true compensation the Igbos seek from Nigeria at this point is a government based on fairness, equity and justice," Allison said.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in 2017 approved the payment of pensions of former police officers who served in Biafra during the civil war. The officers were granted a presidential pardon in 2000 by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The Nigerian government has repeatedly said it is committed to developing the region and recently undertook a series of road projects.

But Vincent Nnanna, who was barely 10 years old when the civil war broke out and was recruited to assist the Biafran soldiers with clerical work in Abia state, is not convinced by the government's efforts so far.

"The clamour for equity and respect for fundamental human rights by the Igbos in particular and the southeast at large has continued to fall on deaf ears," he said.
'Continued agitation'

Separatist sentiment has not been wished away, and in recent years the pro-Biafra movement has seen some resurgence. The red, black and green flag of Biafra with a rising golden sun still dots the frontage of some commercial buildings and houses in the southeast region.

Rights group Amnesty International accused the country's security forces of killing at least 150 Biafra separatists at peaceful rallies between August 2015 and August 2016 and detaining hundreds demonstrating in support of a breakaway state. The military and police denied the allegations.

Nnamdi Kanu, a leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group, is the most visible face of the movement. He was held for nearly two years for treasonable felony charges before being granted bail on health grounds in April 2017.

Kanu fled Nigeria under controversial circumstances in 2018 but still coordinates the group's activities from his base in the United Kingdom.

In 2017, following a number of IPOB-organised protests across Nigeria over a period of years, the government banned the group and declared it a "terrorist organisation".

"They masquerade as a separatist movement, yet they endanger the very people they claim to represent," Information Minister Lai Mohammed said in a 2017 statement about the government's move to outlaw the group.

"In reality, IPOB cares about IPOB and nothing more."

The government's pronouncement, however, has not stopped the group's activities - especially overseas where it enjoys the support of millions of Igbos in the diaspora.

"Continued agitation for Biafra is impelled and spurred by state-sponsored or supported injustice which left most Igbo youth with a sense of hopelessness and lack of outlets to express their ... talents, potentials and ambitions," Allison said.

He alleged that no real effort has been made to develop the region, support business, create jobs and ensure adequate security.

Nnanna, however, said he is not happy with the approach of those leading the calls for a new Biafra.

"The regrets I have over Biafra is that since after the death of the forebears, some mercenaries have emerged on the scene purporting to have the spiritual mandate to champion the Biafran cause to a positive conclusion - only for them to herd the ... crowd onto a blind alley, leaving the agitators confused and almost disillusioned," Nnanna said.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Sarki, a public affairs analyst, called for more efforts towards reconciliation.

"The continued discussions about the Biafra war won't help the country to move forward. Our leaders already declared that no side won the war. We need to forget the past and focus on how to fix Nigeria," Sarki said.

"The civil war was not a pleasant experience for many people, not just Igbos. We are better as a united country."

The Problem Is Not 'Negative' Western Media Coverage Of Africa

Rather, it is the lack of in-depth and nuanced reporting on the continent and beyond.

BY PATRICK GATHARA

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A recent job ad for Nairobi bureau chief the New York Times posted has sparked controversy [Reuters]

The New York Times is once again in Kenyans' crosshairs. Just six months after it was excoriatedfor publishing graphic pictures of the victims of January's hotel attack in Nairobi, which forced it to shelve the appointment of Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura as head of its Nairobi bureau, the search for a replacement has stirred up another hornet's nest.

In an ad for the position that appears to have been taken straight out of the late Binyavanga Wainaina's famous satirical essay, How To Write About Africa, the Times repeated many of the problematic stereotypes have dominated much reporting on the continent.

The job, it proclaimed, would offer "tremendous opportunity to dive into news and enterprise across a wide range of countries, from the deserts of Sudan and the pirate seas of the Horn of Africa, down through the forests of Congo and the shores of Tanzania". In addition to covering seemingly ubiquitous conflict and suffering, the successful candidate would also get to "delight our readers with unexpected stories of hope" in the region.

Many Kenyans online have predictably responded with outrage. It "says a lot about the kinds of stories they want from Eastern Africa", tweeted Ken Opalo, who is an assistant professor at Georgetown University. He warned that "the biggest losers from this sort of madness" would not be Eastern Africans, but the daily's American audience who "continue to be fed [and believe] myths and as a result are increasingly economically [and] geopolitically uncompetitive in the region".

The NYT's international editor, Michael Slackman, belatedly offered a mea culpa on Twitter in which he took responsibility for the ad, blaming it on his “taking a short cut: Rather than write a new job description, a posting from about 18 months went out”. Why this would have been deemed appropriate in 2017 is left unaddressed and no actual apology was offered. However, despite his non-apology, the offending ad is yet to be taken down.


For many Kenyans, it is reminiscent of the similar non-apology they got in the aftermath of the January incident. Despite acknowledgment of the need to "make decisions based on the fact that we serve a global audience", the offending photo remains on the NYT's website. A promise to "convene a group of people to come up with clearer guidelines" to ensure "consistent standards that apply across the world" has seemingly not been kept.

The complaints about negative coverage in Western media are not new. Media negativity and its consequences have been bemoaned the world over, but perhaps nowhere more than in Africa - where the prevailing perception is that foreign media, and Western correspondents in particular, have gone out of their way to portray the continent as the nadir of human civilisation. A dark continent of unspeakable "tribal" savageries, unmitigated suffering, horrible epidemics and child-like helplessness all bounded by breathtaking vistas of natural beauty.

However, it would be good to keep some perspective. Slackman is right when he urges people to "judge our correspondents on the quality of their work, not that job posting". While it is true that one can readily find examples of racist and colonial stereotypes in many Western news reports, as pointed out by Kenyan writer Nanjala Nyabola, a 2016 study by Dr Toussaint Nothias of the Center for African Studies at Stanford University also found that there is no empirical evidence for the assertion that Western media coverage "systematically refers to 'tribalism' and 'darkness', treats Africa as a country and relies predominantly on Western voices".

He echoes a 2015 paper by Martin Scott of the University of East Anglia who reviewed the research into US and UK media representations of Africa in the previous quarter century and concluded that "the widespread belief that we know how Africa is represented in the US and UK media is … a myth".

Still, there is a perception that much of what international audiences hear about Africa is overwhelmingly negative even when not overtly racist. Between May and September 2010, the 10 most-read US newspapers and magazines carried 50 times more articles mentioning poverty in Africa, than mentioning gross domestic product (GDP) growth. But is Africa unique in this? Are we being singled out?

Not exactly. For example, one 2013 study of the coverage of China by three major Western outlets, including the Times, found that nearly half of all political coverage was about corruption. Further, as noted by Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian in Foreign Policy, "US news tends to slant towards the negative and the sensational - making its critical coverage of China a normal feature of the media landscape". The same could be said about the coverage of Africa.

Africans must also focus on the practices of local media, which is just as guilty of the sins which Western journalists are routinely accused of. This week, South Africa's Mail & Guardian published a series of "inspiring, uplifting and positive stories from around the African continent" in a "good news" edition.

That this was deemed necessary only highlights the fact that on the continent, like everywhere else, the telling of the news is largely perceived to default to the negative. Yet here too, the problem is less that we need more good news stories than that the stories we are told are largely decontextualised.

There is no good and bad news; there is just the news. The false dichotomy between positive and negative stories is a reflection of the lack of the sort of storytelling which allows audiences to make sense of events within a wider universe of African experience. Like their Western counterparts, local media engages in shorthand - it reports rather than explains.

The episodic tales which it tells are not related to one another to produce a more complete scene. Each is presented as an isolated, self-contained event - a story with a beginning, middle and end - rather than part of a wider tapestry of experience. This approach is what generates the false dichotomy of positive and negative news that then needs to be "balanced". The picture drawn is poor not because the subject is "bad", but because it is incomplete. And this performs a great disservice to audiences.

One way Western media organisations can address the issue is by rethinking the role of the foreign correspondent. In today's world, is it really possible to justify the anachronistic search for foreign bureau chiefs when local reporters can provide much better local context and feel for the circumstances of their own countries? Given that skewed power dynamics dictate that Africans care more about their representation in Western media than Westerners do about how African media covers them, it is time Western outlets privilege local journalistic expertise and choices.

Recruiting local journalists who can explain rather than simply report, as well as improving the output of local media can provide context for the horror stories the media gravitates to, making Africa seem less of - in the words of journalist Shayera Dark - "a war-torn, disease-ridden, poverty-stricken hellscape where all hope dies".

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

20 Years Of Democracy: Has Nigeria Changed For The Better?

Nigeria's economy has grown six-fold since the return of democracy in 1999 [Dan Kitwood/Getty]

BY HAMZA MOHAMED
Two decades ago, in a colourful ceremony held in the capital, Abuja, Nigeria's military handed over power to an elected civilian leader.

Generals had ruled the oil-rich West African country for the previous 15 years.

The ceremony was attended by more than 40 heads of state and representatives from foreign countries.

The mood was upbeat and the new leader promised prosperity to the thousands of his countrymen who were in the stadium. Millions of others watched the ceremony on television. Others listened to newly elected president Olusegun Obasanjo's speech on radio.

But after 20 years of democracy and four presidents, where is Nigeria today?

Economic malaise

The country's economy has seen a boom since the return of civilian rule. Nigeria's GDP has grown six-fold since 1999, according to World Bank data.

In 1999, despite its vast oil wealth, Nigeria's GDP was a mere $59bn. That figure skyrocketed to $375bn by the end of 2017.

"The economy is doing much better now because there is a greater level of trust in our economic institutions. There is also more foreign investments now compared to the military era," Aliyu Audu, an Abuja-based economist, told Al Jazeera.

Nigeria, the continent's most populous country, is still heavily reliant on oil. Petroleum represents more than 80 percent of total export revenue, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

When the global oil price crashed in 2016, Nigeria's economy was not spared. The country went into a recession, its first in 25 years.

The economy, the biggest on the continent ahead of South Africa, has not fully recovered. Unemployment stands at 23 percent and inflation at 11 percent, according to official figures.

"Nigeria’s economy needs to diversify. We need to tap into the agricultural sector where the country can put millions of the unemployed to work. Investment in infrastructure will also put many young people to work and reduce double-digit inflation," Audu said.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics figures, 43 percent of the country’s 190 million population is either unemployed or underemployed.

Despite the recent economic boom, extreme poverty is common. Some 87 million Nigerians live in dire poverty, according to Washington-based Brookings Institution.

Nigeria overtook India, a country of 1.3 billion people, last year as the country that is home to the most extremely impoverished people in the world, it said.
Vast corruption

Nigeria still remains one of the most corrupt nations on the planet. Transparency International ranked the country 144 out 180 in its 2018 corruption perceptions index.

If corruption is not dealt with immediately it could cost Nigeria up to 37 percent of its GDP by 2030, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a global auditing firm.

This cost equates to nearly $2,000 per Nigerian resident by 2030, PwC said.

President Muhammadu Buhari launched an anti-corruption drive after taking office in May 2015.

"Corruption is still a huge problem, but it is not like what it was before. That is because the people have the choice to get rid of a leader if he is corrupt. That was not possible under the military generals. There are also whistleblowers now," Audu noted.
Security issues

Since 2009, northeastern Nigeria has been hit by security challenges. Boko Haram, a group that wants to establish an Islamic state following a strict interpretation of Islamic law, has waged a deadly insurgency.

The violence has killed thousands of people and forced more than two million from their homes.

The United Nations and human rights activists accused both Boko Haram and security forces fighting it of putting civilians, including many children, in harm's way.

The violence has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military coalition against the armed group.

In recent weeks, the coalition forces have pounded Boko Haram hideouts in the Lake Chad area with air strikes as well as launching ground assaults.

Boko Haram fighters kidnapped at least 276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok town. Five years after the attack, more than 112 girls are still missing.

A total of 107 girls have been found or released as part of a deal between the Nigerian government and the armed group.

Boko Haram allegedly operates its largest camp in the vast Sambisa forest in Nigeria's northeast.

The forest stretches for about 60,000 square kilometres in the southern part of the northeastern state of Borno, which has borne the brunt of Boko Haram's violence.

"More needs to be done to protect and preserve basic human rights in parts of the northeast. People live in fear from Boko Haram," Eze Onyekpere, a human rights activist, told Al Jazeera.

"Apart from the areas facing Boko Haram insurgency, rights of citizens have improved significantly since the return of civilian rule. Arbitrary arrests and torture are not common. We also have a constitution that safeguards the rights of all citizens," Onyekpere added.
Press freedom

Under the military, press freedom was severely restricted. Whistleblowers faced detention and possibly torture in custody.

Twenty years later, Nigeria has a vibrant media with the country also hosting bureaus for some of the world’s major media groups.

Reporters Without Borders ranks Nigeria 120 out of 180 in its 2019 press freedom index.

"Nigeria has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go. We could have been far ahead of where are currently," Onyekpere said.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Nigeria Celebrates Its Democracy But Millions Remain In Poverty

Nigeria's population continues to outpace its economic growth [Nyancho NwaNri/Reuters]

BY DAWN KISSI

AL JAZEERA

On Monday, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari officially made June 12 a public holiday. The day celebrates 20 years of democracy in a country that was under military rule for decades after winning its independence from Britain in 1960. However, as the West African nation celebrates, worries about its fragile economy persist.

While Nigeria's economy has recovered since falling into a recession in 2016, that growth has been slower than expected.

"Unfortunately, growth in the country has remained relatively stagnant following their recovery out of recession in 2017," Christopher Dielmann, director of macroeconomic and sovereign research with Tellimer, told Al Jazeera. Estimates by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank suggests that Nigeria's growth in 2019 and 2020 will register at 2.1 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

Today, Nigeria's oil-driven economy is less susceptible to any outside shocks such as falling oil prices, but disruption in domestic oil output remains a risk for Africa's largest economy.
Oil production risks

According to OPEC, Nigeria's oil and gas sector accounts for 65 percent of its government income.

"Oil production [in Nigeria] is on a long-term downwards trajectory," said Ed Hobey-Hamsher, a senior Africa analyst with global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. He explained that without the passage of the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, which is meant to improve transparency and attract investment in Nigeria's oil and gas sector, its oil output would suffer. "Oil production is projected to peak next year before steadily declining throughout the 2020s."

Hobey-Hamsher says that lower oil output will translate into less government revenue for Nigeria, meaning less money for the government to pay its bills.

This will delay spending on government projects that are needed to grow the economy.

Those projects are "required to address the most significant bottlenecks to sustained and sustainable economic growth, namely the infrastructure deficit and unemployment," he said.
Not enough jobs

Unemployment remains high. According to Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in the working-age group (15-64 years of age) unemployment has hit 23.1 percent. This is a five percent increase from 2017, when it was at 18.1 percent.

According to Dielmann, the biggest risk facing Nigeria is the lack of economic growth, rapid population increases, and increasing levels of unemployment.

his month, World Poverty Clock, a project of the World Data Lab which tracks income levels for individuals around the world, showed that more than 90 million Nigerians are now living in poverty. This is the second year in a row Nigeria has landed in the top spot of the World Poverty Clock. In May 2018 the country overtook India with the most people living in poverty.

World Poverty Clock defines poverty as living on less than $1.90 per day.

"Ultimately, the combination of these factors place a tremendous amount of social strain on the country's population that are not sustainable in the long term," Dielmann said.

"I think the GDP should be growing at least double the population growth rate in order for the country to lift its people out of poverty," Ayodele Akinwunmi, head of research with FSDH Merchant Bank Limited in Nigeria said. "So I expect a GDP growth rate range of 5-6 percent. This growth rate is achievable if the country can fix the identified constraints. Nigeria has achieved higher growth rates before."

Nigeria's Medical Brain Drain: Healthcare Woes As Doctors Flee

People wait outside a hospital after a building containing a school collapsed in Nigeria''s commercial capital Lagos, Nigeria March 13, 2019 [Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters]

BY MERCY ABANG

ABUJA (AL JAZEERA) - In March, hundreds of Nigerian doctors gathered at a hotel in Abuja, the capital, and another in Lagos, the country's commercial centre, to take a test conducted by the Saudi Arabian health ministry.

In a symbol of the Nigerian medical "brain drain", those yet to migrate must complete foreign exams in order to get work placements abroad.

Weeks before the attempt by Saudi Arabia to lure Nigeria's greatest medical talents, dozens had sat the regular Professional Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) exams at the British Council. Once they pass, it will enable them to work in the UK.

According to some estimates, about 2,000 doctors have left Nigeria over the past few years.

Doctors have blamed the mass exit on poor working conditions - only four percent of Nigeria's budget is allocated to health.

While the annual healthcare threshold per person in the US is $10,000, in Nigeria it is just $6.

"More than half of those seeking visas to [India] are going for medical care that is not available here in Nigeria. Indigent Nigerians would be at the mercy of the dilapidated health infrastructure," Onwufor Uche, consultant and director of the Gynae Care Research and Cancer Foundation in Abuja, told Al Jazeera.

"It has become worse; a doctor [in Nigeria] earns N200,000 monthly ($560), necessitating moving to countries where they can be better paid for their services … This ultimately means that eight of 10 Nigerians are presently receiving substandard or no medical care at all."

Middle-class and wealthy Nigerians often travel for healthcare. Even the septuagenarian Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, seeks medical care in London.

British, American, South African, Emirati and Saudi Arabian agencies operate in Nigeria to recruit the best doctors.

Nigeria's polling agency, NOI Polls, in partnership with Nigerian Health Watch in 2017, found that most doctors seek work abroad.

"The trend of doctors emigrating to other countries is at an all-time high," Chike Nwangwu, head of NOIPolls, told Al Jazeera in Abuja. "Our survey … showed that 88 percent of doctors are considering work opportunities abroad."

Reasons for emigrating include better facilities and work environment, higher salaries, career progression and an improved quality of life.
One doctor in 5,000

Medical schools and residencies are subsidised by government funds, an investment that is now benefiting other countries.

With an estimated population of over 180 million, there is one doctor per 5,000 people in Nigeria, according to Isaac Folorunso Adewole, the health minister, compared with the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation of one per 600 people.

There are 72,000 doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN); over half practise outside the country.

"Nine in every 10 doctors are considering work opportunities outside Nigeria. And it is projected to keep rising as doctors continue to face systemic challenges," said NOIPolls' Nwangwu. "I actually think [Nigeria] is already at the state of emergency with the availability of medical doctors."

The country's worsening health sector also grapples with strikes by health workers.

The government is often in conflict with the Nigerian Medical Association, an umbrella union of doctors, over working conditions. The union argues that government officials fail to stick to agreements, leading to industrial action.

When asked last year why Nigerian doctors had to wait a long time to get residency training, Adewole appeared to make light of the issue, saying: "It might sound selfish, but we can't all be specialists; we can't. Some will be farmers; some will be politicians … The man who sews my gown is a doctor. He makes the best gown. And some will be specialists, some will be GPs, some will be farmers."

As well as angering some doctors, the apparent failure to act seriously also affects patients.

"The government needs to urgently start addressing the issues and concerns of the medical workers and especially the doctors. The truth is, most of these doctors leave for better working conditions and you can't blame them," said Mariam Abdullahi, a 38-year-old patient at a hospital in Abuja.

"I am being referred to strange faces and different doctors almost at each of my bi-monthly visits and I'm always told the last doctor left the country. As a patient I feel heartbroken anytime my doctors leave, but what can I do when the system treats them poorly?"

UN: Boko Haram Threat Displaces 30,000 From Nigeria's Rann Town

Fears of renewed attacks by the armed group prompt the exodus of more than 30,000 people from the Nigerian town of Rann.

RANN, BORNO (AL JAZEERA)--More than 30,000 people fled the Nigerian town of Rann over the weekend amid fears of renewed attacks by the Boko Haram armed group, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday the town's population "seems to be panicking and they are on the run as a pre-emptive measure to save their lives."

Rann, near the border with Cameroon in northern Borno state, already saw an exodus of about 9,000 people earlier this month to Cameroon after a Boko Haram attack on January 14 killed 14 people.

Baloch said Cameroon sent back the 9,000 refugees and initially deployed troops that are part of a multinational taskforce to protect the town.

"It was a bit peaceful, but as far as we understand now, that multinational taskforce has left," he said.

Refugees told aid workers that Boko Haram fighters had "promised to return to Rann", he said, explaining the panic.

Baloch said UNHCR was reiterating its call to Cameroonian authorities "to keep the borders open, as we see thousands fleeing every day".
Tough living conditions

Baloch said a recent upsurge in violence in northeastern Nigeria had driven more than 80,000 civilians to seek refuge in already crowded camps or in towns in Borno state, "where they are surviving in tough living conditions".

Rann, he said, had already been housing about 80,000 displaced people.

"The escalation in the conflict has thwarted people's intention of returning to their homes," he said, adding some refugees who attempted to return home from Cameroon had been displaced multiple times inside Nigeria or forced to become refugees again in Cameroon.

"The hostilities have strained humanitarian operations there and forced aid workers to pull out from some locations," he said.

Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency, told reporters that 260 aid workers were withdrawn from three locations in Borno state since early December.

Eritrea-Ethiopia Peace Is Good News For Africa

In this grab taken from video provided by ERITV, Ethiopia's Abiy Ahmed is welcomed by Eritrea's Isaias Afwerki as he disembarks the plane in Asmara, Eritrea on July 8, 2018 [ERITV via AP]

BY NANJALA NYABOLA

EAST AFRICA (AL JAZEERA)--Diplomats from Ethiopia and Eritrea are calling it a "joint declaration of peace and friendship" but that innocuous name is masking what may be one of the most important political changes in East Africa in the past 20 years.

With a simple, five-pillar agreement the presidents of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which were once one country but were bitterly divided by one of Africa's most expensive and devastating conflicts, jointly declared its end.

It is very easy to be sceptical of the peace declaration given the region's history of unremitting conflict and political false starts. The Derg regime, which came to power in Ethiopia in 1974 following the ousting of Emperor Haile Selassie, was supposed to mark the end of imperial rule in the country, but in no time itself became a violent, bloody regime.

After fighting a war of liberation against the Derg regime for many years, Isaias Afwerki took control of the newly independent Eritrea in the early 1990's and swiftly transformed it into a hermit state.

In the name of remaining ready for war, hundreds of thousands of Eritreans have been forcefully conscripted into interminable military service. Despite its small population, Eritrea has consistently been producing the largest number of African refugees to Europe for years.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia constructed the most elaborate security state in East Africa. Millions of dollars that could have been spent on food security and development have instead been wasted on armies and surveillance, turning citizens into spies and destroying freedom of expression.

Therefore, the excitement and enthusiasm with which Ethiopians and Eritreans at home and abroad received the announcement about the end of the 20-year-long African Cold War are understandable. Thousands had been forced into exile as a result of rapid militarisation in both countries, and Monday's landmark agreement is the surest indicator yet that a pivot away from security-centred statehood is possible.

Yet, in the rest of East Africa, some have found it hard to process the news. The Kenyan media, for example, failed to devote any coverage to the event on the day and has only had marginal analysis since, despite the fact that thousands of Ethiopians and Eritreans currently live in Kenya. The changes Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is pursuing in Ethiopia will have an impact beyond the borders of his country and its neighbour, Eritrea. So how should East Africans especially, but outsiders in general see this peace declaration?

Between ending the war and decriminalising various political groups, Ahmed is breaking a network of political taboos that have been a constant hum in the background of east African politics for the past 20 years. Specifically the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia has been a seemingly unchangeable fact in a region that has a long history of protracted conflicts. So even floating peace as a possibility is a radical act of political transformation that changes the scope of what is possible or imaginable within the political arena - this could be the beginning of a major shift in the discourse around peace and security in East Africa and that needs to be acknowledged.

Of course, such a move will have political implications beyond this. In Kenya, the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) is a major infrastructure project that was developed with the explicit aim of connecting landlocked Ethiopia with the sea.

The animus with Eritrea meant that shared infrastructural connections between the countries that predated Eritrean independence could not be used. As the most stable country in the Horn, Djibouti has been a natural alternative for Ethiopia, although recently Addis Ababa has also made overtures to Somalia and Somaliland for the use of Berbera port.

Kenya maintains that the LAPSSET project is part of a broader continent-wide North-South, Cape to Cairo transport network, but regardless, the utility of the LAPSSET project and the displacement and disruption it has already created will now be under greater scrutiny following the peace accord between Asmara and Addis Ababa.

At the same time, tensions between Somalia and Somaliland about the use of Berbera port will seem less urgent if Ethiopia is able to develop a workable alternative through Eritrea. In June, Mogadishu accused Hargeisa of violating the conditions of semi-autonomy by entering into an agreement with Ethiopia over the development and use of the port, which they argue should have been approved at the federal level.

The tension forced Ethiopian diplomats to backtrack on commitments to direct trade through Berbera. With peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia, both of whom stand to gain immensely from normalisation of their relationship, the tension between Somalia and Somaliland will perhaps dissipate, at the very least taking another point of contention off the table.

None of this should overshadow the human element of this declaration - the fundamental reason why this matters. Like India and Pakistan, or Sudan and South Sudan, the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea has torn families and communities apart, particularly those living along the border.

The political separation was further entrenched by the severing of communication ties and travel bans, making any dialogue between the citizens of the two countries impossible. As mentioned above, militarisation of public life in both countries has significantly distorted networks of trust within communities and a key hope is that the end of the Ethiopia-Eritrea war will feed into a broader process of demilitarisation in both countries.

The images of joyful Eritreans and Ethiopians receiving this news is a reminder that war happens to people and to communities, and the end of war is always cause for celebration for everyone.

Of course, it is far too early to make definitive declarations of what the future holds for these two countries. Yet, while cynicism has value in political thought, and especially when history provides ample examples of good faith gone bad, it is important to be as ready to accept good news as the bad.

Independently of what happens moving forward, this is a special moment for East Africa that must be cherished and encouraged. For those of us who are neither Ethiopian nor Eritrean, this is a timely reminder that within the politics of a complicated region, sometimes good things do happen.

Nigeria: Fresh Safety Calls After Tanker Blast Kills 9 In Lagos

More than 50 vehicles burned in Lagos oil tanker explosion highlighting poor road safety conditions in the country.

People walk past burned cars piled against each other after a fire accident involving an oil tanker in Lagos [Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters]

LAGOS (AL JAZEERA)--Calls for improved road and vehicle safety are increasing in Nigeria following the death of at least nine people when a petrol tanker with failed brakes crashed and exploded.

The explosion took place at about 5:30pm (16:30 GMT) on Thursday on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, one of the main routes out of the megacity, and destroyed at least 54 vehicles, according to authorities.

"Unfortunately, nine bodies were confirmed dead and recovered from the scene (eight adults and a minor) and four persons sustained various degrees of injuries and were taken to the hospital," Adesina Tiamiyu, head of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), said in a statement.

The stricken tanker in Thursday's crash was carrying 33,000 litres of petrol at the time.

Bolarinwa Mufutau, a roadside mechanic, said he had just finished repairing a car when he saw the tanker rolling back on the road.

"I could also hear the driver shouting 'brake failure, brake failure'. I saw the motor boy (assistant) trying to put a wedge to stop the tanker from rolling back," he told AFP news agency.
The truck ran over the wedge backwards and immediately there was a bang. I thought it was a bomb and there was an explosion and fire everywhere, so I started running away."

BOLARINWA MUFUTAU, ROADSIDE MOTOR MECHANIC

A fire erupted within seconds, forcing motorists to abandon their cars and flee, he added.

The latest incident has raised concerns about safety practices on the country's roads.

Petrol tanker fires are not uncommon on Nigeria's roads, which are often in disrepair and where vehicles are frequently old and poorly maintained.

Blocks are often put behind the wheels of ageing, rusting trucks when they are stationary in traffic.

Motorists caught up in the chaos have questioned why full tankers were allowed on the road during peak traffic periods.

Chike Oti, Lagos state police spokesman, was quoted by local media as saying drivers of tankers and articulated trucks had been warned to "put in all necessary safety checks".

Nigeria Queries Al Jazeera Over Inaccurate Report

BY ISMAEL CHAFE

Image Via NAN

ABUJA (NEW AGENCY Of NIGERIA)--Nigeria has protested to Al Jazeera, an international news television, denouncing a report that it was represented at the official relocation of U.S embassy to Jerusalem.

The country is demanding a retraction of the story, a presidential source said on Tuesday.

The United States officially relocated its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Monday and sparked a row that saw the death of 55 Palestinians..

The Presidency officially disclosed that based on the report, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Geoffrey Onyeama, queried the Nigerian Ambassador to Israel to explain his presence at the event.

The source said, “Based on that report, the minister queried the ambassador to explain why he attended the event.

“The ambassador has since replied that he was not at the event.

“It was on the strength of the ambassador’s response that the Federal Government wrote to Al Jazeera to retract its story.”

The U.S. on Monday officially relocated its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in a deeply controversial move that angered Palestinians and drew widespread global condemnation.

The ceremony took place amid road closures and heavy police presence in anticipation of Palestinian protests.

It also featured deadly demonstrations in Gaza calling for the refugees’ right to return to the homes they were forcibly expelled 70 years ago.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who in December 2017 declared Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a move long sought by Israel, addressed the ceremony via a recorded video message.

“Today we follow through on this recognition and open our embassy in the historic and sacred land of Jerusalem, and we’re opening it many, many years ahead of schedule,” Trump has said.(NAN)

Nigeria Mosque Attack Death Toll Rises To 86

Gravediggers say dozens more than official number were killed in Tuesday's double suicide attack in northeast Nigeria.

Two suicide bombers detonated explosives during afternoon prayers in Mubi town on Tuesday [EPA] via Al Jazeera

MAIDUGURI (AL JAZEERA)--Eighty-six people were killed after a double suicide bombing in northeast Nigeria, gravediggers said.

The death toll given on Wednesday was far higher than 27 that police said died.

The Adamawa police command told Al Jazeera an additional 58 people were wounded in Tuesday's attack in the town of Mubi, which has been blamed on Boko Haram.

A suicide bomber detonated explosives at a mosque during afternoon prayers. As worshippers fled, a second bomber exploded a device about 200 metres away.

Local gravediggers at the town's only cemetery said they buried 86 bodies.

"We buried 76 people yesterday [Tuesday]," one told AFP news agency, asking to remain anonymous.

At 3pm on Wednesday, 10 more bodies were brought in and buried, he added. "These people died overnight from injuries, obviously."

Another gravedigger, who also asked that his name not be used, supported the account. "We hope we are done with the burials," he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the blasts bore the hallmarks of the armed Boko Haram group, which has waged a deadly campaign of violence in Africa's most populous country since 2009, and often deploys suicide bombers in crowded places.

The last time so many people were killed in an attack blamed on Boko Haram was in January 2016, when at least 85 people lost their life in Dalori, on the outskirts of Maiduguri.

Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajoon on Wednesday told security agencies to beef up security in Mubi and its surrounding areas, "especially markets and places of worship".

"This desecration of a place of worship by criminals is tragic and condemnable," he said in an emailed statement.
Boko Haram?

It was the second time in six months that dozens have been killed in an attack on a Mubi mosque.

Last November, a teenage suicide bomber attacked worshippers as they gathered for morning prayers, killing at least 50 people in one of the region's deadliest assaults in years.

Local residents were still in shock after the deadly bombings on Tuesday.

"I think this is the worst attack Mubi has ever witnessed. The human loss is unimaginable," said resident Muhammad Hamidu.


More than 20,000 people have been killed in the Boko Haram insurgency that began in 2009, which has also forced some two million to flee their homes.

Boko Haram held territory in Adamawa state in 2014, but troops pushed the group out in early 2015 and Mubi was relatively peaceful until the November 2017 attack.