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Amid allegations of looting E’Guinea, President’s son handed powers to curtail lawmakers movement

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Equatorial Guinea’s lawmakers have been banned from foreign travel unless authorised by Vice President Teodorin Nguema Obiang, the president’s son.

“On the grounds of national interest,” lawmakers must submit a request to travel abroad to the head of the National Assembly or the Senate “with the agreement of the vice president,” said sources familiar with the development.

In June, the country’s civil servants were hit with a similar ban.

Teodorin Obiang, aged 49, was handed a three-year suspended prison term by a French court last year and fined $35m for money laundering, corruption and abuse of public assets.

He was found to have embezzled $173m to fund his lavish lifestyle, which included a six-storey mansion on the upscale Avenue Foch in Paris.

According to sources, the ban on lawmakers is linked to an attempted coup that took place in December, the details of which were announced by the Equatorial Guinean government in January.

Read Also: Bobi Wine charged with treason. Will this be Museveni’s joker against a rising opponent?

The authorities say the operation involved a group of men from Chad, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Sudan, but some of the ringleaders were civil servants who had travelled to Europe in late 2017.

Several foreign nationals have also been accused of fomenting the thwarted coup.

It was followed by the arrests of scores of opposition activists and the banning of their party, the Citizens for Innovation (CI), purportedly over scuffles that took place before legislative elections last November.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has ruled the small, oil-rich state with an iron fist since August 1979.

Politics

Coup: Regional bloc, ECOWAS might intervene in Sierra Leone ‘if need be’

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Amidst a wave of military coups in the West African sub-region, a delegation of the ECOWAS Commission has hinted at likely bloc intervention in Sierra Leone following a failed coup over the weekend.

A chief of the commission and officials of the Nigerian government were received by Sierra Leone’s President, Julius Maada Bio, after Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the head of the 15-member sub-regional bloc, sent a message to Bio through Omar Alieu Touray, the head of the Ecowas Commission.

Gunmen last week exchanged fire for several hours with security forces in what the government attributed to “renegade soldiers.” Meanwhile, the police promised a “reward” to anyone providing information leading to the capture of 34 suspected fugitives.

“ECOWAS is ready and committed to supporting the people of Sierra Leone, including to strengthen their national security and the deployment, if need be, of regional elements,” Touray said.

The visit by the envoys appears to be a show of support for the government of Sierra Leone in the wake of the fatal attack that rocked the country’s capital, Freetown, on Sunday.

ECOWAS commended Bio’s and his government’s leadership in putting an end to what he described as a “very unfortunate incident.”

Concern has been raised by the wave of coups that have swept through Africa in the last three years, particularly in the West African bloc. The bloc has seen military takeovers of democratically elected governments in 2023 in Niger and Gabon, where troops removed Mohamed Bazzoum and Ali Bongo, respectively.

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Another Tunisian opposition leader, Moussi begins hunger strike in prison

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Another Tunisian opposition leader, Abir Moussi has begun a hunger strike in prison to protest what her lawyers described as a violation of her rights to freedom and political activity.

Moussi, who is a prominent opponent of Tunisian President, Kais Saied, was last month sentenced after police arrested her at the presidential palace entrance on suspicion of assault intended to cause chaos, viewed as part of a crackdown on opposition politicians by some watchers.

In a statement, her party, the Free Constitutional Party (PDL), cautioned against “attempts to fabricate legal obstacles to remove her from participating in the presidential elections” that are anticipated to take place the following year.

In a statement, her attorneys said that Moussi would go on a 16-day hunger strike to draw attention to the issue of violence against women in Tunisia. She is an advocate of the late president Zine El Abidine ben Ali, whose overthrow in 2011 was brought about by widespread demonstrations; an uprising subsequently extended throughout the Middle East, dubbed “the Arab Spring”.

In a similar move in September, embattled Tunisian opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi, who has been a political prisoner since April, also threatened to begin a hunger strike in captivity.

Moussi faces charges of plotting against state security alongside other opposition figures who are in jail. She had accused Saied of staging a coup in order to close the elected parliament and impose rule by decree.

President Saied has been accused of suppressing dissenting voices in the nation since taking office. This year, the police has detained over 20 political figures, including Ghannouchi, on suspicion of trying to compromise national security.

More than 20 prominent politicians have been detained by police this year; some are a accused of being involved in plots against state security. “Terrorists, traitors, and criminals” is how Saied has characterised the people under arrest.

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