Politics

Uganda opposition figure detained after his driver is slain

Published

5 years ago

August 14, 2018

A prominent opposition figure in Uganda has been detained following violent clashes Monday night that allegedly started when President Yoweri Museveni’s motorcade was pelted with stones, a military official said Tuesday.

Lawmaker Kyagulanyi Ssentamu was held overnight in the northwestern town of Arua, where he and other politicians, including Museveni, had been campaigning for a lawmaker, said Capt. Jimmy Omara, a spokesman for the Special Forces Command.

Ssentamu, a popular pop singer in his 30s who was elected to the National Assembly last year, has emerged as a powerful voice with his calls for young people to “stand up” and take over this East African country from what he says is the current government’s failed leadership. Many of his followers are urging him to run in the next presidential election in 2021.

Lawmaker Allan Ssewanyana, a close ally, said he was concerned for his colleague after being unable to reach him by phone. Some journalists, including two reporters for local broadcaster NTV, have also been detained.

Ssentamu said on Twitter on Monday night that his driver was shot dead by the police “thinking they’ve shot at me.” He posted a photo of a bloodied man slumped in his car seat.

Police spokesman Emilian Kayima said an unidentified man had been killed as security forces tried to “calm down the situation” after Museveni’s convoy came under attack from opposition supporters throwing stones.

Maria Burnett of Human Rights Watch urged authorities to investigate and “arrest those responsible, no matter who they are.”

The election in Arua is being held because the area’s member of parliament was shot dead near the capital, Kampala, earlier this year.

That killing, and many others of prominent people in recent times, remains unsolved. Uganda is experiencing a spike in gun attacks often blamed on unidentified assailants.
Museveni, a key U.S. security ally, took power by force in 1986 and has since won election four times. The last vote in 2016 was marred by allegations of fraud.

Uganda has not witnessed a peaceful transfer of power since independence from Britain in 1962.

Credit: Associated Press

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Politics

UN appoints Nigeria’s Ahonsi as its Türkiye resident coordinator

Published

2 days ago

December 3, 2023

Ifeoluwa Dada

Babatunde Ahonsi of Nigeria has been appointed as the United Nations resident coordinator in Türkiye, pending the approval of his host government.

The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, announced the appointment of the decades-long experienced diplomat on Saturday.

Ahonsi has experience in international development acquired within and outside the UN, among which was his role as Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone where he coordinated and facilitated the UN’s operational activities for development in the country.

“He has led the UN country team and ensured system-wide accountability on the ground for the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.

“He has also coordinated UN support to Sierra Leone in its implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the UN Secretary General’s Prevention Agenda.

“Prior to this, he served UN Resident Coordinator a.i. in China from June-September 2020.

“In addition, he served as UNFPA Representative in China/Country Director for Mongolia from January 2017 to June 2020, and as UNFPA Representative in Ghana from 2014-2016.

“Between 1997 and 2014, he held senior management positions with the Ford Foundation (covering West Africa) and Population Council (covering Nigeria) overseeing reproductive health, women’s empowerment, and youth development programmes and initiatives. He had also lectured at federal universities in Ilorin, Calabar, and Lagos, Nigeria during the 1980s and 1990s”, the UN said.

Since joining the UN in October 1960, Nigeria and Nigerians have played key roles in the global body. In 2013, Nigeria contributed the fifth largest number of peacekeepers to the United Nations peacekeeping operations.

Nigeria most recently had a temporary seat on the UN Security Council for two years, from 2014 to 2015.

Politics

UN Security Council lifts 30-year-old arms ban on Somalia

Published

3 days ago

December 2, 2023

Ifeoluwa Dada

The UN Security Council (UNSC) has ended 31 years of armed restrictions on Somalia’s government forces, which prevented the country from upgrading its military.

The lifting of the arms embargo on Somalia allows the country to freely buy new weapons, as the council in New York voted 14-1 to do so, with France abstaining. Restrictions on the transfer of weapons or supplies to terrorists affiliated with Al Shabaab remain.

According to the council, the federal government may order and buy weapons from any legitimate retailer in the world. However, for the UN Sanctions Committee on Somalia to verify the weapons, it must provide a list of them.

A member of the council, China, faulted this conditional approval, telling the session that Somalia was being made to comply with a rule that many in the West were disobeying.

Somalia has been constrained by this UN decision amidst the country’s quest for lasting peace in the face of internal wranglings and terrorist activities. In September, Somalia asked the UN to pause a planned drawdown of 3,000 African Union peacekeepers for three months to allow its security forces time to regroup after a militant attack forced them to withdraw from several recently captured towns.

Somalia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Abukar Osman, who addressed the Council, commended the move and noted that the lifting of the embargo would enable his government to equip the forces.

“It allows us to confront security threats, including those posed by Al Shabaab,” he said in a briefing to the Council, promising that his country would also reform the management of weapons to ensure they did not fall in the wrong hands.

In his official reaction, Somalia’s President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, stressed that “from now on, our country is free to purchase any sort of weapon we want from the world. Weapons in government hands will not pose a threat to our people and the world”.

“This decision comes at a very crucial time as a nation and people since we are in a war to eliminate Kharijites (Al Shabaab) from the country,” the National Intelligence and Security Agency said in a statement.

“It comes at a time when efforts are ongoing to form an army capable of taking on the general security responsibility of the country”, it added.

In January 1992, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Somalia. In February 2007, the embargo was amended to allow arms supplies to Somali Government Forces, but maintained a ban on sales to the country’s Islamist militants.