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Video: Ousted Gabonese leader, Bongo begs for solidarity

Published

1 year ago

August 30, 2023

Barely a month after Niger’s Mohamed Bazoum was ousted from the military coup, the world was greeted with the news of a fresh military takeover in another African country, this time in Central Africa, Gabon as a group of senior military officers announced taking over power.

The coup comes hours after the Gabonese Election Centre announced President Ali Bongo as the winner of Saturday’s election for a third term. The electoral body had announced that Bongo had secured 64.27% of the vote while his main challenger, Albert Ondo Ossa scored 30.77%.

Ali Bongo is seen in the video below pleading for “noise” from his international friends after his arrest. He added that his immediate family has been taken out of reach.

Video: Ousted Gabonese leader, Bongo begs for solidarity

Barely a month after Niger’s Mohamed Bazoum was ousted from a military coup, the world was rocked with the news of a fresh military takeover in another African country, this time in Central Africa—Gabon— as a group of senior military officers announced taking over power.

Ali Bongo is seen in the video below pleading for “noise” from his international friends after his arrest. He added that his immediate family had been taken out of reach.

Ali’s father, Omar Bongo spent 42 years as the leader of Gabon. Ali had been in charge for fourteen years, bringing the total Bongo years to fifty-six.

Until Wednesday’s coup, Ali had maintained his position as the leader of the oil-rich nation despite ailing health that saw him in and out of hospitals outside the country.

Video

Video: Kenya’s Ruto targets inflation rate below 3%

Published

3 weeks ago

October 24, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

In this video, Kenyan President, William Ruto, stressed the economic goals of his government and charged the public to believe in the economic reforms of his administration.

Ruto also emphasized that the international community and multilateral bodies had applauded his policy direction, and urged Kenyans to join the train.

“You do have my commitment that we will be disciplined as a public sector… it my target that by next year inflation will be sub 3%”, Ruto said.

Earlier in the month, the Central Bank of Kenya slashed the benchmark rate to 12.0%, 75.0 bps down. The Central Bank’s prescribed target band for headline inflation is 2.5% – 7.5%, 5.0% being the mid-point · The last time Kenya registered <3.0% headline inflation was May 2007

Watch the video below:

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Video: Amid unpopular reforms, W’Bank chief insists Nigeria must ‘stay in course’ for 15 years

Published

1 month ago

October 15, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

In this video, Indermit Gill, the Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank who also serves as the Pension Finance Administrator of the World Bank Group, at an event in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, commended the recent fiscal and monetary reform policies of the government.

He noted that implementing such reforms was impossible without strong resolve from the political class. He also commended the central bank’s decision to raise interest rate.

The central bank has had to hike its policy rate by a huge 850 points in the last 9 months to boost confidence in the Naira and anchor inflationary expectations.

“But this is only the beginning, Nigeria will need to stay the course for at least another 10 to 15 years to transform its economy,” the World Bank chief stressed.

Gill’s remark brings to mind the age-long argument on the actual interest of multilateral bodies in their engagements with developing countries, largely African states, whether through loans or policy framework. Some have argued that the institutions are only bent on impoverishing the continent through policy positions like the removal of subsidy and the devaluation of currencies, both of which Nigeria under the current administration has done under two years— leading to unprecedented inflation rate and soaring cost of living.