Politics

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote bemoans African travel restrictions

Published

7 months ago

May 21, 2024

Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, recently addressed the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, and lamented the challenges faced by investors around the continent as a result of the strict travel restrictions among African nations.

Dangote claims that to travel within Africa, his Nigerian passport requires 35 separate visas. The 67-year-old business tycoon claimed it was a major challenge and that he did not have the time to travel across the continent to drop his passport at embassies to obtain visas.

“I still complained to President Kagame. I told him that, as an investor, I have to now apply for 35 different visas on my passport, and I told Mr President, I don’t have the time to go and drop my passports in embassies to get a visa.

“But you see, the most annoying thing is that yes, if you are treating everybody the same, then I can understand,” he said.

The richest man in Africa, Patrick Pouyanne, chairman of Total Energies, claims that he can enter African nations using his French passport and no longer needs 35 visas.

“You don’t need 35 visas on your French passport. This means you have a freer movement than myself in Africa,” he asserted.

He urged greater cooperation in his contribution to enterprises operating within Africa, emphasizing that outsiders would not help the region accomplish its objectives.

Dangote averred, “Our main job is to make sure the regional markets all work. Once they work, then we can now go to the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement. But then, for AfCFTA also, we need to make sure that it works.

“We cannot have a very promising continent and our intra-trade rate is less than 16 percent. Okay, so we Africans will have to do it. If we are waiting for foreigners to come and do it, the development of Africa, it’s not going to happen.

“So, it can only happen to us Africans. We must risk our sources and make sure that we lead, and then we will have people who trust and believe in Africa, like Patrick to come and help us to push to the next level.”

The business tycoon also declared at the occasion that by June, when the Dangote refinery starts producing gasoline, Nigeria won’t need to import the fuel.

“Right now, Nigeria has no cause to import anything apart from gasoline and by sometime in June, within the next four or five weeks, Nigeria shouldn’t import anything like gasoline; not one drop of a litre,” he assured.

As a result, Dangote declared that other West African nations as well as Nigeria would deal with the shortage in gasoline supplies.

“We have enough gasoline to give to at least the entire West Africa. We have enough diesel to give to West Africa and Central Africa,” he added.

Related Topics:Africa Aliko Dangote Featured

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Politics

Egyptian court upholds ex-presidential candidate Ahmed Tantawy’s sentence

Published

10 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Former presidential candidate, Ahmed Tantawy, and his campaign manager, Mohamed Abou El-Diar, were found guilty of faking election paperwork, and given a one-year jail term with labour by an Egyptian court, Tantawy’s legal team announced Tuesday.

Last year, Tantawy was the most well-known candidate to run against Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for a third term, winning 89.6% of the vote.

To avoid receiving the necessary number of public endorsements to be on the ballot, he halted his campaign before to the election, alleging harassment and arrests directed at hundreds of his family members and associates.

Egyptian authorities criticised Tantawy’s tactic of distributing unapproved copies of endorsement forms to garner popular support, but they denied any misconduct.

Egypt’s Misdemeanour Appeals Court upheld the May court ruling on Monday, which prohibits Tantawy from seeking public office for five years and mandates that he pay a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds ($395).

Tantawy’s defence team member and well-known human rights attorney Khaled Ali said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that the appeals procedure was riddled with anomalies.

Ali said lawyers struggled for months to confirm court dates, with hearings appearing absent from official schedules and case files missing from court registries.

The public prosecution was not immediately available to comment on the ruling or on Ali’s allegations over the process.

Politics

Court orders Uganda to compensate LRA war crimes victims

Published

10 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Uganda’s tribunal has ordered the government to pay up to 10 million Ugandan shillings ($2,740) to each victim of Lord’s Resistance Army commander, Thomas Kwoyelo, the first senior rebel leader to be convicted.

Kwoyelo, a mid-level LRA leader, was sentenced to 40 years in jail in October for war crimes like murder, rape, slavery, torture, and kidnapping.

Kwoyelo’s “indigent” status prevented him from compensating the victims, thus the court ordered the government to compensate.

Kwoyelo’s crimes were “a manifestation of failure on the part of the government that triggers a responsibility on the state to pay reparations to the victims,” the verdict added.

The court also ordered various financial compensation to Kwoyelo’s property destruction and theft victims.

From strongholds in northern Uganda, the LRA brutalised Ugandans under Joseph Kony for over 20 years while it fought the military to destroy the government.

The militants raped, abducted, cut off victims’ limbs and mouths, and bludgeoned them to death using crude implements.

Under military pressure, the LRA withdrew to lawless forests in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic in 2005 and perpetrated civilian atrocities.

Although assaults are rare, Kony and splintered groups are reported to dwell there.

Kwoyelo was taken by the Ugandan military in 2009 in the northeastern Congo, and his case made its way through Ugandan courts until he was found guilty in August.