Musings From Abroad

Days after announcing plan to review African relations, French officials in Niger for talks

Published

2 years ago

July 16, 2022

Despite announcement that it planned to review its policy with relations to Africa, France’s foreign and military ministers are on official visit to to Niger.

Head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna and Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu are due to hold talks with their Nigerian counterparts on Friday morning, before meeting President Mohamed Bazoum.

A French diplomatic source revealed that the objective of the joint trip is to “embody the civil-military binomial”, and to “show that our approach rests on its two feet.”

France has had its relationship with some African countries turn sour lately with recent anti-French protests in some parts of the continent. The government in Gabon was forced to stop planned protest in May. There were also pockets of “anti-French” protests in South Africa in the month.

The challenge notwithstanding, France is continuing its cooperation with neighbouring Niger, where it will maintain more than a thousand men and air capabilities to provide fire support and intelligence to the Nigerien armies as part of a “combat partnership”.

Recall that Mali’s ruling military junta in May announced that the country would, broke defence ties with her former colonial rulers, France, citing “flagrant violations” of its national sovereignty bu French troops based in the West African country.

Colonna stated earlier in the week before the National Assembly that Paris’ worry about growth on civil government in Africa is more its diplomatic break up with Mali.

“Beyond Mali, the decline in democracy in West Africa is extremely worrying, with successive putsches in Mali twice, in Guinea in September 2021, in Burkina Faso in January this year,” but “France will nevertheless continue, despite these events, this withdrawal from Mali, to help the West African armies to fight against terrorist groups,”

“We are currently holding consultations with our partners concerned to define with them, according to their requests and needs, the nature of the support we can provide,” she explained.

France and Niger historically have strong relations. The two countries are linked through many agreements, in the areas of cultural, legal and defence cooperation. There is much high-level contact between political leaders and regular bilateral visits.

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Musings From Abroad

Finnish court imprisons Nigeria’s Simon Ekpa for aiding terrorism

Published

16 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian separatist leader based abroad, has been placed under detention by the Päijät Häme District Court in Finland on suspicion of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism.

According to the local daily, Helsingin Sanomat, the court rendered the ruling on Thursday following his arraignment by the Central Criminal Police for his involvement in the terror attacks that have afflicted the southeast area of Nigeria.

“The police suspect that the man has promoted his efforts from Finland with means that have led to violence against civilians in the region of South-Eastern Nigeria,” stated Otto Hiltunen, the crime commissioner and investigation head.

“The man has carried out his activity, among other things, on his social media channels.”

Hiltunen also informed the court that the police suspected four additional individuals in Finland of funding Ekpa’s activities.

According to the story, Ekpa is of Nigerian descent and was born in the Finnish city of Lahti.

His offence occurred between August 23, 2021, and November 18, 2024, according to court documents cited in the publication.

Ekpa is not the only person the police have arrested. In February 2023, they caught him at a private Lahtian flat, but he was freed the same day.

Through the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, Ekpa has continued to be outspoken on social media, raising money and agitating for a Biafran nation to secede. In the southeast part of Nigeria, both factions have been involved in acts of violence, murders, and maimings.

Since gaining formal independence in 1960, Nigeria has seen the emergence of several separatist organisations. The latest surge of calls for self-determination among different ethnic groups has been louder under its immediate previous President Muhammadu Buhari.

Musings From Abroad

Malian singer Rokia Traore arrested in Italy, to be sent to Belgium

Published

2 days ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After Italy’s top court denied her appeal, well-known Malian singer, Rokia Traore, who was detained in Rome in June due to a global child custody dispute, will be sent over to Belgium in the next few days, her attorney announced on Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Traore is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and one of Africa’s most well-known vocalists.

“Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” lawyer Maddalena Del Re said in a statement to Reuters.

The attorney also stated that in its decision late Tuesday, Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld an extradition decision from the European Court of Justice.

Under a European arrest order, Traore was taken into custody on June 20 at the Fiumicino airport in Rome. In October 2023, she was given a two-year prison sentence in Belgium related to a dispute over her daughter’s custody.

She had flown to perform outside Rome’s Colosseum, and she has been imprisoned in Civitavecchia, close to the Italian city, since her detention at Fiumicino.

Lawyer Del Re said that because a conviction was rendered without the defendant’s presence, the Belgian process goes against both international norms and Italian constitutional standards.

After she disregarded a court order to turn over her baby to her Belgian father, the singer’s divorced ex-partner, she was initially taken into custody in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant.

She disobeyed orders not to leave France until her extradition case was handled by taking a private jet to Mali months after being conditionally released. Mali is where her daughter resides.