Politics

ECOWAS allocates $380m to electrify Nigerian health facilities

Published

3 months ago

September 27, 2024

Regional bloc, The Economic Community of West African States Commission has declared its intention to spend $380 million powering public health facilities and schools in eighteen countries—Nigeria, Benin, Chad, and other countries in the Sahel and West Africa— as well as other countries in West Africa.

The project intends to alleviate the region’s chronic energy access shortage, which impacts over 208 million people, mostly in rural areas.

El Hadji Sylla, Senior Adviser on the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project at the ECOWAS Commission, presented the project’s objectives at a stakeholder meeting in Abuja on Thursday. The program is funded by the Dutch government, the Clean Technology Fund, and the World Bank.

According to Sylla, the project’s goal is to improve rural residents’ access to power by emphasising off-grid options for crucial public services.

“The cost of the project is $380m, and we want to promote a new innovative chain to electrify public institutions. Our target is to electrify schools and health centres to improve service delivery.

“We are piloting the project in Nigeria and the Benin Republic. The project covers 15 countries in the ECOWAS region and four countries in the Sahel region,” Sylla said.

“We are targeting schools and health centres to improve service delivery,” Sylla said, adding that the project is expected to be completed in five years across all participating countries, with the pilot phase in Nigeria and Benin to be executed within 18 months.

The program in Nigeria will start with electricity initiatives in a few Federal Capital Territory, Niger, and Nasarawa state schools and health centres.

Through grants and subsidies, Nigeria’s attempts to electrify its rural areas have greatly improved, according to Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu.

Bem Ayangeaor, speaking on behalf of Adelabu, expressed optimism that the sector will see a growth in private sector investment due to official assistance.

“I do not doubt that the rural electrification space in Nigeria, thanks to grants and subsidies, has grown significantly and will soon reach a stage where public support leverages private sector financing at higher efficiencies than it is presently done.

“A stage where the private sector would be more excited in investing in the electrification space because of the benefits to be gained,” Adelabu said.

Electricity is essential for modern education, especially for science and technology-focused schools, according to Muyibat Olodo, Director of Technology and Science Education at the Federal Ministry of Education.

“Access to power is not a luxury in Nigeria and especially in our public institutions. There is a need for uninterrupted power supply in our schools especially those in the science and technology field.

“With proper implementation, our public institutions in the FCT, Niger, and Nasarawa states will become models of energy resilience, self-sufficiency, and sustainability,” she stated.

Politics

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

Published

21 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

21 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.