Day: February 18, 2023

ABUJA, NIGERIA — The front-runners in Nigeria’s presidential race hit the campaign trail Saturday in a major push to persuade voters a week before the polls.

More than 90 million people are registered to vote in Nigeria, where President Muhammadu Buhari is stepping down after his two terms allowed by the constitution.

From the top of an open-air double-decker bus, Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling party, All Progressives Congress, paraded through the streets of Maiduguri in northeast Borno state.

Tinubu was expected to stage a final rally in Lagos on Tuesday.

In nearby Adamawa state, the main opposition’s candidate Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party also made an entrance in the city of Yola on a double-decker bus.

Thousands of people attended both rallies, waving flags and shouting party slogans while loudspeakers blasted music.

Outsider candidate Peter Obi was not seen on the campaign trail but took to social media to call on his supporters, “the Obidients,” to rally in several cities across the country.

In the capital, Abuja, several hundred Obi supporters marched from the center to the city gate, chanting and blowing vuvuzelas.

Campaigning is taking place as the nation faces widespread insecurity and tensions over a currency crisis.

On Saturday morning, gunmen attacked a police station in the Ogidi area of southeastern Anambra state.

“The hoodlums started shooting sporadically on approaching the area command and threw improvised explosive devices and petrol bombs, gaining entrance (into the station),” police spokesman Ikenga Tochukwu said in a statement.

“Three police operatives paid the supreme price,” Tochukwu added.

Unrest in the southeast is just one of the challenges facing security forces, who are also fighting a 14-year jihadi insurgency in the northeast and kidnapping gangs in the northwest.

Nigerians have been struggling with a shortage of cash since the central bank introduced newly designed notes in December and banned old ones.

But in its effort to promote cashless payments and reduce the volume of money outside the banking system, the central bank printed a much smaller number of notes than were previously in circulation.

The lack of cash has triggered protests in major cities this week, with customers attacking banks and barricading roads just days before elections.

Tensions have also emerged inside the ruling APC party, with accusations that the cash crisis could frustrate Tinubu’s election bid.

Source: Voice of America

PRETORIA, Members of South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s Environmental Management Inspectors, more commonly known as the Green Scorpions, have confiscated a number of reptiles that were allegedly being smuggled from Gauteng to KwaZulu-Natal using PostNet.

“The parcel confiscated on 8 February 2023 contained Sungazer lizards and a venomous cobra as well as another type of girdled lizard and two indigenous skinks,” the department said.

Two men have been arrested on charges of the illegal possession, transport and illegal trade in species listed in terms of the Threatened or Protected Species regulations under the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (NEMBA).

Following the arrest of the men at the PostNet branch in Pretoria, their home was searched by the Green Scorpions, supported by South African Police Service (SAPS) K9 unit.

A total of 19 reptiles and amphibians were seized during the searches. These included African bull frogs and an African rock python, which are listed on the Threatened or Protected Species List.

Other reptiles found on the premises are listed in terms of the Gauteng provincial nature conservation ordinance.

The accused, Barend (Johan) Coetzee (28) and Xander Aylward (19), appeared in the Cullinan District Court on Friday.

The men were released on bail and the matter was postponed to March 30 for further investigation.

The department applauded members of the public who assist in reporting any suspicious activity that could be linked to wildlife crime.

Source: Nam News Network

PRETORIA, A total of 7,555 people were killed in South Africa between October and December 2022, said Police Minister Bheki Cele.

The 10% increase was on Friday released by the Minister while publishing the 2022/23 third quarter crime statistics. The period is between October and December.

He said: “Out of the 7,555 people murdered in the three months of reporting, 3,144 people were killed with a firearm, 2,498 people were killed with other weapons such as knifes, sharp and blunt instruments, bricks and in many cases bare hands.”

He said this was a clear indicator that “a broader conversation must be had about what is at the heart of violent crime in the country”.

While gun violence is problematic and poses a serious threat to lives and livelihoods, an analysis of current and previous statistics, he said, illustrates that firearms were only part of a bigger problem.

“At the core of the matter, is human behaviour. We have to be honest as South Africans about the causes of violence and address them.”

He attributed high unemployment rates and poverty levels, mushrooming informal settlements with little to no services and other socio economic ills breeding criminality as leading contributors.

Other attributors included the high number of undocumented foreign nationals that were hard to trace after the commission of a crime.

“The violence that is stalking communities is translated to increased number of assaults, which escalate to attempted murders and in some cases murder.

“The reality is assaults are feeders of domestic violence and other violent crimes,” he said.

The Minister called for an “intense community centered” and intelligence led-solution to fully address the proliferation of firearms.

“Someone somewhere, somehow, knows something.

Police are also on the pulse in removing illegal weapons off our streets,” he said.

In the past twelve months alone, police had permanently removed and destroyed 65,519 firearms.

Minister Cele said the South African Police Service (SAPS) would continue to intensify operations to detect and remove illegal firearms and ammunition, whilst legislation intervention through the Amendment to the Firearms Control Act, to address the availability of guns from communities, was underway.

Source: Nam News Network