LUSAKA, ZAMBIA (Reuters) – Zambia’s new president fired the finance minister on Friday and the opposition leader challenged election results, ushering in a period of political and economic uncertainty for Africa’s top copper producer.
Finance Minister Ng’andu Magande competed for the leadership of the ruling Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) to contend October’s election and is credited with helping turn Zambia into one of Africa’s most stable and economically successful countries.
Zambian opposition leader Michael Sata launched a court challenge to demand a recount of the vote in the election when Rupiah Banda took over from President Levy Mwanawasa.
Sata, who portrays himself as a champion of the poor, lost the Oct. 30 poll to Banda. He branded the election a fraud.
“I know that (my colleagues) are currently in court filing a petition. I am now working on some more documents which we will submit to the court next week,” Winter Kabimba, lawyer for Sata’s Patriotic Front party, told Reuters.
“We are actually going for a vote recount which must be done by way of a petition.”
A prolonged election dispute and anti-government riots could unsettle investors in the southern African country. Foreign investors may also become concerned if it emerges that Magande’s dismissal is part of a wider political struggle.
Benefiting from higher copper prices and Chinese investment, Zambia had been held up as one of Africa’s most appealing buys but the global market crash has seen an exodus of foreign funds that has hit both the currency and shares.
Banda reshuffled the cabinet and vowed to continue with Mwanawasa’s conservative policies, which won praise from Western donors, but would not give reasons why he removed Magande. He was replaced by Stumbeko Musokotwane, who served as Mwanawasa and Banda’s economic adviser.
“I will continue with policies to attract more investments in mining, tourism and agriculture,” Banda told a news conference.
Mines minister Kalombo Mwansa was moved to the home affairs ministry.
RIOTS
Razia Khan, regional head of research Africa at Standard Chartered Bank, said it was too early to tell how Zambian markets would react to Magande’s departure.
“The Zambian market has largely been at the mercy of what has been happening internationally,” he said.
The new finance minister will face the challenge of dealing with the global financial squeeze as he tries to reassure foreign investors.
Sata, meanwhile, is likely to keep up pressure on Banda’s government through protests. But analysts say his campaign is unlikely to lead to the kind of instability ravaging neighbouring Zimbabwe and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Zambian police arrested 38 people on Thursday after violent protests over the arrest of a priest and radio presenter in the country’s second-biggest city, Kitwe, a police spokesman said.
Rioters attacked a police station, caused damage at a milling company, barricaded streets and set cars alight in Kitwe, 350 km (219 miles) north of Lusaka.
Police said the arrest of Frank Bwalya, a priest and manager of Catholic-run Radio Icengelo, which has been critical of Banda’s government, sparked the riots.
A police official said a permit for PF supporters for a protest scheduled for Saturday was cancelled.
Mwanawasa died from a stroke in August, two years into his second five-year presidential term.
(Additional reporting by Peter Apps in London; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Louise Ireland)
LAGOS (Reuters) – China’s Shenzhen Energy Group plans to build a 3,000 megawatts (MW) power plant in a joint venture with Nigeria’s First Bank FBNP.LG at an estimated cost of $2.4 billion, the financial institution said on Friday.
Shenzhen signed a preliminary agreement last month with First Bank as project financiers and advisers for the gas-powered plant, Nigeria’s most profitable bank said.
The Chinese firm had already applied for a licence from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the bank said in a statement, without giving a timeframe for completion.
When finished, the plant should significantly improve Nigeria’s generation capacity and help provide relief to the country’s power crisis, considered one of the main brakes on economic development in Africa’s top oil producer.
Nigeria, the world’s eighth biggest oil exporter, has the capacity for around 3,500 MW, but power generation often plunges below 1,000 MW, largely due to poor maintenance of its aged power stations, corruption and mismanagement.
The problems have become so severe that much of Africa’s most populous nation goes without mains electricity for weeks, throwing those without private generators into darkness and heightening frustration among its 140 million people.
President Umaru Yar’Adua, who took office in May 2007, has promised repeatedly to declare a state of emergency over the crisis. As yet, no such emergency has been declared.
The federal government has said it will spend $5.37 billion of its windfall oil savings to develop the dilapidated power sector over the next few years. Approval to spend was given last month by the 36 state governments, joint owners of the account.
Yar’Adua’s predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo, set a series of targets for increased power generation and said his government invested billions of dollars, but there was no tangible improvement.
Efforts to revamp the sector over the years through the promotion of independent power plants have attracted little foreign interest, with potential investors saying the government has not completed its deregulation started in 2005 with the setting up of the NERC.
Prospective investors also said the sector was poorly run and that low tariffs made their investments unviable.
MOSCOW (AFP) — Russia has sold 12 MiG-29 fighter jets to Sudan, Sudanese Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Mohammed Hussein said during a visit to Moscow on Friday, Russian news agencies reported.
“Yes, it’s all done. The planes have been bought,” the defence minister was quoted as saying to reporters at a briefing in Moscow, in response to a question about a contract for the purchase of the 12 planes.
“We are very satisfied with our military relations with Russia,” he said.
Hussein also said he hoped Russia would take a more active role in Sudan’s oil industry, adding that this would be at the heart of discussions during an upcoming visit to Moscow by Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir.
He did not say when the visit could take place.
“Based on our successful experience of economic development cooperation with China, we want Russia to be another pillar in the economic development of Sudan,” Hussein said.
Russia was accused by human rights group Amnesty International last year of violating a UN resolution by supplying arms to Sudan that were then used in the war-torn Darfur region, a charge rejected by Russia’s foreign ministry.
The UN imposed an embargo on sales and deliveries of arms to Darfur in 2004.
Some 300,000 people have died in the civil war in Darfur since 2003 and two million more have fled their homes, according to UN figures, although some sources put the toll much higher while Sudan says 10,000 people have died.
Sudan’s Beshir earlier this month declared a ceasefire in Darfur, but the main rebel movement in the region, the Justice and Equality Movement, dismissed his call as a propaganda stunt for the West.
Two mothers in western Tanzania have been attacked by gangs who were after their children who have albinism.
The women were hacked with machetes when the attackers failed to find the two children.
Albinos have been targeted in a series of killings around the country due to a belief their body parts can make magic potions more effective.
At least 30 people with albinism have been killed since March, including a seven-month old baby.
On Wednesday, attackers forced a woman to take them to her home, looking for her nine-year-old daughter in Kibondo District, close to the Burundi border.
The girl was not in the house and so the men attacked the mother.
In the second attack, a gang of four men broke into a house at the Lugufu camp in Kigoma, which hosts refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, looking for a child with albinism.
The child, aged two, escaped kidnap after falling under the bed unnoticed.
The women are undergoing treatment for their injuries.
High prevalence
On Thursday, police in south-western Tanzania arrested a man who was attempting to sell his albino wife to Congolese traders.
The BBC’s Vicky Ntetema in Dar es Salaam says the attacks appear to have spread from north-western Tanzania, where they were first reported.
The attacks also suggest that there is interest in albino body parts from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, our correspondent says.
The Kigoma regional police commander said the attackers had fled and a manhunt was underway.
The attacks on albinos have been linked to witchdoctors who are peddling the belief that potions made from an albino’s legs, hair, hands, and blood can make a person rich.
President Jakaya Kikwete ordered a police crackdown on those involved in the killings in March, and 170 witchdoctors have since been arrested.
But BBC investigations suggest that some police are being “bought off” in order to look away when such crimes are committed.
The prevalence of albinism in Tanzania appears to be high and the Albino Association of Tanzania says the actual number of albinos could be as high as 173,000.
CAIRO (AFP) — Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak has played down allegations of rampant sexual harassment in her country, accusing the media, and implicitly Islamist militants, of exaggerating the reports.
“Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women,” the pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper on Friday quoted the wife of President Hosni Mubarak as saying in remarks aired on Thursday by Al-Arabiya television.
The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR) released a survey earlier this year showing that 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women in Egypt are sexually harassed.
“This gives the impression that the streets in Egypt are not safe. That is not true… The media have exaggerated,” Mubarak said.
“Maybe one, two or even 10 incidents occurred. Egypt is home to 80 million people. We can’t talk of a phenomenon. Maybe a few scatterbrained youths are behind this crime.
“And maybe some people wanted to make it seem as though the streets of Egypt are not safe so girls and women stay at home. This could be their agenda,” she said in a reference to Islamist militants.
Mubarak’s statements come less than a month after an Egyptian judge sentenced a man to three years in jail with hard labour for groping a woman on a Cairo street and ordered him to pay his victim 894 dollars in compensation.
The sentence was unusual for its severity and unprecedented in the male-dominated Middle East.
“This is the first case we know of, where someone was jailed for groping,” Engy Ghozlan, an activist with the ECWR, said after the October 21 judgment.
“We welcome the ruling. The judge was obviously setting an example.”
GOVERNOR Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State in a major move yesterday took a firm grip of the state finances, ordering commercial banks to suspend transactions on the accounts.
Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State
Also, he sacked all political appointees of the former Governor Oserheimen Osunbor.Meanwhile, former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, yesterday while congratulating Governor Oshiomhole tasked him to deliver on the promises made to the people of the state.
Although the governor did not give any idea on how long the accounts will be frozen, political watchers said the move was to stem possible unauthorised movement of funds.
According to sources, even commitments entered into before the change will be verified before payments are authorised.
The Action Congress (AC) in congratulating the new governor requested that he investigates whether his predecessor had paid the alleged N50 million levy by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) towards the building of its new National Secretariat. The N10 billion fund raising dinner for the secretariat is slated for Abuja on Saturday.
A statement signed by Mrs Betty Igbehi, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Orientation, directed all bank managers where all government monies were lodged, to keep a hold on all such accounts.
The statement also announced that all political appointees had been relieved of their posts and directed them to hand over all government property in their custody.
It specifically directed them to hand over to the permanent secretaries in their ministries and at the Government House, the Director of Central Administration in the Governor’s Office.
Oshiomhole swears-in SSG
The government’s first three key appointments, Mr Pally Iriase, Secretary to the State Government; Mr Ogie Osarodion, Chief of Staff and Mr Eric Osagie, Director of Public Affairs were sworn-in yesterday at Government House, Benin.
The Governor at the swearing-in ceremony, advised the new Secretary to the State Government to throw overboard the old method of doing things and fashion out a new system in the overall interest and development of Edo State .
“No one who will be appointed by this government will come in to perpetrate the old culture. I do not want to hear that this is how we do it,” Governor Oshiomhole warned, saying Mr. Iriase was appointed because of his track record and his contribution to the development of his people.
While observing that the state has lost 19 months, he said his administration was in a hurry to deliver and observed that Edo people had new hope for improved performances backed up by quality achievements.
He urged Mr. Iriase to guide against the use of government funds for congratulatory advertorial messages, even as he advised him not to allow himself to be used by professional praise-singers, who, he said, go on the pages of newspapers to send congratulatory messages.
IBB congratulates, tasks Oshiomhole
Former President Babangida lauded Comrade Oshiomhole’s victory at the Appeal Court in Benin, saying it was a reflection of his grassroots appeal and love for the ordinary folks out there.
Gen. Babangida in the congratulatory message entitled: “Comrade Governor Adams Oshiomhole, a Big Congratulations” and made available to Vanguard in Abuja yesterday, said: “Your declaration as the Governor of Edo State by the Court of Appeal on that super Tuesday, 11th November, 2008 after such a long almost unending legal battle has set a new precedence in our political economy as a developing nation.
“But for your resilience and strength of character, which have become part of your selling points, the people would have been weary. Typical of you and your struggles, you trudged on and proved bookmakers wrong that it was possible to dare and alter the status quo. You braced all odds and exhibited a deep passion for due process, rule of law and democracy.”
IBB, in the congratulatory message signed by his Media spokesman, Prince Kassim Afegbua, noted: “As a man who is driven by his convictions, you have remained with the people and now have opportunity to serve them in an executive capacity as a governor. This is your time.
“I have elected to call you Comrade Governor even before you invented that prefix. A Comrade is a Comrade whether as Governor, President or Councillor. What matters is how much you are able to impact on the lives of the people positively, and make life more meaningful to them than the ordinary mundane activities of mankind.
“I have no doubt in my mind that you can deliver on your promises to the good people of Edo State and fulfill the burning aspirations of the collective. This will be the stimulation and attraction of your government.
“When I reflect on the good old days when I was President and you were on the side of Labour, I could still recall your rare ability to present your demands to government without ambiguity. Your sense of mobilisation was also not in doubt. Your grassroots appeal and love for the ordinary folks out there seems to me your strongest asset.
“It is my patriotic belief that you will use your good offices to translate all these attractions into something more rewarding, meaningful and productive for the good people of Edo State who have shown you support, love and affection in the struggle thus far.
“On behalf of my wife and family, accept from me my most sincere wishes and a big congratulation on this achievement. It is my wish also that the Almighty God grants you the rare wisdom to pilot the affairs of the State in the next four years. You can always count on my support.”
…Ogbemudia too
A member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees and two-time Governor of defunct Bendel State , Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia, in a congratulatory message said: “I have known you as a dogged, committed and tenacious fighter. It is my hope that you will bring such doggedness, commitment and tenacity to bear on the huge task of governance ahead of you.
“True, we are in different parties, but above this, we are both sons of Edo State to which we owe irreducible loyalty. Therefore, service to our state comes over and above party affiliations”, he said.
… Orji also
Also, Gov Theodore Orji of Abia State in a congratulatory message said Oshiomhole’s victory is a development that is good for Nigeria’s fledgling democracy.
In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Sam Hart, Orji noted that the beauty of multi-party democracy the world over was the existence of a strong and virile opposition and noted that the emergence of an Action Congress (AC) Governor in Edo State would stimulate the opposition in Nigeria.
He noted that the judgment had also dispelled the notion of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as a domineering behemoth that will seek to hold unto power at all costs by manipulating the judicial process to suit their ends.
By Gabriel Enogholase, Chris Ochayi, Tony Osauzo and Uduma Kalu | Vanguard
