On Valentine’s Day, Monday 14^th February 2022, First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone Madam Fatima Bio and opposition strongwoman Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden met and discussed at the Office of the First Lady.

While many expressed delight over the meeting of the two women, some expressed surprise to see the two women from the country’s two main and rivalry political parties chatting and taking photos in the most friendly manner one can describe.

The First Lady, obviously, is a member of the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) while Dr. Blyden is a member of the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC).

There have been rumours that the two very popular Sierra Leonean ladies are at loggerheads, but their meeting on Monday sent a message that both have indeed shared long bond.

Dr. Sylvia Blyden spent some good time working in the Republic of The Gambia, a country paternally connected to Madam Fatima Bio. Both women are said to have shared moments in The Gambia. In fact, their meeting on Monday has been dubbed “the Gambian connection.”

Both posted photos of their meeting on their official Facebook pages. First Lady Fatima Bio’s post carried the expression, “finally two sisters meet.”

An excerpt of Dr. Blyden’s post reads:

“…It was time for me to zoom over to Goderich to meet my beloved Baby Sister, (our First Lady Fatima Maada Bio) at her Office. This is someone whom I should have never allowed politics to separate us – Today is my very first time of seeing or speaking with her for ten years now. The photos of me and Fatima speak for themselves. The natural smiles say it all. It was a big mistake on our part to get separated over Politics. Thank God that unfortunate separation is now over.”

The smiles, pleasantries and warm reception are perceived to be testaments of a reunion of sisters as Dr. Blyden disclosed that the meeting was their first in the last ten years.

Political and social analysts note that the recent encounter of the two women should be seen as a lesson to everyone that we can’t be fighting forever and that relationships or ties should always transcend political belongingness.

By: Christian Conteh

His Worship Magistrate Muhammed Krubally has ruled that the matter between the Inspector General (IG), (for the state) and Nenneh Freda Gomez (first accused) and Lamin Sey (second accused) proceeds to hearing.

He handed down this ruling on Wednesday 16th February 2022, after Counsel S Jarju for the IGP and Counsel RY Mendy for the accused persons had made their presentation on the substantive matter.

The two Accused herein referred to as Nenneh Freda Gomez as the First Accused and Lamin Sey, second accused were arraigned on three counts charge of Conspiracy to commit misdemeanour contrary to Section 369 of the Criminal Code Cap 10 01 Revised Laws Of The Gambia 2009, Idle and Disorderly Persons contrary to Section 166, c of the Criminal Code Cap 10 01 Volume 3 Revised Laws Of The Gambia 2009 and Obstructing a Police Officer, Contrary to Section 230, b of the Criminal Code Cap 10 01 Volume 3 Revised Laws Of The Gambia 2009.

Both accused persons pleaded not guilty to all charges.

According to the defence counsel, “an objection to a charge for any formal defect on the face thereof shall be taken immediately after the charge has been read over to the Accused Person and not later,” and this was done.

Looking at this provision according to the Learned Senior Counsel Y Senghor, the prosecution should have provided in detail in every charge sheet and each offence thereof shall be tied with the particulars thereof.

His client having won a civil lawsuit on the same matter before the court Counsel Y Senghor submitted that, the judgement decided by Justice Bakary in Nenneh Freda’s case at the High Court has a bearing in this Criminal case and therefore urge this court to;

“So, hold that the charges brought against the Accused Persons are defective in material particulars and strike out the matter.”

The Magistrate however ruled that the case at hand is criminal and not civil, therefore the defence cannot rely on the judgement from the civil matter at the high court.

“I am of the opinion here that, this particular case against Nenneh Freda Gomez, Gilbert Mendy and Lamin Sey was a civil one whiles this particular case on which the two Accused herein are charged are Criminal which required the prosecution to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt.

The import of section 54 of the Evidence Act in my view here can only be applicable if the case against the two Accused Persons herein is also civil similar to the one earlier decided against them at the High Court,” Magistrate Krubally said.

Magistrate Krubally went on to conclude that the said Counts One, Two and Three so preferred against Nenneh Freda Gomez herein the First Accused and Lamin Sey herein the Second Accused are good, valid and competent and not statutorily defective.

Therefore, the submissions made by Counsels in their preliminary objections against the preferred charges against the first and second accused herein by the prosecution are hereby discountenanced.

“I so hold and order that the matter proceeds to hearing,” he said.

At that juncture, the prosecution applied for a short adjournment in order to secure the attendance of its witness to enable them to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt.

Since no objection was raised by counsel for the accused the Magistrate granted the call for adjournment. The matter stands adjourned to Thursday 10th March 2022 for hearing at 2;15 pm.

By Amara Thoronka

Gambia’s National Water and Electricity Company (NAWEC) has warned people engaging in the cutting of their power plant cables to desist from doing so as such acts have led to massive blackout and disruption of water supply within the Greater Banjul Area and the West Coast Region.

Visiting the affected areas in Brikama, NAWEC’s Director of Water and Sewage System Alagie Dibba, explained the nature of destruction caused by their cables being cut, warning those doing so to desist forthwith as people are seriously affected in accessing water and power in their homes.

“It is very unfortunate see cables being cut. This is not the first time we are experiencing this kind of vandalism of our properties. The borehole at Brikama gives out about ninety thousand liters per hour. Somebody came in and cut the cables leading to huge waste of water and people not accessing it. We are still trying to find out what these people are doing with the cables, but I understand they are using the cables to get copper. The cables are properly  buried but people still dig and break the locks just to cut some meters of cables to get pieces of copper”

He noted that people should refrain from derailing the provision of such essential services for selfish gain. “The money they illegally generates from such acts and the amount of destruction by such acts cannot be equated. They are making our customers to suffer for nothing.”

Mr. Dibba calls for concerted approach in preventing further occurrences.

“Addressing this issue requires everyone. It’s a collective responsibility. We can’t be everywhere. We can’t practically put security personnel everywhere to secure and control such facilities”

NAWEC’s Water Production Manager, Mbakey Jaiteh, cautioned that the full force of the law will deal with anyone caught stealing or destroy NAWEC’s properties.

“Vandalizing these facilities is a crime so those caught will face the full force of the law”

NAWEC Gambia Ltd. is the Gambia’s main generator and supplier of electricity, drinking water & sewerage services for domestic, industrial & commercial uses.

The Lord Mayor of Banjul City Council (BCC) Rohey Malick Lowe has flaunted her act of awarding scholarships to two hundred youth in Banjul who wish to pursue tertiary education as one of her key successes.

She was speaking to Banjulians at a town hall meeting in Banjul South on Saturday. 

The meeting is in fulfillment of requirements laid down in the Local Government Act of 2002, which requires the mayor to tour the city and interact with the people to hear from them what their constraints are and find ways to address them.

It is a mechanism that seeks to bring the people closer to their elected representatives and the elected representatives to the people.

“We have awarded scholarships to two hundred youths in Banjul to enroll in the University of the Gambia, GTTI and other institutions,” she said.

Other success stories she outlined are the restoration of electricity to the council after running on a generator for over four years and spending over D 5,000 on fuel daily and the drive to ensure a once debt-ridden council becomes the only council in the city that is debt-free.

She promised to continue to do more towards developing the council and improving the general wellbeing of residents of Banjul.

Internationally recognised, Rohey Malick Lowe was named African Mayor of the Month in April 2021 by the United Cities of Local Government (UCLG).

By: Christian Conteh

The Gambia is set to replace the moribund 1950 Pension Act with a more updated Public Service Pensions Bill. This was adduced from the announcement by the National Assembly Speaker Mariam Jack-Denton that The Third Reading for the Public Service Pensions Bill will be done on Monday, the 21st of February, 2022.

“The Third Reading for the Public Service Pensions Bill is now scheduled for Monday, the 21st of February, 2022 for her Excellency the Vice-President to move for its Third Reading,” National Assembly Speaker Mariam Jack-Denton told members.

The Public Service Pensions Bill seeks to introduce a new procedure for management, administration and management of retirement benefits for ensuring not only the improvement of pension entitlements but also the efficiency of processing of pension payments among other things, the bills short title suggests.

Ahead of the reading, National Assembly Member for Serrekunda Halifa Sallah sought permission from the Speaker for amendment for the correction of error or oversight before the question for the Third Reading was put.

“They should have really brought it and that is a way for them to amend it to make sure that we get it before the Third Reading,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Speaker urged the Office of the Vice-President to comply with Standing Order Clause 72 (20) before that date for the reading.

The Standing Order seeks to ensure that the amended version of the Bill is printed and circulated to Members in advance to include everything, ie all the amendments that have been agreed and voted on by the House.

By Maimouna Bah 

On Wednesday 16th February 2022 the people of Tanji Lamsar community were awakened by a demolition exercise of their buildings.

Speaking to Fatu Network, residents said when they asked the rationale for demolishing their structures, the officers told them they were sent by authorities to execute the demolition.

Residents lamented that they were very disappointed as they had invested lots of money in the demolished structures.

They disclosed that their gardens and poultry farms were were also affected by the demolition exercise, adding that those were their only sources of income. A nursery school was touched.

Some women were lamenting as the demolition was carried out.

They said no prior notice was given to them, noting that the forces said they were going to return to demolish more structures.

Some affected residents said they are going to seek redress in court.

A patient with leukaemia in the United States has become the first woman and the third person to date to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant, researchers say.

The case, presented on Tuesday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunisitic Infections in the US city of Denver, was the first involving umbilical cord blood to treat acute myeloid leukaemia, which starts in blood-forming cells in the bone marrow.

Since receiving the cord blood, the middle-aged woman of mixed race has been in remission and free of HIV for 14 months, without the need for potent treatments known as antiretroviral therapy.

The donor was naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS.

“This is now the third report of a cure in this setting, and the first in a woman living with HIV,” Sharon Lewin, president-elect of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement.

The two prior cases occurred in males, one white and one Latino, who had received adult stem cells more frequently used in bone marrow transplants.

This new approach may make the treatment available to more people, according to researchers.

The case is part of a wider study led by the University of California, Los Angeles and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore that follows 25 people with HIV who undergo transplants with stem cells for the treatment of cancer and other serious conditions.

Patients in the trial first undergo chemotherapy to kill off the cancerous immune cells and then receive transplant stem cells from individuals with a specific genetic mutation in which they lack receptors used by the virus to infect cells.

Scientists believe these individuals then develop an immune system resistant to HIV.

Lewin said that while bone marrow transplants are not a viable strategy to cure most people living with HIV, the report “confirms that a cure for HIV is possible and further strengthens using gene therapy as a viable strategy for an HIV cure”.

Previously, scientists believed that a common stem cell transplant side-effect called graft versus host disease – in which the donor immune system attacks the recipient’s immune system – played a role in a possible cure.

“Taken together, these three cases of a cure post stem cell transplant all help in teasing out the various components of the transplant that were absolutely key to a cure,” Lewin said.

Aljazeera

Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, is experiencing an acute shortage of fuel, which is causing huge disruption across the country.

People are waiting at petrol stations for several hours, some into the night trying to get fuel.

The longest queues have been in cities like the capital, Abuja, and the commercial hub of Lagos, at those petrol stations that actually have some fuel in stock.

In some places, prices have increased by up to four times on the black market.

It is not new for the country to run short of fuel as its oil refineries are not working to capacity.

This means Nigeria exports its crude oil and then imports refined products for local consumption.

Controversy over the government’s plan to scrap subsidies on petroleum products has reportedly also caused bottlenecks in supplies.

Nigeria’s state-owned oil company says the current shortages are because measures were taken to quarantine millions of litres of adulterated fuel already on the market.

The methanol-blended petrol was imported earlier this month, with many Nigerians reporting mechanical damage to their vehicles after using it.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation now says it plans to deliver 2.3 billion litres of petrol – and that its depots and retail outlets will start round-the-clock operations in an attempt to address the frustrating long queues.

BBC

Burkina Faso military leader Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba is due to be sworn in as the country’s president, just over two weeks after soldiers ousted President Roch Kaboré in a coup.

Last week, the Constitutional Council, “having taken note” of Mr Kaboré’s resignation, declared Mr Damiba, a 41-year-old army officer, president of Burkina Faso.

State television says the inauguration will be broadcast live from the Constitutional Council building on Wednesday morning.

Mr Damiba led soldiers to oust Mr Kaboré, who had faced months of protests over his failure to stem a jihadist insurgency in the north and east of the country.

On Monday, Mr Damiba travelled to the north of the country to meet soldiers and a government militia fighting jihadists, state TV reported.

Two former Minneapolis police officers, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng, told a U.S. judge on Monday they planned to testify in their own defense against federal charges that they violated George Floyd’s civil rights during a deadly 2020 arrest.

A lawyer for Thomas Lane, the third police officer on trial at the U.S. District Court in St. Paul, had previously said Lane would also testify in his own defense, but told Judge Paul Magnuson on Monday that Lane was still considering his decision.

Derek Chauvin, the white police officer convicted at a separate state trial last year of murdering Floyd, has already pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating the 46-year-old Black man’s civil rights by failing to give medical aid.

A cellphone video of the dying, handcuffed Floyd pleading for his life before falling motionless as Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes caused outrage in May 2020, spurring huge daily protests against racism and police brutality in cities around the world.

By: Jonathan Allen (Reuters)

By: Christian Conteh

Hon. Elizabeth Renner Former speaker of Gambia’s National Assembly has advised parliamentary aspirants to avoid making promises that they cannot keep, describing the act as a major reason why there is distrust between elected officials and the people.

She noted that the Gambia is a small country and all its people are related one way or the other. Therefore, she called on every Gambian to ensure that their existing unity is not affected but strengthened as they participate in the upcoming electoral process. 

“We must send fitting candidates to the National assembly people who represent the people and not their party. You must also avoid making promises which you cannot keep, this is what most Candidates do, and it is a major reason why there is distrust between elected officials and the people,” Hon Renner said.

She further noted that people normally don’t take assembly elections seriously but encouraged media practitioners and civil society actors to help change that because the assembly is an important constituent of government.

“It is not people who attend your party or your naming ceremony or wedding that can represent you in the National Assembly, representation goes way beyond that. We are not saying go for degree holders, because the rule says you should be able to read and write, but please vote people who cannot just read and write but read understand and write sensibly,” Hon Renner said.

She encouraged Journalists and Civil Society Groups to play their role to ensure people come out to vote, “we want a turnout of 90% if that’s possible,” she said. 

Meanwhile, she appealed to every aspirant to make sure they avoid the use of hate speech and statements that depict tribalism indicating that they have no place in the country’s politics.

Algeria’s president says the government will introduce unemployment benefits for young adults as the country struggles with high rates of joblessness.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune told journalists that the payments to jobseekers aged 19 to 40 would begin in March.

Those who are eligible will be able to collect the payments of about a $100 (£73) a month, as well as some medical benefits, until they find work.

Making the announcement, Mr Tebboune said that Algeria was the first country outside Europe to introduce such a benefit.

He added that there were now more than 600,000 unemployed in Algeria.

BBC

By: Christian Conteh

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) has on Tuesday 15th February 2022 held a consultative engagement with eminent personalities including religious leaders, civil society actors and media practitioners.

The consultations which took place at the Sir Dawda Jawara International Conference Centre at Bijilo was organised based on a draft code of conduct for candidates in the upcoming National Assembly Elections.

Mohamed Ibu Chambers is the Lead facilitator of the Gambian Code of Conduct. He said the code will help regulate the conduct of candidates in the upcoming elections.

“Civil Society Organisations (CSO) and the media are the glue of society, they take information from the government to the people and from the people to the government,” Mr Chambers said.

He further encouraged CSO groups and the media to widely circulate the code of conduct to the grassroot so that the people can hold their leaders to account when they breach the code.

“You have an important role to play, from the campaigns to the voting. We commend you for what you did during the presidential elections we hope you improve on it. Remember that you are an important part of the Gambia. Because you are important and because people listen to you, you must try to be balanced and impartial, you must try not to use inflammatory language,” he said.

“Peace is very important in the nation, we are all aware that in Mali and Sudan there is no peace, so we all owe it to ourselves our families and the nation to ensure we do not have such a situation,” he added.

Making her presentation Hon. Elizabeth Renner, Former Speaker of the National Assembly noted that The Gambia is a small country and all its people are related one way or the other.

Therefore, she called on every Gambian to ensure that their existing unity is not affected but strengthened as they participate in the upcoming electoral process.

“People normally don’t take assembly elections seriously, but we must help change that because the assembly is an important constituent of government, we must send fitting candidates to the National Assembly,” Hon Renner said.

She called on the media and CSOs to ensure their various platforms are not used to propagate hate speech, tribalism or religious divide.

“This must be avoided, these have no place in our politics,” she said.

The code of ethics “Towards Peaceful National Assembly Elections in The Gambia” outlines 15 codes including: calling for the running of issue-based political campaigns at village, town, city, district, constituency, municipal, regional and national levels.

Ensuring uninterrupted and uncompromised freedom of expression and sharing of accurate information, both online and offline, throughout the Electoral Process.

Accepting the results of the elections as announced by returning officers of IEC at constituencies and to resort to judicial processes to address disputes which may arise from the makeup of the election.

The candidates are further required to reaffirm their commitment to abide by the tenets of the 1997 Constitution of the Republic of The Gambia, the Elections Act (2009), the Inter-Party Committee (IPC) Memorandum of Understanding and Code of Conduct (2017), and the IPC Peace Pledge also known as the Jangjangbureh Peace Accord (2021).

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) is conducting a dialogue on consensus-building process on peaceful elections among the various political parties and electoral stakeholders in The Gambia. IDEA is an inter-governmental organization with a mandate to promote democratic governance worldwide

Two Sudanese protesters were shot dead by security forces on Monday, a union of doctors in Sudan says.

This takes the number of people killed since October’s coup to at least 80.

The latest pro-democracy protests on Monday took place in several cities and towns across the country to reject military rule and call for the release of recently arrested politicians.

Since last week three politicians who had once been in the ruling sovereign council have been detained.

They had all been part of a task force appointed to dismantle the economic and political networks set up during the former president Omar al-Bashir’s rule of almost three decades.

A Tanzanian man has shocked his village by building his own grave in preparation for his death.

Patrick Kimaro, 59, says his family is slowly accepting his decision, which is viewed by the community as a bad omen.

Traditional leaders from Mr Kimaro’s ethnic group in Kilimanjaro region say a grave should not be dug in anticipation of death and it should not remain empty for long.

Mr Kimaro, who works as a policeman, told BBC Swahili that he started building his grave in January to cushion his family from high funeral expenses when he dies.

“Being a first-born child, I had a difficult time burying my parents when they died six months apart… so I decided I’ll not take my children through the same [experience],” he told BBC Swahili.

Mr Kimaro plans to set aside some money for his casket and believes his family will be able to raise money for other related expenses after his death.

He is also planning to take insurance for his grave in the event of natural calamities like flooding that may destroy it.

The preparation of the grave, including its exquisite finishing, cost him a total of $3,000 (£2,200).

Mr Kimaro’s home security guard says some neighbours have shied away from visiting since the grave was dug within the compound.

Some of his family members have however got used to the grave and even sit around it to chat.

BBC

More than 80 Cameroonian asylum seekers deported by the United States between 2019 and 2021 suffered serious human rights violations – from torture and rape to enforced disappearance – on their return home, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

In a 149-page report released on Thursday, the New York-based rights group also documented dozens of cases of alleged abuse and mistreatment by officers of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) against those deported.

“The US government utterly failed Cameroonians with credible asylum claims by sending them back to harm in the country they fled, as well as mistreating already traumatised people before and during deportation,” said Lauren Seibert, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The Cameroon and US governments need to remedy these abuses, and US authorities should provide opportunities for wrongly deported Cameroonians to return and reapply for asylum,” Seibert added.

HRW said it had interviewed 41 deported Cameroonian asylum seekers and 54 other people in the US and Cameroon for the report, and collected and analysed US asylum and immigration documents – including photos, videos and recordings – of deported people.

The rights group said the US was in violation of the principle of nonrefoulement, a cornerstone of international refugee and human rights law, that states that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel and inhuman treatment.

Some areas of Cameroon have been gripped by violence after Anglophone separatists launched a campaign in the northwest and southwest regions to break away from the country’s French-speaking majority in 2016. Since then, researchers say that 3,500 people have been killed amid clashes between separatists and state forces, while about 700,000 were forced to flee from their homes.

HRW said that nearly all of the people interviewed for the report had left Cameroon due to reasons linked to the violence in the Anglophone regions.

After being deported in October 2020, a woman in HRW’s report said she was tortured and raped by gendarmes or military men during a six-week detention in Bamenda, in Cameroon’s northwest region.

“Every two days … they were using ropes, [rubber] tubes, their boots, military belts … They hit me all over my body,” she said, according to HRW, who withheld her name for security reasons. “They said that I’ve destroyed the image of Cameroon … so I had to pay for it,” she added.

HRW said that Cameroonian authorities had also abused returnees for having fled and for seeking asylum in the US.

“[Officials] said … ‘You people left here, you ran … to the US, telling lies about the government,’” the report cited another woman as saying. She was also deported in October 2020.

The human rights group also outlined how ICE, at the time under the Trump administration, mistreated nearly all the asylum seekers interviewed for the report.

The immigration agency, the report said, detained 40 asylum seekers for prolonged and unnecessary periods – an average of 1.5 years. HRW documented 24 cases of alleged excessive force, cruel or inhuman treatment, or other physical abuse by ICE officers.

“I went to the US to seek asylum for the persecution I experienced in my country. I was just so sad, because I did two years 10 months [in detention], and I am not a criminal,” said a male interviewee deported in October 2020.

HRW, along with members of the Cameroon Advocacy Network, a coalition of immigrant rights groups and Cameroonian immigrants in the US, urged the American government to grant those deported between 2020 and 2021 humanitarian parole to return to the US for “urgent humanitarian reasons”.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

A Ghanaian political activist has been charged with treason after being arrested on Friday for making comments on social media about a coup.

Oliver Barker-Vormawor has led protests against President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government under the banner “Fix The Country”.

A request for bail was turned down. He was detained after posting on social media that he would stage a coup if parliament passed a new bill which will impose a tax on mobile money transfers.

President Akufo-Addos’s second term has featured several protests against government policies which are aimed at improving an economy that’s been hit hard by the pandemic.

BBC

A school teacher has been arrested in Nigeria for allegedly flogging a 19-month-old pupil to death, police says.

The teacher at a nursery and primary school in Asaba, Delta state, was alleged to have left several marks on the toddler’s body after flogging him last Monday.

The suspect, who is thought to be the son of the owner of the private school, allegedly started beating the pupil after he caught him playing with water.

He has not been reported to have commented on the incident.

The pupil was said to have fallen ill after the incident and was taken to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Asaba where he eventually died.

Police spokesman DSP Dafe Bright told BBC Pidgin that the suspect would be charged for murder and manslaughter.

BBC