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Damage is seen following an army attack in El Daein. (Social media)

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said on Tuesday that at least 11 people were killed and dozens wounded in Sudanese army air raids on the city of El Daein, the capital of the East Darfur state and hometown of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti.

The army confirmed that it carried out strikes on military targets in El Daein, saying it “hit and completely destroyed a weapons depot belonging to a terrorist militia”

The army’s WhatsApp channel said several “field commanders and Dagalo terrorist mercenaries” were killed in the attack.

In a post on the X platform, the RSF said nine of the victims were members of the same family and included women and children. Dozens of innocent civilians were wounded and hundreds of homes were damaged in the attack. 

It accused the army of targeting the “al-Neem” refugee camp, a hospital and water plant in El Daein.

The city is the hometown of the Rizeigat tribe, whose members make up the majority of the RSF commanders and fighters.

The RSF accused the army of repeatedly attacking civilians with explosive bombs in “deliberate cowardly criminal acts.”

“The attack is the latest in the series of crimes committed by [army commander Abdul Fattah al-Burhan's] militia and remnants of the former regime,” it added.

It called on international rights and human rights groups to “condemn these barbaric extremist acts against innocent people.”

The RSF captured El Daein after the army retreated from it in November.

Activists on Facebook said the army’s strikes on Tuesday targeted residential areas, while others said they hit RSF positions, causing losses in lives and damaging military equipment.

Separately, witnesses said clashes erupted again in the capital Khartoum. They said the RSF shelled army positions with heavy artillery in the general command area.  By Mohammed Amin Yassin, Asharq Al-Awsat

The Supreme Court has annulled a Court of Appeal decision declaring the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) Act unconstitutional citing jurisdiction infringement.

In a decision rendered on Wednesday, the country’s highest court determined that a consolidated petition contesting the statute fell within the jurisdiction of the Employment and Labour Relations Court (ELRC) and that the Court of Appeal wrongfully assumed jurisdiction on the matter.

“It is our holding that where the Court of Appeal determines that a trial court has acted without jurisdiction in determining a matter, it cannot assume original jurisdiction over the same,” a full bench of the court led by Chief Justice Martha Koome determined.

The Supreme Court further argued that the Appellate Court, having determined the question of contested jurisdiction between the Constitutional Court and ELRC, appeal judges ought to have proceeded to remit the matter to the right court for determination.

“Having so found, the Appellate Court has to remit the case to the court that is clothed with jurisdiction to dispose of the same without going into the merits of the dispute, for doing so may prejudice the fair determination of the case by the court with jurisdiction,” the 7-bench court asserted.

Petitioners in the suit, who included the Kenya Tea Growers Association, had contested the coming into force of the Act citing insufficient public participation.

The Constitutional Court referred two petitions to ELRC which subsequently consolidated a petition in Nakuru and Nairobi for hearing.

The Supreme Court noted that then ELRC Principal Judge Juma Nderi agreed that both judges of the Constitutional Division and those of the Labour Division could hear the matter prompting the decision by the Chief Justice to empanel a mixed bench.

The Court of Appeal declared the establishment of a mixed bench unconstitutional and later annulled a verdict by an ELRC bench on grounds the court lacked jurisdiction.

In its decision on Wednesday, Supreme Court judges however faulted the Appeal Court’s failure to remit the matter to the Constitutional Division of the High Court which it determined as the appropriate forum for the case.

The apex court reinstated the verdict of the ELRC and referred the matter to the Court of Appeal to determine the petition based on the findings of the Employment Court. By Sharon Resian, Capital News

President William Ruto.[PCS, Standard]

President William Ruto has urged government officials to read local newspapers to keep abreast of the latest developments in the country.

This is even as he continues to push for the death of the same newspapers by channeling government advertising to a single newspaper.

Ruto was speaking in Naivasha on Monday, February 19 at Lake Naivasha Resort where the he met the Cabinet and Members of Parliament and Senate, who have converged to take stock of the government’s performance and progress. 

The President was shocked to learn that some of the legislators were not aware of the plans to recruit some 2,500 nurses, which he said had been advertised in newspapers and he had also been talking about it during his meetings in various parts of the country.

“I have heard some of you say you are not aware. Where do you want me to stand to tell you? Which volume do you want so that you can hear?” he posed. 

“The (jobs) were advertised in the press, I have talked about this thing in every meeting. When you are seated those meetings, aren’t you supposed to find out where these vacancies are afterwards?” 

The Head of State took offense with the matter, noting that he had raised the issue in all the places he had visited and challenged the leaders to follow it up with the Health Cabinet Secretary. 

Ruto also announced that plans were underway to export more labourers abroad and identified Germany where the government had entered into a pact on job opportunities.

“Several counties need over one million workers and we are working on an agreement with the German government for over 250,000 job opportunities by June,” he added. 

However, Ruto’s call for the leaders to read newspapers comes at a time when the government has instructed State agencies to exclude three national newspapers from advertisements, a move some see as a bid to monopolize information.

Kenya Kwanza has singled out The Standard Group PLC (SG), Nation Media Group (NMG) and People Daily from a contract to run My.Gov pull-out, a weekly publication that contains government information, tenders and job opportunities.

Instead, it settled for The Star newspaper, in a contract issued to Convergence Africa Media Limited, a company that is said to have links with the ruling party. By David Njaaga , The Standard

Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Sama Lukonde Kyenge has resigned.[Courtesy, LinkedIn]

Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Sama Lukonde Kyenge submitted his resignation to President Felix Tshisekedi, the DRC presidential office announced Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter.

Sama Lukonde Kyenge was appointed prime minister on Feb. 15, 2021.

On Feb. 8, the Constitutional Court of the DRC rendered the incompatibility of government and legislative functions, asking ministers, provincial governors, and members of political cabinets, who are also elected in legislative elections, to resign from their political functions unless they renounce their electoral mandate.

 

"Consequently, (the Constitutional Court) demands that the members of the government, the ministerial cabinets, and the general secretariat of the government who are newly elected national deputies, senators, provincial deputies, municipal councilors of sectors or chiefdom and who have opted for their electoral mandate, automatically and immediately lose their incompatible functions," said a decree by the Constitutional Court.

On Dec. 20, 2023, 31 of the 60 members of the government, including the prime minister, were elected national deputies in the general elections, in which nearly 44 million voters were called to go to the polls during the day to elect a new president, deputies, as well as provincial and municipal councilors. 

Felix Tshisekedi was re-elected with a majority of 73.47 percent of the vote and was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2024.

On Feb.7, Felix Tshisekedi named Augustin Kabuya Tshilumba, secretary general of the ruling party Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), to form the next government. The UDPS won 69 seats in the 500-member National Assembly ahead of 44 other parties in the general elections. Xinhua

Muhoozi Kainerugaba 

The MK Project, an ensemble that aspires to install Muhoozi Kainerugaba, as successor to Yoweri Museveni is a hoax, and the Project is the latest in a series of hoaxes, not worth the undivided attention of Ugandans, writes Andrew Karamagi. 

After some contemplation and observation, I have come to the conclusion that the MK Project (a hodgepodge ensemble that aspires to install so called First Son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, as successor to Yoweri Museveni) is a hoax and major diversion, orchestrated by the latter, with the former as an excited spoilt kid, buoyed by a brazen cast of unsophisticated fortune hunters, brazen wheeler dealers, ignorant sycophants, and callous felons.

My three brief reasons:

First, I hold the view that Museveni quietly but thoroughly despises Muhoozi for his lack of discipline, rigour, and intellectual depth. He doesn’t see him as a guarantor of the family’s bloodline and loot.

Why do I think so? In my conversations with elders and bush war veterans, they have invariably underscored Museveni’s sheer determination, willpower, thirst for knowledge (even for nefarious motives), and spartan discipline (including his disdain for alcohol and penchant for physical fitness), all of which were part of his formative youthful years. When Museveni was Kainerugaba’s age, he was already considerably published on Marxist philosophy, Pan Africanism, public policy, guerrilla warfare, and politics as a whole.

It is a different question whether he has lived up to his writings, but the same cannot be said, even remotely, of his son who can neither compose nor deliver a simple speech at a wedding ceremony, his own birthday party, or a public rally, off-the-cuff. Instead, Kainerugaba relies on what appears to be hastily scribbled, incoherent notes on sticky notes or shabby pieces of paper. 

Now in his eighties, the Old Man has evidently lost his shine and verve, but remains a polar opposite of his wayward son in terms of mental acuity and discipline. It doesn’t make sense to me that Museveni would take the gamble of entrusting his life’s work to a lazy, self-absorbed kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Second, Museveni’s pathological love for power, in its rawest and finest forms, makes it impossible for him to tolerate, much less support the notion of a successor. In his kingdom Uganda, there is no trinity or line of succession. He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.

Take a look at the fates of all those who were once thought to be potential replacements (many of whom he even cunningly whispered the idea of succession to), from James Wapakhabulo, Noble Mayombo, Amama Mbabazi, Gilbert Bukenya (don’t laugh!), to Rebecca Kadaga. Don’t let the father-son relationship mislead you; in Machiavellian equations of power, being his biological son doesn’t mean much to a despot.

As with the rest of animal kingdom, so with humankind…lions, for example, are known to kill off young male offspring to guarantee their continued leadership of the pride. By the same logic, regardless of his state-of-mind, for as long as Museveni has the basic functions of body temperature, pulse rate, and respiration, it is not conceivable that he can entertain the idea of a replacement or successor, by whatever name called. It’s just not in him. 

Third and finally, Gen. Museveni’s career as a civil servant (i.e., intelligence operative and minister), guerrilla, and head of the ruling junta (so called NRM) has been characterised by countless smokescreens. Museveni trivialises or remains silent about serious issues and overplays the things he doesn’t really care about. 

(In)famous diversions include the ruse he sold regarding his commitment to cease fire and fully participate in the Nairobi Peace Talks (also known as the Nairobi Peace Jokes) yet his rebel forces were simultaneously advancing on (and later on captured) Kampala; his perennial mind games on the leadership of religions and kingdoms in Uganda; and the false alliance he made with MPs who zealously supported his bid for the removal of the presidential age limit, only for him to sacrifice them at the altar of the 2021 elections to appease an angry population.

Muhoozi Kainerugaba,

In the words of my friend Betty Nambooze, “if Museveni asks you to wait for him on the road that leads to Masaka, do yourself a favour and instead wait for him on the road that leads to Jinja.” Founding father Milton Obote who was his boss at a time designated him “a pathological liar who only tells the truth by accident.” One commentator whose name eludes me once hilariously quipped that if you shake hands with Museveni, check to see that you still have all five fingers. Against such a backdrop, why would anyone believe that for something as crucial as transition or succession, Museveni would play his cards so openly as to show us his heir apparent?

Let me conclude this way:

The only real utility that the MK Project possesses for Museveni is twofold:

i. By deliberately hyping up a Kainerugaba presidency, Museveni forces the public to look favourably upon his continued rule because he is the Devil we know…and that Muhoozi would certainly be an unmitigated disaster. This reduces the spotlight on his forty-year-reign, as the “bewildered herd” gets distracted by the theatrics of the MK project. 

ii. Assuming that a real crown prince exists, the MK Project helps the ruling family to conceal the identity of that person, while we chase after shadows. 

In the end, the Ugandan public will be the ultimate loser in this long con. After all, Baalam Barugahara & Co., don’t care who takes power next or what happens to the country, as long as their stomachs are full.

For these reasons, I hold the considered view that the MK Project is the latest in a series of hoaxes, not worth the undivided attention of Ugandans.

Let’s focus on getting rid of Museveni and Musevenism—and the task of restoring our society to its past glory and dignity. By Andrew Karamag, This is Africa. Opinion is writer’s own. 

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