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A new loco is lifted onto the quayside at Dar es Salaam 

TANZANIA Railway Corporation (TRC) has taken delivery of three new electric locomotives and 27 passenger coaches for the new Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) that is under construction between Dar es Salaam and Morogoro and that will eventually extend to the border with Rwanda.

The rail vehicles arrived by ship at the port of Dar es Salaam on December 30 2023 and are currently undergoing commissioning by TRC, before beginning test runs on the new route, which is electrified at 25kV ac.

Four out of the 17 electric 160 km/h locomotives being supplied by Hyundai Rotem have now arrived in Tanzania. They will haul new coaches built by fellow Korean manufacturer Sung Shin Rolling Stock Technology (SSRST). The latest batch of 27 coaches, including 13 business class and 14 economy class cars, is undergoing testing in Dar es Salaam and brings the total of 59 coaches ordered from SSRST now in Tanzania to 56.

One of the three remaining coaches to be delivered will be a special presidential vehicle for the country’s leader, Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan.

TRC has previously taken delivery of 30 former DB Regio double-deck coaches, which were overhauled in Mukran, Germany, before being repainted in TRC’s orange and white livery.

TRC has also ordered 10 EMUs from Hyundai Rotem, each with a capacity for 640 passengers. These are expected to arrive in Tanzania by October. Source: IRJ

 

The Flying Squad and the army have apprehended over 140 suspected criminals in Nsangi, within Kyengera town council, Wakiso district, over the weekend. This intelligence-led operation, led by the joint Flying Squad, Kampala Metropolitan South Police, and the army, targeted areas like Kitemu (known as Benghazi), Nakasozi (known as Geyena), and others, addressing numerous complaints of house break-ins.

The spate of robberies also affected the home of former Kawempe South legislator Munyagwa Mubarak, where his security guard is currently hospitalized for head injuries sustained during an attack last Tuesday night. According to police reports, Munyagwa’s residence in Kimbejja Cell, Budo ward, Kyengera town council, was invaded by machete-wielding assailants around 2:00 am, leaving his security guard, Benjamin Mpaka, severely injured.

Luke Owoyesigyire, the Kampala Metropolitan Deputy Police Spokesperson, highlighted the launch of joint operations resulting in the arrest of 145 suspected criminals, including 39 identified as hardened criminals by residents. After cautioning, 106 suspects were released. The ongoing operations aim to eradicate the heightened criminal activities in these areas.

“We assure you that these operations have just begun, and our goal is to eliminate the criminals terrorizing people here day and night. Some suspects will face court proceedings this week,” Owoyesigyire emphasized. The 2022 crime report documented a total of 6,854 robbery cases, compared to 5,275 in 2021. Among these, 2,516 cases involved lethal weapons like firearms and machetes, while 4,338 cases did not involve any weapons. By URN/Tower Post

 

MOGADISHU, Somalia

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud signed a law Saturday that nullifies a sea access deal signed by Ethiopia and Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland.

He signed the law in the national capital of Mogadishu, flanked by the Speaker of the Somali Senate Abdi Hash, and Lower House Speaker Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nur.

“With the support of our lawmakers & our people, this law is an illustration of our commitment to safeguard our unity, sovereignty & territorial integrity as per international law,” Mohamud wrote on X.

Information Minister Daud Aweis said the law represents the official stance of Mogadishu and “acts as a strong deterrent against any trespassing on Somali territory.”

Suldan I. Mohamed, a political analyst, told Anadolu the signing signifies a strong response from Somali lawmakers and the government.

“Somaliland legally is part of Somalia under international & national law,” he said. “The law provides President Hassan with diplomatic ammunition on the international stage, shutting doors on the deal.”

Somalia declared the deal “illegitimate” and called for an international emergency meeting.

The deal was signed Monday, granting Ethiopia access to the Red Sea.

Ethiopia lost its Red Sea ports in the early 1990s after the Eritrean War of Independence, which lasted from 1961 to 1991.

In 1991, Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia, leading to the establishment of two separate nations. The separation resulted in Ethiopia losing direct access to the Red Sea and key ports.

Ethiopia has since been landlocked, affecting its ability to conduct efficient maritime trade. By Mohamed Dhaysane, Anadolu Agency

"My dad had fear, constant fear. He was very afraid that someone would speak up."

In Summary

• TB Joshua, who died in 2021 at the age of 57, is accused of widespread abuse and torture spanning almost 20 years.

• Now aged 27, Ajoke lives in hiding and has dropped her surname "Joshua" - the BBC is not publishing her new name.

 

The BBC reveals how the late megachurch leader TB Joshua, who is accused of committing sexual crimes on a mass scale, locked up his own daughter and tortured her for years before leaving her homeless on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria.

Warning: Contains details some readers may find distressing

"My dad had fear, constant fear. He was very afraid that someone would speak up," says one of the pastor's daughters, Ajoke - the first whistle-blower to reach out to the BBC about the abuse she witnessed at her father's church, the Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan). 

TB Joshua, who died in 2021 at the age of 57, is accused of widespread abuse and torture spanning almost 20 years.

Now aged 27, Ajoke lives in hiding and has dropped her surname "Joshua" - the BBC is not publishing her new name.

Little is known about Ajoke's birth mother, who was believed to be one of TB Joshua's congregants. Ajoke says she was raised by Evelyn, Joshua's widow, from as early as she can remember.

Until the age of seven, Ajoke says she had a very happy childhood, going on holiday with the Joshua family to places like Dubai.

But one day everything changed. She was suspended from school for a misdemeanour, and a local journalist wrote an article referring to her as the illegitimate child of TB Joshua. She was pulled out of school and taken to the Scoan compound in Lagos.

"I was made to move to the disciples' room. I didn't volunteer to be a disciple. I was made to join," she says.

The disciples were an elite group of dedicated followers who served TB Joshua and lived with him inside the maze-like structure of the church. They came from all over the world, many staying at the compound for decades.

They lived under a strict set of rules: forbidden to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, prohibited from using their own phones or having access to their personal emails, and forced to call TB Joshua "Daddy".

"The disciples were both brainwashed and enablers. Everybody was just acting based on command - like zombies. Nobody was questioning anything," she says.

Just a child, Ajoke would not follow the rules like the other disciples: she refused to stand up when the pastor came into the room and rebelled against the severe sleeping orders.

The abuse started soon after.

Not long after arriving, aged seven, she remembers being beaten for wetting the bed and then being forced to walk around the compound with a sign around her neck saying "I am a bedwetter."

"The message about Ajoke was that she had terrible evil spirits that needed to be driven out," says one former female disciple.

"There was a time in the disciple meetings - he [Joshua] said people could beat her. Anyone in the female dormitory could just hit her and I remember just seeing people slapping her as they walked past," she says.

From the moment Ajoke moved to the church in the Ikotun neighbourhood of Lagos, she was treated like an outcast.

"She was, like, kind of labelled the black sheep of the family," says Rae, from the UK, who spent 12 years living in the church as a disciple. Like most of the former disciples interviewed by the BBC, she opted to only use her first name.

Rae remembers a time when Ajoke slept for too long, and Joshua shouted at her to get up.

Another disciple took her to the shower and "whipped her with an electrical cord and then turned the hot water on", she says.

Recalling the incident, Ajoke says: "I was screaming at the top of my voice, and they just let the water run on my head for a very long time."

Such abuse was never-ending, she says.

"We're talking about years and years of abuse. Consistent abuse. My existence as a child from another mother undermined everything he [TB Joshua] claimed to stand for."

The abuse escalated to a different scale when she was aged 17 and confronted her dad about "accounts, first hand, of people who had experienced sexual abuse".

"I saw female disciples go up to his room. They were going away for hours. I was hearing things: 'Oh this happened to me. He tried sleeping with me.' Too many people were saying the same thing," she says.

 

The BBC spoke to more than 25 former disciples - from the UK, Nigeria, US, South Africa, Ghana, Namibia and Germany - who gave powerful corroborating testimony of experiencing or witnessing sexual abuse.

"I couldn't take it any more. I walked directly into his office on that very day. I shouted at the top of my voice: 'Why are you doing this? Why are you hurting all these women?'

"I had lost every iota of fear for this man. He tried to stare me down, but I was looking in his eyes," she says.

Emmanuel, who was part of the church for 21 years and spent more than a decade living in the compound as a disciple, remembers that day clearly.

"He [TB Joshua] was the first person that started hitting her… then other people joined," he says.

"He was saying: 'Can you imagine what she's saying about me?' Even as much as they were hitting her, beating her, she was still saying the same thing."

Ajoke says she was dragged out of his office and put in a room away from the rest of the church members, where she lived in social confinement for more than a year.

It is a form of punishment within Scoan known as "adaba", something Rae also experienced for two years.

During this time Ajoke says she was repeatedly hit with belts and chains, often on a daily basis.

"I wonder how I lived through those times. I couldn't even stand up for days after these beatings. I couldn't even take a shower. He was trying so hard to stop people listening to me."

One day when Ajoke was 19, she says she was escorted to the front gates of the church and left there. The church security, who were armed, were told she was never to be allowed back in. This was six years before her father died.

"I found myself homeless. I had nobody to reach out to. Nobody would believe me. Nothing prepared me for that life," she says.

As a young woman with no money, Ajoke did what she could to survive and spent many years on the streets.

She first contacted the BBC in 2019 after watching a BBC Africa Eye exposé - and so began a long BBC investigation into uncovering the abuse at Scoan.

The BBC contacted Scoan with the allegations in this investigation. It did not respond to them, but denied previous claims against TB Joshua.

"Making unfounded allegations against Prophet TB Joshua is not a new occurrence… None of the allegations was ever substantiated," it said.

TB Joshua is one of Nigeria's most flamboyant and controversial pastors.
TB Joshua is one of Nigeria's most flamboyant and controversial pastors.
Image: BBC

With the help of former disciples and some close friends, Ajoke recently managed to get off the streets. But it has led to episodes where she has struggled with her mental health.

Yet after everything she has been through, she has remained determined to tell the truth about her father.

"Every time I was beaten up, every time I was humiliated, it just reminded me there was something wrong in the system," she says.

Former disciples have told the BBC that seeing Ajoke stand up to this man was one of the main reasons they started to doubt their faith in TB Joshua.

"He kept all of us in slavery, total absolute slavery," says Emmanuel.

"Ajoke was bold enough to confront him. I see her as a hero."

Truth, Ajoke says, is the most important thing to her: "I lost everything, my home, my family, but for me, it comes down to the truth.

"And for as long as there's breath in me, I will defend that, until the very end."

Her dreams are to one day go back to school and finish her education that was cut so short.

This Africa Eye investigation was conducted by Charlie Northcott, Helen Spooner, Maggie Andresen, Yemisi Adegoke and Ines Ward. Source BBC

French President Emmanuel Macron has just appointed 34-year-old Education Minister Gabriel Attal as France’s new Prime Minister on Tuesday.

This move is aimed at Macron’s second term ahead of the European Parliament elections.

Although the appointment does not imply a major political shift, it signifies Macron’s intent to move beyond last year’s unpopular pension and immigration reforms, aiming to enhance his centrist party’s prospects in the upcoming EU ballot in June.

Opinion polls indicate Macron’s camp is trailing the far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s party by approximately eight to 10 percentage points.

Attal, a close ally of Macron, gained prominence as the government spokesman during the COVID pandemic. He is set to replace the outgoing Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

Attal, among the country’s most popular politicians in recent polls, has earned a reputation as a skilled minister comfortable in various media formats.

Macron, concluding 2023, had previously announced his intention to unveil new political initiatives.

What Macron said

In his message to Attal, Macron said,

  • “I know I can count on your energy and your commitment to implement the project of revitalization and regeneration that I announced”.

Attal will be France’s youngest Prime Minister and the first to be openly gay. Also, he and Macron have a combined age just below that of Joe Biden, who is running for a second mandate in this year’s U.S. presidential election.

Macron has struggled to deal with a more turbulent parliament since losing his absolute majority shortly after being re-elected in 2022.

About Gabriel Attal

Gabriel Attal, born on March 16, 1989, is a French politician affiliated with the Renaissance Party, currently serving as Prime Minister since January 9, 2024. He has a diverse background, studied law, and engaged in political activism from a young age.

Attal’s career includes roles such as advisor to the Minister of Health and Member of the French National Assembly. Notably, he became the spokesperson for La République En Marche! in 2018 and later held ministerial positions. 

On October 16, 2018, at 29, Attal became the youngest member of a government in the Fifth Republic as Secrétaire d’État.

He later served as Minister of Public Action and Accounts and Minister of National Education and Youth.

Following Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne’s resignation, Attal, at 34, assumed the role of France’s youngest and first openly gay leader on January 9, 2024. 

Despite his political success, Attal has faced online hate speech due to his identity, including antisemitic and homophobic attacks. By Ngozi Ekugo, Nairametrics

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