PDP; APC; LP and NNPP 2023 Presidential Election Results in Nigeria Press Statement US Department of State
We call on all parties, candidates, and supporters to refrain from violence or inflammatory rhetoric at this critical time. The United States congratulates the people of Nigeria, President-elect Tinubu, and all political leaders following the declaration by Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the results of the February 25 presidential election. This competitive election represents a new period for Nigerian politics and democracy. Each of the top three candidates was the leading vote-getter in 12 states, a remarkable first in Nigeria’s modern political era, reflecting the diversity of views that characterized the campaign and the wishes of Nigeria’s voters.
We understand that many Nigerians and some of the parties have expressed frustration about the manner in which the process was conducted and the shortcomings of technical elements that were used for the first time in a presidential election cycle. Nigerians are clearly within their rights to have such concerns and should have high expectations for their electoral processes. We join other international observers in urging INEC to improve in the areas that need the most attention ahead of the March 11 gubernatorial elections.
There are well-established mechanisms in place for the adjudication of electoral disputes, and we encourage any candidate or party seeking to challenge the outcome to pursue redress through those mechanisms. We call on all parties, candidates, and supporters to refrain from violence or inflammatory rhetoric at this critical time.
We commend the active participation of civil society and the media for advancing electoral norms and political discourse on issues of importance to citizens. We note with concern reports that numerous members of the media were attacked during the course of the election, and we urge the government, security forces, political actors, and all citizens to respect the media’s critical role by refraining from any damaging acts against them and ensuring accountability for such acts when they do occur. We also congratulate the Nigerian people, especially the large number of youths who are relatively new to the political process, for demonstrating their strong commitment to democracy. Peoples'Gazette
Passengers board one of the new electric buses introduced in Nairobi . [Samson Wire, Standard]
Kenyan automotive firm, Associated Vehicle Assemblers (AVA), said Tuesday that it will assemble 130 electric buses manufactured by Chinese automotive firm BYD in 2023.
Matt Lloyd, managing director of AVA, told Xinhua in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi that so far it has assembled 15 BYD electric buses for the local market that were imported as a collection of parts.
"The advantage of BYD is that it is one of the world's leaders in the manufacture of electric vehicles and the level of quality of the vehicles is very high," Lloyd said on the sidelines of an electric vehicle forum.
Lloyd observed that locally assembled BYD buses have high safety standards and will therefore enhance Kenya's overall road safety. He revealed that his firm has gained modern automotive technology through the technical advice it has received from BYD. Xinhua/Standard
The Nairobi senator wants senators to debate the DP's conduct and utterances.
In Summary
Sifuna wants the office of the President and that of the deputy president to be summoned to respond to the issues.
He wants President Ruto to come out and state his position about Gachagua's utterances.
Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna has filed a motion in the Senate seeking to debate Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua's conduct.
In the motion dated February 21, Sifuna wants the Senate to censure Gachagua over what he terms as attempts to marginalise sections of the country.
According to Sifuna, the DP's utterances that the country is a commercial enterprise with shareholders are dangerous and likely to isolate certain regions from government services.
He argues that Gachagua recent remarks are a blatant attempt to balkanize the country into vote blocks and enclaves, based on the results of the last elections.
“Mr Speaker, marginalization often begins as a roadside decree before it graduates to government policy,” Sifuna says in the motion received by the Senate's Directorate of Committees on the same day.
“It is incumbent upon us to establish fast if any such words arc already government policy and if indeed they are what recourse is available to Kenyans who have been excluded from being shareholders in the so-called commercial enterprise,” he said.
Sifuna says that in the age of enlightenment and globalization, no section of the population will readily pay taxes to fund services for enterprises in which it is not a shareholder.
“Of greater concern is that his boss, the President, has found nothing wrong with his utterances and has yet to contradict or reprimand the DP,” he says.
Sifuna says the president's silence, persuades even the most optimistic observer that in fact, the DP has the blessings of the highest office in the land to balkanize the country into what amounts to the secession of parts of the nation.
“It may no longer be fine to just dismiss the DP's words as his own, without considering that such weighty matters he prosecutes callously on the national stage may indeed be on behalf of his boss,” he says.
Sifuna wants the office of the President and that of the deputy president to be summoned to respond to the issues to establish if Gachagua's position is also the official government position.
“ If yes, does the Kenya Revenue Authority still reserve the right to collect taxes from all Kenyans if indeed they are used to provide services to only sections of the population?” Sifuna posed.
He wants the two offices to confirm if the continued "divisive politics of the DP " are entrenched in the Kenya Kwanza DNA and Kenyans can therefore expect nothing better in the coming years.
“ Should it be considered fair if sections of Kenya marginalized by this official position of the regime proceed to create their own revenue collection authority in order to provide services in areas considered non-shareholders by the current Kenya Kwanza regime?” asked Sifuna.
Sifuna wants President Ruto to come out and state his position about Gachagua's utterances.
He says every person is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law and that no election victory and loss can negate the principles.
"Indeed, the right to make a choice at an election is itself a powerful tool of democracy that safeguards citizens against dictatorship and entrenched marginalisation," he said. By James Mbaka, The Star
"Justice administered in the silence of their offices with only them as witnesses to what they’re doing, this is not justice!" This outburst from an official of the victims' association Ibuka sums up the frustration in Rwanda at not being able to follow the trial of Félicien Kabuga. The "old man", suspected of having been the financier of the 1994 genocide, is being tried in The Hague by the UN Mechanism, heir to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Were it not for the United Nations flag, nothing distinguishes house number 6 in street 617 from other houses in the Rugando neighbourhood of Kigali’s Kimihurura sector. On the morning of February 14, 2023, when Kabuga's trial resumes, a guard dressed in the black, green and red of a local security company refuses access to more than 20 men and women, some of whom look unwell. Voices rise, they don’t understand “What happened today? Why don't you want us to come in?" They are regulars here, but it doesn’t work. "Come back at 2 pm", they are told.
This is where, since July 1, 2012, a branch of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) has taken up residence in the Rwandan capital Kigali. It’s a sort of outpost in Rwanda to manage, among other things, assistance for witnesses at this tribunal, from their identification to their travel, including their security "before, during and after trials", reads its Rules of Procedure and Evidence. It is also where a medical centre treats and supports some of the witnesses called by the Mechanism and the former International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which was based in Arusha, Tanzania. The protesters this morning were patients at the clinic. Some of them were lying on the side of the road, waiting for four hours until the door opened at the appointed time.
This little incident outside the gate of number 6 signals the closed door hearing by video conference from this place of witnesses in the Kabuga trial. The trial is being held 6,500 kilometres away as the crow flies, in The Hague, capital of the Netherlands. Evoking Kabuga’s failing health, an MICT officer at the Kigali office had told Justice Info a week earlier that: "We are waiting to see if he will recover and thus have confirmation that the trial will resume on February 14, with witnesses from Kigali, who should give their testimony by video conference, behind closed doors. Only the witnesses will be in the room, with technicians. Even we, the staff of the Mechanism, will not have access.”
But how, then, can one follow the trial? "We have not provided a room where people can follow the hearings. Here we are closed, we do not give free access to the public," explained the officer, who wished to remain anonymous. To overcome this restriction, this person adds, a link has been created on the website of the Mechanism to allow people, wherever they are, to follow the trial in real time. As for the testimony of witnesses, the first ones went to The Hague, the next ones to Arusha, and this time, "it will be here (Kigali), but under the conditions that I said," explained the officer.
As for traffic on the MICT website for the Kabuga trial, the MICT external relations office in Arusha estimates that "there were more than 5,000 separate streams for the opening statements on September 29 and 30”. According to the same source, for the regular sessions there were between 1,000 and 1,200 unique feeds per week on average. This does not take into account, adds the MICT, people watching in groups, for example in classrooms or other institutions.
"IT'S POSTPONED TO VALENTINE'S DAY"
On a platform of journalists from different Rwandan media, reporters covering international trials keep asking the same question: "Will the Kabuga trial finally resume?" Always jovial and joking, the journalist-host of this forum, Gérard Manzi, is the right man to soften the blow. "The old man is still hiding, even today. It’s postponed to Valentine's Day!" he says ironically. Indeed there were postponements one after the other in early 2023. The trial was initially scheduled to re-start on January 31, then February 7, and then on Valentine’s Day, February 14.
In this forum, some do not hide their disillusionment, suspicions, or even what they think the outcome of the trial will be. "What if he puts an end to his trial himself?” said one person, alluding to the deteriorating health of the accused, which could result in his death. Another mentioned, as a reminder, the case of Joseph Nzirorera, who died during his trial at the ICTR. The journalists grumble about the lack of information on the trial.
"Yes, but since he no longer has the means to hide himself, who is hiding him?” another asks. For them, hiding means delaying justice, or evading it with "delaying tactics”. "What with the way he managed to stay on the run, the media hype around his arrest contrasts with the silence around his trial," says young Sam Kwizera, and his elder Jean-Baptiste Karegeya drives it home. “For me," says Karegeya, "everything is linked: his successful escape for more than 23 years, the silence and the delaying tactics in his trial. Even during his trial, he manages to hide himself, one might say, from the media, the people and the victims in particular!"
"HIS TRIAL WAS THE MOST AWAITED”
"It is very difficult to follow the hearings in the Kabuga case because following online we get choppy information, as the connection can break at any moment,” confirms Jean-Damascène Manishimwe, a journalist at the state-owned Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA). “The information we get is too limited and, in turn, we cannot fully inform our audience." In the absence of an RBA special envoy to The Hague, the Kabuga trial is almost absent from its programmes. It nevertheless produced a series of special editions at the time of his arrest, using archival footage from the national television. "In short, the disappointment is total, even though Kabuga was the most wanted by the ICTR of all the genocide suspects, and his trial the most awaited!” says Manishimwe.
"I must admit that the coverage of the Kabuga trial by Rwandan journalists is not at a satisfactory level," says Juvens Ntampuhwe, coordinator at the Justice and Memory project of RCN Justice & Democracy. For the trials of Rwandans tried in France and in Belgium under universal jurisdiction, this NGO financed journalists to go to Paris or to Brussels for the duration of these trials. But in the case of Kabuga, Ntampuhwe explains, "given the advanced age of the accused and his state of health, the hearing schedule has been arranged to favour his participation [i.e. two hours a day, two days a week]. You can understand that there is no way to objectively determine, even on an estimated basis, the total duration of the trial. In such a trial, RCN cannot consider sending journalists to The Hague.”
"WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING, WE DON'T SEE ANYTHING”
Janvier Bayingana, legal affairs officer commissioner for the Ibuka association which represents the victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, does not mince his words against the UN mechanism. He says its liaison office in Kigali "should inform, that's what it should do. Instead, they are in their routine bureaucracy, it's like their private property, it's as if they have no beneficiaries. For them, the liaison office is for distribution of documents, requesting documents from witnesses, visa applications and taking care of them. They are there for documentation and travel, that's all!"
Rwandans are not informed, he stresses repeatedly. "Justice is administered in the total silence of their offices, with them the only witnesses to what they do - this is not justice!” he says. “Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. Today, we know nothing, we see nothing!” For the victims, Bayingana believes, "it is not enough to know that a tribunal has been set up to try suspects of genocide crimes, they need to see and know more about how this tribunal delivers justice on behalf of the victims and the international community. This tribunal should change many things in the way it administers justice!"
This is echoed by a genocide survivor in Rubavu, in the former Gisenyi prefecture, where Kabuga is alleged to have committed some of the crimes. According to the amended indictment dated March 1, 2021, Kabuga is accused of having "between April and July 1994 (...) collected funds for the purchase of arms and ammunition, imported arms and ammunition which were distributed to the Interahamwe [militias] in Gisenyi”. According to the same document, these acts were committed in several places in the prefecture, including the Méridien Izuba hotel, the Umuganda stadium and the Gisenyi military camp.
"We would have liked to see Kabuga here, as he was in 1994, so that we could say everything about him," laments Innocent Kabanda. “But since this is not happening, we would still like to see his trial speeded up, so that death does not take him before he is judged and the victims of his crimes thus deprived of justice.” BYEMMANUEL SEHENE RUVUGIRO, JusticeInfo
Bujumbura – Salomé* still recalls the years of domestic violence she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband as a particularly dark period of her life. “I thought about killing myself, but I was afraid of leaving my children alone,” says the 23-year-old mother of five, who lives in Kirundo province in northern Burundi.
Hers is certainly not an isolated case. According to a government survey carried out in 2017, 36% of Burundian women aged 15-49 had experienced physical violence at least once in their lives. In 57% of such cases, the violence was inflicted by the woman’s husband or intimate partner. The survey also showed that 23% of women within the same age group had experienced sexual violence.
Against this backdrop, the Burundian health authorities have sought to integrate the management of gender-based violence into public sexual and reproductive health services through a project called Twiteho Amagara, which means “let’s take care of health” in Kirundi. The project, launched in 2019, provides emergency neonatal obstetrics care and training to health facilities.
With the support of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Burundian Ministry of Health has trained 120 health workers to know how to identify, treat and report instances of gender-based violence, as well as to raise awareness concerning prevention.
“Since I received this training, I know how to receive, listen and discuss with the victims of this kind of violence according to their particular individual situations,” says Oscar Adabashiman, an emergency nurse in Kirundo Province who was trained in 2021. “Then once the treatment has been completed, psychosocial care continues along with the legal proceedings.”
With funding from the European Union (EU), WHO has also provided health facilities with care kits consisting of anti-retroviral drugs and other medication for sexually transmitted infections as well unwanted pregnancies.
"In cases of gender-based violence, victims not only suffer injuries to their body that have a negative impact on their physical health, but they also suffer psycho-social damage,” says Dr. Eugénie Niane, who oversees reproductive, maternal and neonatal health at the WHO office in Burundi. “This is why an integrated approach to this issue is very important."
Overcoming stigma, particularly with regards to sexual violence, is critical to the success of any such approach. "It is very difficult to get victims to talk,” says nurse Adabashiman. “They are often very reluctant to tell us what they have experienced. So, we try to empathize with them and show them that what happened to them was not their fault.”
According to Dr Ananie Ndacayisa, director of Burundi’s National Reproductive Health Programme, such efforts are bearing fruit. “In the five provinces where the Twiteho Amagara project has been implemented, which together comprise 120 health facilities, cases that were not reported before are now reported and victims of gender-based violence are much more likely to go to health facilities for treatment,” he says.
Adabashiman is also optimistic. “Things are gradually changing, and we are happy about this,” he says. “It bodes well for the development of women and girls in our country."
In Salomé’s case, after yet another beating by her husband, she decided to seek help at her local health centre, where she received medical and psychosocial care, which she continued to be provided with after the emergency assistance. "I was well received, and I was able to get free treatment. I benefited from the advice of the doctors, who helped me get out of my trauma,” she says. “Little by little, I got better.” WHO
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