• Chakwera will be the chief guest at this year's Mashujaa/Heroes Day celebrations.
• The preparations for the celebrations have been completed and the gates into the stadium will be opened from 4am.
Turkey-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were once again deemed worthy of international comment, this time by the French media, which seems to be closely following President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ongoing tour in Africa.
A report by French daily Le Figaro entitled “Erdoğan strengthens his presence in Africa,” said that the Turkish president has noticed that the “Western colonial powers” had lost interest in Africa in the early 2000s, and that Turkey has begun to increase its presence in “Muslim African countries” such as Somalia and Libya.
It also stated that the national airline, Turkish Airlines (THY), is the only major airline company that has direct flights to Somali’s capital Mogadishu – where the West had carried out military operations between 1992 and 1994.
The possible sale of Turkish UAVs to Angola was discussed during Erdoğan’s visit on Monday, while similar talks are also expected to be held during his trip to Nigeria, the report noted. The Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) is the obvious choice, since it has already proven itself on the battlefield.
The report underlined that this particular UAV – either operated by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) or the countries that purchased it – neutralized senior PKK terrorist Ismail Özden in Iraq. As part of a joint operation launched with the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), the Turkish military killed Özden, code-named Mam Zeki, in the Sinjar region on Aug. 15, 2018.
The UAVs were also used against putschist Gen. Khalifa Haftar and Russian mercenaries in Libya, defeated Bashar Assad's regime in Syria’s Idlib province and ensured Azerbaijan's victory over Armenian occupation forces during the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, it noted.
Le Figaro's report dubbed the Turkish UAVs as a “dream weapon,” stressing that they are 20 times cheaper than warplanes and do not endanger the lives of its pilots.
“They have become a vector of Turkish influence in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. It is the influence that Erdoğan cleverly develops without engaging in conflict with countries more powerful than him, such as the United States, China and Russia. But he is not afraid to challenge less powerful countries like France. (Erdoğan) won the arm wrestling against France off the Libyan coast in June 2020,” it said.
The report also questioned how and why French industry lagged behind the U.S. and Israel and “even Turkey” in UAV production.
A historical reading of the French defense industry shows why. The first combat drone project was in 2008, but was canceled. Then a collaborative project was started between France, Germany, Italy and Spain, but expects the drone to make its maiden flight in 2028, 14 years after the Bayraktar TB2.
The report stated that Turkey once again framed its relations with Africa through an economic lens, which enables relations to also cover security issues.
Separately, French state radio RFI stated that Erdoğan wanted to strengthen his relations with Africa by visiting Angola, Nigeria and Togo, and that the economy was one of the aspects of the strategic partnership between Turkey and Africa.
It said that Turkey sells UCAVs to Ethiopia, Tunisia and Morocco, and those products “are cheaper than their Western counterparts and better quality than the Chinese ones.”
President Erdoğan on Monday, during his visit to the country, said Angola has requested to acquire Turkish-made combat drones, noting that the latest talks also included covered armored carriers.
Angola’s initial request for UAVs and UCAVs was made during President Joao Lourenco’s visit to Turkey three months ago.
Just last week, Turkey was reported to have expanded the export of its renowned drones by negotiating deals with Morocco and Ethiopia.
This was followed by a statement from Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank, who on Friday said Turkey had presented options to the United Kingdom, which is “very interested” in buying Turkish-made armed drones.
Ukraine and Turkey’s NATO partner Poland have also ordered armed drones, which military experts say are cheaper than market rivals made in Israel, China and the U.S. Daily Sabah
A man masquerading as an engineer at Safaricom will be arraigned in court this morning, for vandalising the company’s telecommunication worth over Sh2 million.
Police say that Lenny Ng’ang’a while posing as an engineer on maintenance duty, gained access to a transmitter station in Murang’a.
Reports indicate that he deceived the guard who noticed his unusual behaviour.
Acting on suspicion, the security guard notified the area police who arrived at the scene immediately.
“Police presence prompted the suspect to flee from the scene in a Suzuki Alto towards Sabasaba area in Murang’a,” the police say.
Minutes into the chase, the police caught up with him, forcing him to surrender.
Upon arrest, the officers managed to recover the telecommunication equipment, which is suspected to have been vandalised. By Winfrey Owino, The Standard
Gunmen stormed a market in Nigeria and opened fire in 'every direction' killing at least 30 on Sunday evening.
The assault, from a suspected criminal gang, started during a weekly market in Goronyo, northern Nigeria, Sokoto Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal said in a statement.
Gunmen surrounded and entered the market while it was full of shoppers and traders on Sunday evening before opening fire 'sporadically' on onlookers, spraying the crowd with bullets, witnesses said.
A regional government spokesperson said the death toll was not yet confirmed but was believed to be '30 something'. However, a local resident said there at least 60 bodies at Goronyo General Hospital mortuary.
Heavily armed gangs known locally as bandits have terrorised northwest and central Nigeria for years, raiding and looting villages, but attacks have become even more violent in recent months.
The gangs have no known ideological agenda but operate in an area where concerns are growing of jihadist inroads.
'We're not sure of the [death toll] figure. But it is 30 something,' Sokoto's government spokesman Muhammad Bello said in a statement.
'It was a market day and there were many traders,' Bello told AFP by phone.
But Iliyasu Abba, a local resident and trader, told Reuters that there were 60 bodies at Goronyo General Hospital mortuary, while others sustained injuries while escaping.
'The gunmen stormed the market as it was crowded with shoppers and traders,' he said.
The men were 'shooting sporadically on us after they surrounded the market firing at every direction killing people.'
Abba said the gunmen had at least initially overpowered police who tried to intervene.
Police spokesman Sanusi Abubakar also confirmed that bandits attacked Goronyo late on Sunday, but did not comment on claims gunmen overpowered officers.
'Our sercurity operatives are there to conduct investigations,' Abubakar said, without giving details.
Phone networks in the area have been suspended for weeks to disrupt the gangs' operations, making information-gathering tricky.
A gang raided another village market on October 8, in Sabon Birni district near the border with Niger, killing 19 people.
Since last month, Nigerian troops have been conducting air and ground operations on bandit camps in neighbouring Zamfara state.
The government ordered shut all telephone and internet services in the whole of Zamfara state in early September, a blackout later extended to parts of Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna states as military operations intensified.
Officials in Sokoto are worried that bandits are relocating to the state as a result of operations in Zamfara.
'We're faced and bedevilled by many security challenges in our own area here, particularly banditry, kidnapping and other associated crimes,' wrote Bello, on behalf of the state governor.
Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, he said, had requested 'the presence of more forces in the state and the deployment of more resources'.
Last month 17 Nigerian security personnel were killed when gunmen attacked their base in Sabon Birni, an assault the military blamed on Islamic State-aligned jihadists.
Violence has spiralled in recent months across the northwest, forcing thousands of already vulnerable people to flee their homes in a situation that aid agencies fear risks becoming a humanitarian crisis.
Since January 2020, about 50,000 people fled from their homes in the northwest alone, according to the International Organization for Migration.
And more than 80,000 additional people have fled to neighbouring Niger over the past two years.
Increasingly, bandits have turned to mass kidnapping and have kidnapped hundreds of schoolchildren since December. Most have been freed or released after ransom but dozens are still being held.
The violence is just one challenge facing Nigeria's security forces, who are also battling a 12-year jihadist insurgency in the northeast that has killed more than 40,000 people. By LAUREN LEWIS FOR MAILONLINE and WIRES, Mail Online
Photo Courtesy ISS
The AU should do more to pre-empt coups by sanctioning bad governance and attempts by presidents to extend their terms. Coups used to be the method of choice in Africa for changing governments, with over 90 occurring between 1951 and mid-2020. During those years, only 30 incumbent leaders were peacefully removed from power by their political opponents in elections.
And in that time, just 28 heads of state voluntarily left office after serving their legally allowed number of terms as president, says Issaka Souaré, Director of the Sahel and West Africa Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
In 2000, the propensity for staging coups – there had been 15 in the previous decade – worried the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) enough to adopt the Lomé Declaration. In a radical departure from the OAU’s firm policy of turning a blind eye to member states’ ‘internal affairs’, it decreed that any member taking power through an ‘unconstitutional change of government’ would be suspended. In practice, this referred to military coups.
After replacing the OAU, the African Union (AU) has exercised that power of suspension 14 times since 2003. After the Lomé Declaration, the incidence of coups steadily declined from 15 in the previous decade (1991 to 2000) to eight in the decade after, and five between 2011 and 2020. The extent to which the declaration played a role in this reduction is unclear, considering that the trend suddenly seemed to reverse last year.
The African Union has exercised its power of suspension in relation to coups 14 times since 2003
In fewer than 13 months from 18 August 2020, four coups have occurred. Two happened in Mali (August 2020 and May 2021), one in Chad (May 2021) and one in Guinea last month. This prompted the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) to tackle the question: Are coups back in Africa? in a seminar this week.
Answering it would require a crystal ball, but the discussion suggested that although the long-term trend was positive, coups could be here to stay. What might help prevent that would be better responses from AU, regional bodies, and international partners to coups and other forms of unconstitutional change of government. And most importantly to what Souaré and other participants labelled ‘UPP’ – the unconstitutional preservation of power.
The first step in tightening up the Lomé Declaration – and matching instruments in the regional economic communities (RECs) – is to apply the measures consistently across different countries, said ISS Senior Research Consultant David Zounmenou.
He cited the sharp difference in approach towards Mali and Chad. The former was suspended from the AU and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) after the 2020 and 2021 coups. In contrast, Chad was allowed to remain in the AU pending a transition to elections and civilian rule.
The AU and ECOWAS lifted their suspension of Mali a few weeks after August 2020 when the heads of a new civilian transitional administration – vetted by coup leader Assimi Goïta – were announced. Goïta’s toppling of those same civilian leaders in May this year suggested the AU and ECOWAS had misjudged Goïta’s commitment to truly civilian rule. As Zounmenou said, if military leaders see they can seize power with impunity, there’s likely to be a proliferation of coups. Goïta’s coup in May suggested the AU and ECOWAS had misjudged his commitment to civilian rule in Mali
Kwesi Aning, Director of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, suggested that optimism around the declining rate of coups this century needed to be treated with caution. He said forecasts should account for a ‘teeming democratic sea … of frustrated, uneducated, barely educated, unemployed and increasingly unemployable youths … who see the possibilities of their participation in the domestic governing of their countries truncated by people who want to stay in power.’
The feelings of the disenchanted were clear when they lined the streets of Conakry in Guinea to applaud Colonel Mamady Doumbouya after he toppled Alpha Condé last month. Similar scenes of popular jubilation greeted Mali’s Colonel Goïta in Bamako last year after he ousted Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.
Aning agreed that the AU, RECs and others could help discourage coups by targeting incumbents who cling to power beyond their terms. Condé was a prime example of the consequences of the ‘unconstitutional preservation of power’. He forced through an unwelcome constitutional change in 2019 to rescind the two-presidential term limit, at the cost of many protesters’ lives.
Doumbouya cited this as one of the main reasons for the coup. As Souaré observed, we have no way of knowing if that was Doumbouya’s true motive but the possibility should be removed, not only for its own sake but as a plausible pretext for coups. The AU and RECs should sanction the ‘unconstitutional preservation of power’ to help prevent coups
Andrews Atta-Asamoah, Head of the ISS’ African Peace and Security Governance programme, noted that the Lomé Declaration went further than military coups and other violent power seizures as a trigger for suspension from the AU. An unconstitutional change of government could also include ‘the refusal by an incumbent government to relinquish power to the winning party after free, fair and regular elections.’
And he noted that the AU’s 2009 Ezulwini Framework for enhancing implementation of the Lomé Declaration’s measures against unconstitutional changes of government had gone further still. It stipulated that ‘the constitution shall not be manipulated in order to hold onto power against the will of the people’ and granted the African Court of Justice and Human Rights the jurisdiction to prosecute coup makers.
Atta-Asamoah felt the AU should be commended as a ‘norm entrepreneur’ for establishing the principle that coups were bad. Nonetheless, the frameworks for preventing unconstitutional changes of government were not really working because they were reactive, not preventive, he said.
So instead of addressing the grievances that sparked the coup, the AU and RECs’ post facto interventions often pitted them ‘against the overwhelming will of the people in the street’, especially when the AU and RECs insisted on restoring the old regime.
Perhaps the root causes of coups run too deep within a country for any external actor to influence much. But to the extent that they can, the AU and RECs should use their power preventively, focusing more on sanctioning ‘unconstitutional preservation of power’ and other undemocratic behaviour to try to pre-empt coups. By Peter Fabricius. ISS Consultant
Informer East Africa is a UK based diaspora Newspaper. It is a unique platform connecting East Africans at home and abroad through news dissemination. It is a forum to learn together, grow together and get entertained at the same time.
To advertise events or products, get in touch by info [at] informereastafrica [dot] com or call +447957636854.
If you have an issue or a story, get in touch with the editor through editor[at] informereastafrica [dot] com or call +447886544135.
We also accept donations from our supporters. Please click on "donate". Your donations will go along way in supporting the newspaper.
The blast, which occurred around 9 p.m. on April 20, is now being treated by insiders as an attempte...
Taxpayers will continue to pay billions of shillings to external lawyers procured by county governme...
KCA officials informed the delegation that Pakistan was already importing a considerable quantity of...
Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel. (Courtesy photo) April 20, 2025 JUBA CITY The Government of South...
