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Nigerians shocked conspiracy and money laundering charges against activist
Nigerians take to social media to express their shock over the charges brought against a detained activist. Pro-democracy activist Omoyole Sowore detained since august has been charged with seven counts of money laundering and conspiracy.
According to Vanguard The activist behind RevolutionNow Protest movement was charged by the Federal High Court on Friday. Among other things, the court said the activist’s #RevolutionNow” campaign was aimed at removing the President and Commander–in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria during his term of office otherwise known than by constitutional means”.
The detained activist is also the publisher of Sahara Reporters, was the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, AAC, in the last general election, has been in custody of the Departemenmt of State Service, DSS, since August 2 when he was arrested.
Jammeh accused of lying over HIV/AIDS treatment claims
Dr. Mariatou Jallow, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), who testified before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), yesterday has revealed that former President Yahya Jammeh was lying to the Gambians about his claims of treating HIV/AIDS, hypertension, asthma and tuberculosis.
She, however, stated that the difficulties that the victims of April 10/11 2000 were a system fail from the government and the management of the RVTH as a whole.
Giving account of the incident, she said she was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the hospital at the time and on that day she received a call as she was in her office that many people were brought to the hospital with serious injuries and bleeding.
“I mobilised the doctors and the nurses and the theatre was prepared as well and those needed blood were facilitated. The death people in total of 14 were arranged at the mortuary. One of the victims was included in the dead bodies, in which he was not dead but that was a failure from the doctors because they should have done the checking properly.”
She said some of the patients were operated on and others admitted. He added that the patients’ medical papers were seized by a command ordered from state house, which she believed was from Jammeh.
After acknowledging that those instructions were wrong, she said she did it out of fear because anything could have happened to her if she would have turned down the instructions.
“Jammeh came to the hospital to check the patients but the patients were not happy and not talking to him as a result they believed he had a hand in the incident. He ordered for three people for overseas treatment in Egypt, funded by the state house. In the incident, government failed in providing the needs of the victims with regard to their treatments.”
She apologized to all patients if they felt that she offended them but affirming that she was just trying to save them.
The Gambia Government place a temporary restrictions on properties of former regimes associates
The Government has also accepted the Commission’s recommendation to immediately place temporary restriction on the properties of the following persons and institutions until further notice: Amadou Samba, Tarek Musa, Fadi Mazegi, Illija Reymond, Martin Keller, Nicolae Buziainu, Dragos Buziainu, Ali Youssef Sharara, Woreh Njie Ceesay, Tony Ghattas, Feryale Diab Ghanim, Trust Bank Ltd, Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Ltd and M.A. Kharafi and Sons for their alleged roles in one way or the other.
Meanwhile scores of former senior government officials including former vice president Isatou Njie-Saidy have also received lengthy bans from holding public office and in some cases asset forfeiture.
Among them are former SGs Momodou Sabally and Njogu Bah. Mr Sabally has been banned from holding public office for life after the commission found him to have facilitated withdrawals from the Central Bank among other things.
He told The Standard yesterday that he could not immediately comment on the matter, preferring instead to consult with his lawyer.
However, the government has come under criticism for rejecting the commission’s recommendation for the sacking of a number of senior serving officials.
Among them is current chief of protocol Alhagie Ceesay.
Critics say the decision to just warn Mr Ceesay and others amounts to selective justice.
Meanwhile, three former members of the junta: Ebou Jallow, Edward Singhatey and Yankuba Touray, have also been asked to pay a combined amount of $32,220,000 within thirty days, failure of which their properties shall be forfeited to the state and sold.
Jammeh gets life ban, faces criminal trial
The Gambia government has published its white paper on the Janneh Commission report which looked into the financial activities of former president Jammeh, his family and close associates.
The government accepted to seize assets of former president Jammeh to compensate for about a billion dalasi and hundreds of millions of foreign currency the commission found him to have taken from public funds.
According to the Janneh Commission, the damage former President Jammeh has caused to Government institutions, public resources and state-owned enterprises is of such serious nature that the government ought to introduce a motion before the National Assembly for charges to be brought against him for theft, economic crimes and corruption.
“The government accepts the Commission’s recommendation that criminal proceedings be instituted against former President Jammeh for theft, economic crimes and corruption,” the government said in the white paper that contains its decision on the Commission’s recommendations.
Government also said it has accepted the commission’s recommendations that former president Jammeh is banned from holding public office in The Gambia for the rest of his life .
According to the Accountant General, in July 1994 when Jammeh took over power, his salary was D2, 744.20.
However, during his tenure as head of state, Jammeh acquired 281 landed properties throughout the country and two properties outside the country (one in US and one in Morocco).
According to the Commission fifty-one of the 281 properties owned by Jammeh were purchased for the total of D195, 500, 000 despite the fact that his legitimate earnings were insufficient to acquire properties worth that amount.
Tunisian presidential candidate Karoui to stay in jail
A Tunisian court has turned down a request to release jailed media mogul Nabil Karoui, who, along with academic Kais Saied, has advanced to a runoff in Tunisia’s presidential election.
Karoui, who was arrested in August on money laundering and tax evasion charges, finished second behind Saied in Sunday’s election.
“The judge has refused to give a ruling, saying it was not in his jurisdiction,” lawyer Kamel Ben Messoud said on Wednesday, after requesting his release the previous day.
12-year-old kidney dysfunction patient seeks support for overseas treatment
A twelve years young girl, Hafsatou Jallow from Brikama, who is currently undergoing kidney dysfunction diagnoses at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital in Banjul, is seeking for assistance for overseas kidney transplant treatment.
Parents of Hafsatou, who has been diagnosed with kidney disease for over two years now said their daughter’s sickness is getting worse every day and they are appealing to the government, philanthropic organisations and individuals to assist her to travel overseas for treatment.
Any individual or organisation willing to support Hafsatou can contact her family on: 3326677\6177987 or visit the family at Brikama Wellingara.
NEDI trains youth on food processing
National Enterprise Development Initiative (NEDI) in partnership with GIZ; a European Union trust fund project recently concluded ten days food processing training for forty youth, drawn from across the country.
Held at Rural Development Institute in Mansakonko, Lower River Region, the project aimed to train youth on agro-food processing and entrepreneurship. Participants were divided into two badges of twenty, for five days per group.
The training is also meant to encourage young people to venture into agriculture and business to reduce unemployment in The Gambia. It was conducted by food technology service unit of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Twenty-Three Militiamen Killed In Fresh Central Africa Clash
At least 23 militiamen were killed Saturday in fighting in Central African Republic between rival groups who signed a peace deal in February, said the UN mission in the country MINUSCA.
Fierce clashes between militias in recent months has raised concerns about whether the peace accord aimed at ending years of violence in CAR will hold.
The country’s president, Faustin-Archange Touadera, this month told AFP that the agreement was “quite strong” — but MINUSCA on Saturday said fighting had broken out in Birao, a city close to the Sudanese border.
The clashes were between the Popular Front for the Renaissance of the Central African Republic (FPRC) and the Movement of Central African Freedom Fighters for Justice (MLCJ).
The rival militias also fought in the city earlier this month.
“The situation remains tense but there is no more fighting,” MINUSCA spokesman Vladimir Monteiro said.
“A MINUSCA Blue Helmet was also slightly wounded,” he added, without specifying the nationality.
A Zambian contingent of the multinational force is stationed in the area.
The peace accord with 14 militias vying for control of the country’s gold, diamond and other resources came after years of conflict following the ousting of Touadera’s predecessor Francois Bozize in 2013.
Thousands of people have been killed and about a fifth of the 4.5 million population has been displaced in the last six years.
Touadera has been struggling to prove he can convince the militias, which collectively control more than three-quarters of the territory, to lay down their arms.
Former Health Minister Arrested For Embezzling Ebola Funds In DR Congo
Former DR Congo health minister Oly Ilunga has been arrested over allegations he embezzled public funds to tackle the Ebola epidemic, police said on Saturday.
Ilunga, who resigned as health minister in July after being removed as head of the country’s Ebola response team, was detained while hiding in an apartment in the capital Kinshasa ahead of a bid to flee the country, officers said.
He is in custody due to “misdemeanors of the mismanagement of funds allocated to the Ebola response,” police spokesman Colonel Pierrot-Rombaut Mwanamputu told AFP.
Ilunga will be referred to prosecutors on Monday, he added.
It comes after Ilunga was questioned in August as part of an inquiry into the management of funds to fight the outbreak, which has claimed more than 2,000 lives since August 2018.
Ilunga, 59, had already been banned from leaving the country.
He stepped down after criticising plans by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) to introduce a new, unlicensed vaccine to fight the epidemic.
His lawyer told AFP in September that some payments had been made to local chiefs after the killing of a WHO doctor in April.
More than 200,000 people have been vaccinated during DR Congo’s tenth and most serious Ebola epidemic.
It is the second-worst Ebola outbreak in history after more than 11,000 people were killed in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia between 2014 and 2016.
36 People Missing After Boat Sinks In Congo River
Thirty-six people are missing after a boat sank in the Congo river on the outskirts of Kinshasa, DR Congo police said on Sunday.
Seventy-six people survived after the vessel went down overnight on the outskirts of the capital, the police wrote on Twitter.
The vessel, which was traveling to the capital, went down overnight in Maluku commune, about 100 kilometers from the center of the city.
“The cause of the accident is not yet known,” police spokesperson Colonel Pierrot-Rombaut Mwanamputu told AFP.
Lake and river transport is widely used in Democratic Republic of Congo as the highway system is poor, but accidents are common, often caused by overloading and the unsafe state of vessels.
The boat involved was called a “baleiniere” or “whaler” — a commonly-used flat-bottomed vessel between 15 to 30 meters (50 to 100 feet) long by two to six meters wide.
In the vast majority of accidents, passengers are not equipped with life jackets and many cannot swim.
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