Category: BREAKING NEWS

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has urged the country’s electoral body to save the country from “a looming danger” over what he described as corruption of the electoral process.

Obasanjo appealed to the President, Muhammadu Buhari, to prevail on the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mahmood Yakubu, to stop the process and rectify the allegations raised against it from many quarters.

The presidential and National Assembly elections were held on Saturday and the collation of results was being done at the National Collation Centre in Abuja.

The Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party have kicked against the process, describing it as compromised.

A former senator from Kogi West, Dino Melaye, and other party representatives walked out of the center after raising issues bordering on irregularities in the process of the election.

Obasanjo in a personally signed letter titled, “An appeal for caution and rectification,” released on Monday, said some politicians had compromised with some electoral officials to make the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines not work.

He said, “I am constrained to speak at this point. I crave the indulgence of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency General Muhammadu Buhari, to make this statement because I have had the opportunity to keep him aware of what I know is happening and the danger looming ahead.

Burkina Faso has announced Thursday an “exceptional recruitment” of 5,000 soldiers to serve the army “at least five years” as part of the fight against jihadism, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense transmitted to the Africanewsguru tv.

“An exceptional recruitment of 5,000 non-commissioned soldiers for the national armed forces, to serve for at least five years in their military region of recruitment, will take place throughout the national territory,” Defence Minister Colonel Major Kassoum Coulibaly said in the statement.

The recruitment will take place from 28 February to 7 March and “concerns in priority young boys Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland (civilian auxiliaries of the army) meeting the conditions”, he added.

The young people concerned must be born between 1 January 1988 and 31 December 2003, the minister said.

Of the country’s thirteen regions, those most targeted by jihadist violence will benefit from a greater number of quotas, notably the Boucle du Mouhoun in the west (1,000), the Sahel in the north (900) and the eastern region (750).

This is the third time in less than a year that the Burkinabe army has organised such recruitment.

In April 2022, 3,000 soldiers, aged up to 26, had already been recruited. The same procedure was also launched last October.

Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that began in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and has spread beyond these borders.

In seven years, the violence has left more than 10,000 civilians and soldiers dead, according to NGOs, and some two million people internally displaced.

Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the transitional president who took power in a coup on 30 September 2022, set himself the goal of “reconquering” the 40% of Burkina Faso’s territory controlled by jihadist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Shortly after taking power, he launched a campaign to recruit volunteers for the defence of the country, who are paying a heavy price in the anti-jihadist struggle. Of the estimated 50,000 needed, 90,000 have signed up.

Nigeria has ordered the closure of all its land borders during Saturday’s tightly contested elections.

The directive is meant to ensure that the “elections are free, fair and devoid of anomalies”, the Nigeria Immigration Service said.

Border officials have been told to ensure strict enforcement of the order.

The presidential and parliamentary elections are reported to be the most tightly contested since military rule ended in 1999.

We are committed to Project Nigeria while ensuring that, within the parameters of the powers vested on us by the relevant laws, the coming elections are free, fair and devoid of anomalies.#NISDeyForYou🫶 pic.twitter.com/zzuHK8Q4jm

— Nigeria Immigration Service (@nigimmigration) February 23, 2023

The immigration service said it had seized 6,000 voters cards and other Nigerian identification documents from illegal immigrants in the run-up to the elections.

President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier on Thursday urged security agencies to be “firm and courageous” in the election period, and warned against riots after the announcement of election results.

The Malian prime minister urged the government of Burkina Faso not to rely on foreign armies to fight the jihadist groups present in both countries.

Speaking during a visit to Burkina’s capital, Ouagadougou, the Malian PM reiterated his determination in winning the war.

“To win the war, it is with our armies. No foreign army, it must be clear, no one will come to die for us. It is the Africans who must defend ourselves, but in order for us to defend ourselves, the army must be sure that their people are with them, that they will never die for nothing”, said Malian Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maïga.

On Wednesday, at least a dozen army auxiliaries from the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP) force were killed in an attack in northern Burkina.

A few days earlier, 70 soldiers were killed in two other attacks in the north, near Mali.

“This is a difficult period because you have made choices today that are not to everyone’s liking, so they are putting pressure on you, they are sowing doubt and it is at this moment that I believe like all great peoples, the people of Burkina Faso must stand as one” urged the Malian PM.

The Burkinabe leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power in a coup in Burkina Faso last year, obtained the departure of the French ambassador and French special forces from the Sabre mission after denouncing in mid-January the military agreements that bound the two countries.