West Africa

Nigerian police have arrested two suspects in connection with the kidnapping of more than 130 students in Kaduna State. Security forces launched a nationwide crackdown on criminal gangs after the kidnapping of students from a private university and a secondary school in Kaduna state last year. All hostages were released …

Authorities in Nigeria suspended indefinitely the country’s accountant-general, Ahmed Idriss after he was arrested by anti-corruption investigators over fraud charges. According to authorities, Mr Idris’s suspension was meant to allow proper investigation of the claims. “He is accused of being linked to fraud, money laundering and diverting nearly $200m from …

A Court in Tamale has sentenced a 34-year old mathematics teacher at Sawla Senior High School in the Savannah Region, Ernest Ocloo, to 15 years of imprisonment after finding him guilty of raping one of his students. The sexual assault occurred in 2019, and the case had since been on …

Nigerian authorities asked Facebook and other platforms to reduce hate speech on their sites, Information Minister Lai Mohammed said on Tuesday. The minister’s comments came after meeting with Facebook’s team in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. According to Mr Mohamed, Facebook had done nothing to curtail the activities of separatist group Indigenous …

The Nigerian army claims to have killed four members of the Biafra separatist group during a clash in the south-east of the country. According to the army, the separatists attacked one of their patrols and it returned fire, killing part of the group and forcing the others to flee. It …

Mali’s military junta thwarted an attempted coup on the night between 11 and 12 May led by “Western-backed” soldiers, it said in a statement without providing evidence. The statement read out on state television on Monday said: “The attempt was thwarted thanks to the vigilance and professionalism of the defence …

Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embaló has dissolved the parliament, three months after he had said he had survived a coup attempt, several media reported. In a statement quoted by the Reuters news agency he accused the lawmakers of corruption. He also cited “persistent and unresolved differences” with parliament, the AFP …

Malian authorities announced the country’s withdrawal from the multinational military force fighting Islamist militants in West Africa’s Sahel region. Mali said on Sunday it was a protest against its rejection as head of the G5 regional group which also includes Mauritania, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger. Malian authorities also blamed …

A 39-year-old fetish priest, Kwesi Tando, shot himself, his wife, Abena Ketsewa, and a one-year-old child, Richmond Tando, at Enyan Abowinum in central Ghana on Wednesday, reported starfm. According to the website, Tando committed the act following marital issues he was having with his wife, and he decided to marry …

Police in Nigeria arrested two people suspected of being linked to the murder of a Christian student accused of blasphemy against Islam. The young woman was attacked by Muslim students at her college in the city of Sokoto, who killed her and set her body alight. Religious and political leaders …