West Africa

Nigerian authorities have announced they will withdraw police officers from VIP security duties in line with a presidential directive. State Minister of Police Affairs Hajia Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim said the police force was currently struggling following decades of neglect that had hampered its ability to fulfil its constitutional mandate. She said …

Former Ivorian Prime Minister Soro Kigbafori Guillaume announced that he had landed in Niamey, the capital of Niger, after five years of exile. Guillaume Soro, who took himself into exile in 2019, says he plans to return home despite having two criminal convictions. He said on Sunday that he wanted …

An intoxicated businessman was killed by three security guards employed to guard his business premises after they mistook him for a thief. The Tanzanian man, 40-year-old Alex Mayaya, met his tragic death in the country’s Geita region on Sunday, November 5, reports say. Before his death, he had been in …

The High court in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja has ordered the release of former central bank governor Godwin Emefiele, who has been in detention since June, on bail. “There must be an end to detention without trial,” said Judge Olukayode Adeniyi, sitting in the High Court in Abuja. Mr Emefiele has …

A major renal unit at Ghana’s publicly funded Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) in the capital, Accra, has reopened after a five-month closure. The country’s largest treatment centre for patients suffering kidney disease shut because of budgetary issues and it was unable to pay for the everyday needs of those needing …

The family of popular Nigerian actor John Okafor known as Mr Ibu has announced that his leg has been amputated, for medical reasons. Doctors had no choice but to sever the limb “to keep him alive”, relatives say in a statement on his Instagram page. “This development has been hard …

Lawyers for ousted Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum have asked an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court to reinstate him as president. According to the lawyers, “the detention and overthrow of Mr Bazoum violated his rights.” Bazoum has been held since soldiers seized power on July 26, accusing him …

At least nine people were killed in gun battles after armed men stormed into a jail in Guinea’s capital over the weekend and briefly freed former president Moussa Dadis Camara and other detained officials, the justice ministry said on Monday. Authorities found the bodies of three attackers, four soldiers and …

More than 60 soldiers and prison officers have been fired in Guinea, following the escape of former junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara and two others. Capt Camara was recaptured and returned to prison a few hours after being freed from his cell by “heavily armed commandos” early on Saturday. Those …

A final year student of Petroleum Training Institute has been electrocuted while installing solar panels on a one-storey building at Warri Garage area, Nigeria. “The aluminium ladder used by the student in climbing up to the position he intended to install the solar panels was magnetised by the high-tension wires …