West Africa

A young man was attacked with a machete while trying to steal dried cocoa beans in Osedzi, in the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam district, in the Central Region of Ghana. “The victim and two accomplices have found the cocoa folded in a dry­ing mat on the compound of a farmer as they turned …

Justice Abiola Sholadoye of the Ikeja Special Offences and Domestic Volence Court has sentenced a 32-year-old street sweeper to life imprisonment for defiling a 14-year-old girl in Lagos State, Nigeria. The man was convicted on one count of defilement of the girl, whom he claimed was his girlfriend. The convict …

Mauritanian authorities said the bodies of 16 people thought to be migrants have been found on the country’s northern coast. The discovery on the beaches of Lagouera comes a week after 13 corpses were found in boats in the same area, near the city of Nouadhibou. This latest incident appears …

A young woman allegedly poisoned her 11-month-old baby to death in Logo Local Government Area, Benue State, Nigeria. “The woman has fed the baby witht a substance suspected to be a chemical,” according to reports. “She was impregnated by her boyfriend and after she gave birth to a baby girl, …

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 …