Regardless of the circumstance, the average Ghanaian’s favorite platitude is “we are managing.” Be it a rough patch in school, scraping for the rent or struggling with a rickety car, the ordinary Ghanaian is likely to still point to the light at the end of the tunnel. The first months of 2022 have changed that.
You needn’t point to the 13-year high in inflation (23.6%) or other data points to know that. All you require is a quick trip through town, where the hike in fuel prices, transport fares and food prices are pummeling Ghanaians into submission. For example, Ghana’s Statistical Service noted that in April 2022, rising food prices accounted for 50% of inflation.
Ghana’s cost of living crisis isn’t just about rising prices. It also has to do with static incomes and depreciating savings. Everything is going up except salaries. Then there’s the small matter of a government that has not helped ease the misery of Ghanaians with its insincere posturing.
While key factors driving up the cost of living are global, Ghanaians are frankly tired of officials that hold up the COVID-19 pandemic and more recently, the war in Ukraine, as the reason for the prevailing despair.
What would be a change of pace will be for the government to acknowledge failings in critical areas during its six years in power. We are a far cry from the days when Ghana’s President, Nana Akufo-Addo, proclaimed that his administration had “the men” to protect the public purse, secure an economic turnaround and usher in an era of industrialization and prosperity.
Now, all Ghanaians have are slogans like ‘One District, One Factory’ and ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ that elicit scorn instead of hope. For most Ghanaians, we live in a utopia of development and progress – but only on paper, because we are great at identifying problems and formulating inspiring manifestos and development plans. The reality, however, feels like a gyre of curses and misfortune.
The buck always stops with leadership. What Ghanaians see when they look to theirs for empathy and direction is a complete lack of it. Consider the picture of citizens commuting in chunks of tetanus on a daily basis as President Akufo-Addo came under fire for obscene amounts spent on a luxury jet for travel.
The symbol of government insensitivity in recent months has, however, been the new and controversial 1.5 percent tax on all electronic transactions above 100 Ghana cedis ($13). For those already paying income tax, one understands why the levy is considered cruel double taxation. But the government’s commitment to the taxes on fuel is the bigger cruelty for me.
Fuel is viewed as having the most consequential ripple effect on the cost of living. Part of this is because the tax build-up of finished fuel products, sometimes described as nuisance taxes, make up about 29% of what Ghanaians pay. When fuel prices go up, so do transport prices, and then food, and then commerce becomes the wild west.
In one of the more infuriating recent developments, public school feeding caterers, who serve vulnerable and poor kids, have had to protest to demand an increase in the current daily allocation of 0.97 Ghana cedis ($0.13) per child. Unconscionable.
Just when Ghanaians thought things could not get any worse, the utility companies distributing electricity and water popped up like horsemen of the apocalypse, indicating they want a 148% and 334% increase in tariffs, respectively. With a lot of Ghanaians and businesses already stretched thin, this could be a killing blow.
Ghana’s social emergency is all too real, and it is high time the current government acknowledged how false promises have intensified this crisis. Flagship programs that were supposed to address fundamental issues like food security are bearing rotten fruits. Ghana wouldn’t be depending this much on imports and crippling the Ghanaian cedi if a policy like ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ was working.
Because of this, Ghana’s main agricultural worker’s union talks like Ghana an Old Testament famine is about to befall Ghana. Who can blame them? As the weeks go by, I doubt them less.
But as Ghanaians hold the government to the fire and demand accountability, they must also hold a mirror to themselves. Perhaps it is time Ghanaians finally prove Kwame Nkrumah right for saying “Ghanaians are not timid people… They may be slow to anger and may take time to organize and act. But once they are ready, they strike and strike hard.”
Like the distressing scenes in Sri Lanka, we must not swat at this crisis with despair. Instead, our feet should become one with the streets as we voice our anger at the government’s incompetence and demand a leadership that treats its people with dignity.
A Zimbabwe magistrate in the southern city of Bulawayo, Mark Nzira, on March 15 dismissed an application for discharge at the close of the State case by Ubuntu Times Correspondent Jeffrey Moyo.
The State alleges that Moyo illegally acquired media accreditation cards from the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) for two foreign journalists, Christina Goldbaum and Joao Silva, when they arrived in Bulawayo from South Africa on May 5 before they were deported on May 8.
Moyo is said to have facilitated the media cards despite the applications by Goldbaum and Silva having been turned down by the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services.
In his ruling, Magistrate Nzira said Moyo must raise a defence as the State has enough evidence against him.
Jeffrey Moyo’s wife, Purity, has offered support to her husband during his prosecution. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo
Moyo was jointly charged with a ZMC employee, Thabang Manhika, who was acquitted last on March 10 by the same magistrate after the State failed to amend the charges and prosecute the two separately.
Kathleen Mpofu, who is representing Moyo, told the media that the magistrate said her client has a case to answer.
“In his findings, it seems the magistrate relied on the fact that the state had led the evidence of the allegedly false accreditation cards that had been obtained by foreign journalists. Based on his interpretation of the evidence led by the state, he found that it was sufficient to put my client to his defence.
“Therefore the ruling of the application for discharge at the close of the state case was dismissed by the magistrate. He found that the state had led enough evidence for Mr. Moyo to be put to defence,” said Mpofu.
The matter was deferred to April 28 for continuation led by prosecutor Avumen Khupe.
On February 12, most of Ghana woke up to the news that one Oliver Barker-Vormawor, a figurehead of one of the West African country’s most significant protest movements, had been arrested.
His crime? A scathing post on social media that criticized the government while recklessly proffering support for a coup. It earned him a questionable treason felony charge.
His call for a coup came against the backdrop of rising costs of living in Ghana and the government’s attempts to compound this with unpopular tax measures being opposed by the masses.
Amid the tensile political climate in West Africa, where Mali, Guinea and most recently, Burkina Faso, witnessed the overthrow of governments, Barker-Vormawor’s comments have been described as unwise.
But his sentiment cut to the core of the disease festering across parts of Africa, of which coups are a mere symptom.
Ewald Garr, a governance analyst, bored this down to broken democracies run by a political class that is out of touch with its people.
“When there is unresponsiveness, you see people begin to lose trust in their elected leaders and once people begin to lose trust in the elected leaders, you see frustration and despondency,” he explained.
He noted that the disease we should be looking to cure is the broken perception of good governance across the continent.
“All these things [coups] are arising is because our institutions are not well composed. Our governance system is just weak,” he said.
The simple diagnosis of the problem is matched by the casual air surrounding the recent military takeovers.
Take for instance the Burkina Faso coup, where military officers appeared on state television and announced the military overthrow like it was a weather report.
But for the people, who had been fading in a drought of despair, the announcement of a coup was like a forecast of rain. It brought joy.
This has played out in Mali and Guinea over the last two years, as well as beyond West Africa in Chad and Sudan.
The specific contexts of the coups have differed in each country, with alarming insecurity being cited by coup leaders in Burkina Faso and Mali, amid the threat from jihadists.
But there have been some constants that cut across, foremost among them economic hardships, inequality and a lack of empathy by the ruling class.
Even more worrying is the fact that these constants are ripe in countries that are hailed as beacons of democracy, like Ghana.
For Dr. Afua Yakohene, a research fellow at the Legon Center for International Affairs and Diplomacy, it is clear that “all the conditions that called for coups in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali are right here in Ghana.”
It has also been hard to ignore the fact that these coups were met with overwhelming approval from their mostly-youthful populations.
Consider the situation in Mali, where thousands have rallied in support of the junta after sanctions meted out on the West African country.
Dr. Yakohene observed that these countries have “frustrated masses; a large youth bulge that is unemployed.”
These people are most likely frustrated by the “lack of dividends that they hoped democracy would deliver,” she added.
Settling For Elections
The bar for democracy has been noticeably lowered for African countries.
It is increasingly being equated to relatively incident-free elections with no scrutiny of what happens in between polls.
The worth of Africa’s democracies has been reduced to the conduct of elections. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
But Dr. Yakohene stressed that “the holding of periodic elections is just the tip of what democratic states must be.”
“Many west African citizens even have come to not appreciate elections, so there is voter apathy and there is low turnout during elections.”
This could be traced back to the end of the Cold War and the fall of the iron curtain.
With the victory of the West over the Eastern Bloc, the idea of democracy became a necessary benchmark for countries seeking aid and development.
“It gradually pushed many African countries to adopt the policies of democracy,” Dr. Yakohene recalled. “Some leaders realized that if you need loans, and you need aid, and you want to satisfy the expectations of the western leaders, hold elections.”
These elections can be nothing more than ticked boxes because West Africa has witnessed a number of situations where political power has almost become a birthright.
Consider the example of Togo, where Gnassingbé Eyadéma was President from 1967 until his death in 2005, after which he was succeeded by his son, Faure Gnassingbé. Yet, Togo claims to be a democracy.
Dr. Yakohene described this as a form of “autocracy and monarch-cracy” that was cultivated out of the West’s insistence on the adoption of democracy, however superficial.
This very international community is often silent when there is clear evidence that democracy is subtly being undermined, with arbitrary amendments to term limits or voter suppression. But it sounds an alarm when coups occur.
The same could be said about regional bodies like the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which also turns a blind eye to abuses of power and democracy by its own members.
The community’s chair, Ghana’s President Akufo-Addo, has himself faced criticism for attacks on free speech and voter suppression following Ghana’s bloodiest polls in 2020.
Ghana’s President Akufo-Addo has been the Chair of ECOWAS since September 2020. Credit: Delali Adogla-Bessa / Ubuntu Times
ECOWAS has been instead known to spring to action and propose sanctions when it should rather be in a lab working to find a cure for the disease spawning these coups.
This cure lies simply in committing to the basic tenets of democracy, said Mr. Garr.
“What ECOWAS should be doing is having strong institutions that are able to diagnose the poor governance.”
He doesn’t think the continent has been learning from mistakes that date back to the ‘60s, where there were 26 successful coups on the continent in the wake of independence movements.
Mr. Garr is of the view that some re-orientation and a stronger commitment to engaging citizens in the process of governance is the most important step to finding a cure for the conditions that birth coups.
“It is the lack of transparency and the lack of the basic tenets of democracy in our countries that is steering all these coups we are seeing,” said the analyst.
As simple as the solution sounds, there is a clear lack of accountability and lack of political will across the continent that gives Mr. Garr little cause for hope.
“As a continent, we have a very long way to go because most African countries still can’t see the importance of good governance,” he says. “They only see elections.”
KAMPALA, Uganda — The Ugandan government, backed by French and Chinese investors recently announced a final investment decision to kick start the long-delayed development of Uganda’s vast crude oil reserves, opening the way for the East African nation to become an oil exporter. But the planned development of the $10 billion projects, along the shores of Lake Albert, poses new threats in the ecologically sensitive area.
French oil giant TotalEnergies and China National Offshore Oil Corporation say they will start pumping as much as 230,000 barrels-a-day of crude from the region by 2025, which will be shipped for export through a $3.5 billion heated pipeline linking the oil fields along Uganda’s western border with the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga in Tanzania. The 900-mile pipeline will pass through Uganda’s lush green hilly farmlands, vast areas of marshlands, before snaking around Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest freshwater lake.
Fanfare and military parades marked the event to sign the agreements, a firm commitment that the country’s 6.5 billion barrels of crude, discovered more than a decade ago will be commercialized. President Yoweri Museveni and the Vice President of Tanzania Phillip Mpago were among the key figures that witnessed the event.
“It is a masterpiece of a project and will be achieved at low cost and with a low carbon footprint,” said TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné, adding that the Ugandan project comes at a time when the world is facing increased demand for fossil fuel.
Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of TotalEnergies makes remarks at the event to mark the signing of the final investment decision where he said that Total was committed to developing the crude reserves in a sustainable manner. Credit: Petroleum Authority of Uganda
But local and international campaigners remain concerned about the environmental impact of the new fossil fuel projects and their carbon footprint. In particular, activists are concerned about the pipeline’s potential impact on water resources for millions of people in Tanzania and Uganda, vulnerable ecosystems, and the climate crisis.
Days after the signing, an oil production ship exploded off the Nigerian coast of Escravos, Delta State in what is considered to be the nation’s second major environmental disaster in three months. It’s yet another oil disaster that has resulted in huge amounts of toxic oil being released into the ocean, a stark reminder of the reality of risks involved in fossil fuels production.
Major funders for the pipeline project have also continued to pull out. Four out of five of South Africa’s largest lenders recently confirmed that they will not be involved in the financing of the pipeline project.
According to data from the World Bank, Uganda accounts for only 0.01% of the total global carbon emissions while its per capita CO2 emissions are also low at 0.13 tonnes. But, that is expected to change when oil production starts. Experts say, oil transported by the pipeline will emit at least 33 million tonnes of CO2 every year.
But Ugandan officials sought to allay the fears, pleading to safeguard the environment and social protection in the development of the projects.
“This project comes with a very big responsibility on the work of all stakeholders involved in the management and development of the country’s oil and gas sector,” said Jane N.Mulemwa, Board Chairperson of the state energy regulator Petroleum Authority of Uganda.
Uganda’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Development Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu claps after the announcement of the final investment decision that will unlock the development of Uganda’s vast crude oil reserves. Credit: Petroleum Authority of Uganda
Local civil society actors have also expressed concern about the gross rights violations meted on local oil projects host communities that oil companies and government have failed to address. Locals complain of being intimidated and threatened by local authorities to accept the inadequate compensation for their land. In 2019 a group of NGOs filed a lawsuit against Total in France over human rights violations and environmental harm in relation to planned oil exploitation in the heart of a protected natural area in Uganda. The organizations accuse Total of failure to adhere to its duty of vigilance “Total’s social responsibility.” The case is still in court.
“Oil Companies should walk the talk and comply with social and environmental safeguards, and international best practices on the path to first oil in 2025,” said James Muhindo, the coordinator of the civil society coalition on oil and gas.
The preliminary work to set the stage for the construction of these projects has progressed. The environment and social impact assessments, as well as the front-end engineering design studies for the Kingfisher, Tilenga projects, and the pipeline, were successfully concluded. All the land required for these projects has been identified and surveyed. The processes of compensation and relocation of the project-affected persons are ongoing. These had stalled for years, amid a litany of disagreements such as tax disputes, funding challenges, and opposition from climate activists.
“This milestone puts us on the path to first oil in 2025,” Uganda’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Development Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu said in a speech adding that close to 160,000 jobs are expected to be created during the project’s development.
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso —Thomas Sankara’s trial is set to resume on Wednesday, February 2nd after a military court restored the constitution on Monday, January 31.
The trial was due to resume on Monday; however, civil representatives voiced their concern, citing the need for “judicial normalization.”
Prosper Farama, the lawyer representing Sankara’s family clarified that the legal team and civil representatives believe that the trial time frame should be reasonable though they leaned toward a trial not marred by “irregularities.”
Sankara was assassinated while attending a National Revolutionary Council meeting alongside twelve officials in an October 15, 1987 coup aged 37.
After the bloody coup that saw Sankara killed, Blaise Compaoré who is suspected to have instigated Sankara’s assassination came to power, ruling for 27 years before being deposed by a popular revolution in 2014 which led him to flee and has since remained resident in neighboring Côte d’Ivoire.
When Sankara’s trial began in October 2021 before a coup interrupted closing proceedings, twelve out of 14 defendants appeared in court including one of the top leaders of the 1987 coup, General Gilbert Diendéré. The main defendant, Blaise Compaoré, and Hyacinthe Kafando, Compaoré’s former guard commander, were absent. Most of the defendants who were present pleaded not guilty to the murder of Sankara.
The resumption of Sankara’s trial is another turn of events in Burkina Faso after former president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was toppled on January 24, 2022, by mutinous soldiers stemming from his inability to address the people’s outcry concerning violent jihadists threatening lives and properties.
34 years on since the infamous coup, Burkina Faso is still haunted by Sankara’s ghost. He was an influential soldier and servant-leader. Sankara left an indelible mark in Afrika’s liberation struggle by not only sensitizing Burkinabe people but also raising the collective consciousness of Afrikans against French colonialism and European imperialism.
He was a revolutionary who won the hearts of Burkinabe and Afrikan people through his strides against corrupt practices, his commitment toward reforestation, food self-sufficiency, women’s rights, rural development, education, health and well-being of his people. To the dismay of the colonial regime, internal detractors and traitors, Sankara even renamed the country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso which means “the land of upright people.”
In a continent where justice is often delayed due to both internal factors and external interference, Sankara’s family and staunch followers will hope for a just verdict that will put an end to Sankara’s protracted trial.
KAMPALA, Uganda — On a hill above Kampala’s city suburb of Ntinda, new farmer Peace Mukulungu looks over her aquaponics farming project she says is slowly allowing her to recover from pandemic-related disruption. It is a manifestation of how new charity-backed interventions are allowing COVID-19 victims to restore livelihoods.
“Who knew I would become a fish farmer after all these years as a secretary!” she exclaims with a wide grin on her face.
The Aquaponics farming project is an initiative of Water Governance Institute WGI a local non-government organization that is supported by funding from USAID. It was rolled out in Kampala in 2018. Working with Kampala City Council, WGI has been promoting Aquaponics farming as a recovery initiative targeting women in Kampala that lost their livelihoods as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. The intervention is aimed at promoting food security, improved livelihoods as well as boosting household incomes.
The 50-year-old Mukulungu is a single mother who over the years relied on her job in a secretarial bureau in the city to support her five children. When the pandemic hit and Uganda started to lock down to slow the spread of the highly contagious virus, the business closed. Within weeks, she was home and jobless.
Today Mukulungu is a beneficiary of the aquaponics farming project, from which she has been able to replace lost income from the secretarial bureau. Her system was stocked with 115 catfish fingerlings and vegetables including spinach and lettuce. These initial inputs were offered by WGI including fish feeds for 6 months.
Mukulungu earns Uganda shillings 350,000 (USD 100) per month from her fish farming, nearly double what she used to earn at the secretarial bureau.
“Who knew I could become a fish farmer without owning land and a pond,” she keeps wondering. “This is more convenient because I don’t even have to pay transport fare.”
Deborah Gita an aquaponics project beneficiary harvests Kale leaves from her aquaponics system that consists of a fish tank and a grow bed. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times
Similar stories of lost livelihoods across Uganda are commonplace. From teachers to market workers many women who had over the years supported their families have been left struggling as Uganda implemented one of the strictest lockdowns to stem COVID-19.
According to the World Bank, the COVID-19 shock caused a sharp contraction of the economy to its slowest pace in three decades. Household incomes fell when firms closed and jobs were lost, particularly in the urban informal and formal sectors. Gross domestic product contracted by 1.1 percent in the year 2020.
The impacts have been worse especially for women working in both the formal and informal sectors. A recent report by Akina Mama wa Afrika – a local charity – indicates that the economic impact has resulted in reduced incomes and opportunities to earn a livelihood for over 70% of women employed in the informal sector which is less secure in terms of social protection. The report further states that in the absence of mitigation in the form of gender-informed strategies, women are likely to face heightened tensions, financial uncertainties, food insecurity, and vulnerability to poverty.
Aisha Nalwoga the fisheries officer at WGI describes Aquaponics as a smart agricultural innovation that combines both fish rearing and growing horticultural crops in a closed-loop water-recycling system. The system comprises a water tank in which fish is reared and grow-beds. The grow-beds contain a sand-gravel-aggregate layered medium where crops are grown. Water is introduced, manually or automatically into the fish tank from where it is drawn out as fish-waste-water and irrigated onto crops in grow-beds.
“The system has a capacity of 1200 catfish and 160 horticultural plants in the grow-beds. The horticultural crops may include tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, green pepper among others,” says Nalwoga. It allows for the year-round production of protein and vegetables. WGI working with Makerere University Agricultural Research Institute, Kabanyolo came up with this innovation.
The system is movable and can be set up anywhere requiring a small piece of land. It may be automated with water pumps using grid or solar energy, depending on farmers’ preferences, affordability, and access to the energy options.
Deborah Gita poses next to her aquaponics farming system where she has just harvested kale and beans. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times
As COVID-19 ravaged the informal sector, the clientele for the project grew from less than 50 people to over 100 across Kampala’s five divisions. The project has established 8 demonstration sites in Kampala city, plus Kamuli, Hoima, and Adjumani districts, supporting more than 400 beneficiaries across the country, a critical intervention as the country struggles to recover from the pandemic.
“People are embracing the innovation and adopting it especially because these systems take up less space and can be located anywhere in the backyards or rooftops and the fish is protected from vermin unlike in ponds,” says Nalwoga.
The rapid urbanization, limited space, and a growing population in Kampala make aquaponics farming a better alternative to fish farming in earthen ponds that require bigger land and space.
For women most of who culturally in Uganda don’t own land under customary law and tenure land ownership, and are dogged by insecure land rights, Aquaponics farming is a ray of hope.
Other beneficiaries are like 55-year-old Deborah Gita, who used to run a garment shop, dealing in used beddings in the sprawling downtown market of St. Balikudembe. When the pandemic hit, the market, one of the country’s most congested was among the first to be closed down. Out of the job, the single mother faced a daunting challenge to support her five children. She was approached by KCCA and the village councilor to become an aquaponics adoptee. After days of training, she was assisted to set up a system at her home.
“My system was stocked with 400 catfish fingerlings and vegetables including kale and beans,” says Gita. “I am now able to feed my family with a balanced diet and at the same time earn some money from the produce.”
Now earning some 1,500 shillings ($4) per kilogram of Kale vegetable, Gita, who once struggled to feed her children earns enough money to afford necessities including food, pay for electricity, and her water bills. She is looking forward to the harvest of fish.
From her garment stall, she used to earn a profit of around Uganda shillings 500,000. Since she started on aquaponics, she has managed to get at least 400,000 each month from the sale of vegetables alone. When her fish gets of age, she hopes to more than double this.
Peace Mukulungu’s automated Aquaponics farming system consisting of 114 catfish and grow beds with spinach vegetables. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times
However, it has not been entirely smooth sailing for the project. Low skills to manage aquaponics systems, limited access to inputs such as water, fish feeds, and expensive electricity are some of the challenges before people like Gita. Securing a dependable and affordable source of good quality fish feeds and fish fingerlings on the Ugandan market has also not been easy for most beneficiaries. This has led to system management lapses leading to fish deaths and crop failure in some cases. Nonetheless, project officers have come up with training manuals as well as system management manuals translated into local languages.
Beneficiaries are also required to keep books on how they manage the systems in terms of how much water is used daily. Weekly calls are also made to beneficiaries to check on their progress. Through community awareness-raising meetings and radio talk shows, WGI has been promoting aquaponics farming among farmers, households, and youth in targeted districts. “We see aquaponics being an opportunity for employment for the many unemployed youths in the country,” says Nalwoga.
For its part, the government of Uganda has put in place measures to mitigate the economic impact of COVID-19 on the masses. Experts say that the majority of these interventions target the formal sector and leave out the informal sector where many workers live hand to mouth, mostly women.
It has also been noted that these strategies and interventions are not alive to the gendered impacts of the pandemic and fail to fulfill aspirations of sustainable development goal 5 on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls yet this is crucial to accelerating recovery from the pandemic.
“Aquaponics is a viable and smart agricultural innovation however beneficiaries need to be thoroughly trained so that they understand how a system works, as the only way they will sustainably reap benefits from the systems,” says Victoria Tibenda Namulawa head of Aquaculture at Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organisation.
The taxes imposed by the government have only made this worse, as businesses pass down costs to their customers so that they can stay afloat. Among those taxed include telecommunication costs, internet use, and fuel. Fuel prices have also affected liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) used by many for cooking in their households.
Jane Thiga runs a greengrocery in Roysambu area in Nairobi and says that it has become expensive for her to place orders for fresh farm produce through phone calls. As such, she has to hike the prices of supplies by a small margin so it can cover these costs and also those of transport as fuel prices have also caused a hike in fares.
As she cleans up her tomatoes that she has picked up from the market in the morning and readies them for sale throughout the day and most especially in the evening as those who went to the city for work return home, Thiga, however, says that most of her customers are now complaining as they buy, while others have reduced the amount of food they are buying into their households.
Jane Thiga cleaning tomatoes at her stall in Roysambu, Nairobi. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
”Many are saying that the cost of living has gone up and they have to adjust accordingly. Some have even moved their families back upcountry to cut down on costs while some lost jobs during the pandemic and decided to return to their rural homes altogether,” she says.
Mobile phone loans were not left out as well by the government as they were also taxed. This also affected Thiga’s business because as she says, she normally takes a mobile loan to support her business.
“In most cases, customers take foodstuff on credit, and to maintain them, I normally take a quick mobile loan to bridge it,” she says.
In the Finance Bill 2021 that took effect on July 1st, the government imposed a 20% excise duty on data and calls, making it more expensive. The Bill also proposed a hike in fuel prices, affecting LPG gas prices in the country.
Samuel Juma is a gas vendor in Roysambu, and says that since the price of cooking gas went up, customers either buying or refilling cylinders have declined, with most of them resorting to using other forms of energy such as charcoal or paraffin stoves.
”There is nothing we can do. Most people have resorted to using other forms of charcoal, while others decide to eat in restaurants rather than refill their gas cylinders and use it to cook at home,” Juma says.
A gas cylinder stand where residents go to buy or refill their LPG gas cylinders in Roysambu, Nairobi. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
But, he says, those who heard about the hike in prices earlier are coming to buy, and that is what has kept them in business so far.
“Compared to last year when we were refilling a 6kg gas for Ksh850, the highest now goes for Ksh1300, noting an increase of Ksh450. This is too much, given also that every other item in the market is increasing, making life more difficult for the common citizens in this country,” Juma says.
Samuel Juma arranges gas cylinders at his stand in Roysambu, Nairobi. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
Not to be left out was also the price of fuel that has been on a steady increase this year in Kenya, hitting the historical highest mark in decades.
At the moment, petrol sells at Ksh127.1 in Nairobi and could go to Ksh130 in other parts of the country, depending on the cost of transportation.
William Kimani, a car owner who lives in Kiambu, in the city outskirts says that he has had to use a matatu (public service vehicle) to work on several occasions this year because he couldn’t raise money to buy fuel for his private car.
Samuel Juma arranges gas cylinders at his stand in Roysambu, Nairobi. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
“There is a time last year when I bought fuel for Ksh83, with the government telling us that it was a relaxation of tax to cushion us from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. But look right now, the effects of the same pandemic are now biting but the same government is on a tax Christmas. They are celebrating our agony,” Kimani says.
In April, Kenyans trolled the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for loaning Kenya without a payback plan, while the East African nation’s Chinese loan and debt continued to burgeon.
Kimani says that he is aware that the government is hiking taxes in an attempt to raise money to pay back the loans.
“This government has been too greedy, never quenching its thirst for loans from almost all corners of the world, and now see how we are struggling. What will our future generations look like if we cannot put food on our children’s table nor pay their school fees?” he asks.
A Total petrol station at Thome, on the Northern Bypass Road in Nairobi. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times
Kimani also continues to say that the problem would not be in borrowing, but rather in how the money borrowed is managed.
“We wouldn’t have a problem with the borrowing. Borrowing is good, but only if the same money is managed well to give value to the public. But now, the problem in Kenya is that corruption is taking away all this money. The other day you heard reports saying that we are losing 2 billion Shillings to corruption daily. And yet our president doesn’t know what to do with it. In fact, the other day he asked what we want him to do. We are doomed,” Kimani concludes.
A court in Zimbabwe has further delayed passing a ruling in a matter in which Ubuntu Times correspondent Jeffrey Moyo is seeking refusal of remand.
The ruling which was expected to be passed between July 22 and July 25 has been indefinitely postponed and the matter remanded to September 10.
Moyo’s lawyer, Doug Coltart, has said the postponement of his client’s ruling is a typical example of how the courts in Zimbabwe deal with politically sensitized matters.
“We are yet to receive the ruling and the matter has been remanded to September 10. We were anticipating the ruling between July 22 and July 25 but the court has not communicated to us what has prompted the delay,” said Coltart.
Government spokesperson Nick Mangwana recently told this publication that Moyo is neither a victim of political persecution nor free expression but should face the law.
A recent report showed that Zimbabwe has dropped two places on the World Press Freedom Index from number 129 to 131.
Billions of investments into mining projects have breathed new life in Uganda’s once-neglected Karamoja region, creating thousands of jobs in mineral-rich heartlands near the Kenyan border but the investment rush has also brought new problems, fueling environmental degradation, rights violations, and land grabbing, threatening livelihoods of millions of indigenous Karamojong people.
Ugandan authorities are investigating the latest deadly clash in the impoverished gold mining sub-county of Rupa Moroto district which happened in late April, that left a 28-year old local defense personnel dead and forced several hundred locals to flee their homes after armed assailants staged a daytime raid and stole gold ores, worth millions of Ugandan shillings. Days earlier, dozens of policemen from Uganda’s mineral protection police who had been deployed to secure the lucrative gold mining village abandoned their positions, due to rising attacks, blamed on assailants, who usually cross from Kenya’s Turkana region.
In a region long inhabited traditionally by cattle-herders, the rush to get the region’s precious minerals gold, limestone, and marble, is uprooting people, damaging key water sources, and stirring social unrest. Locals talk of being displaced from their ancestral farmlands by land grabbers while others are now suffering from many diseases, including skin infections and diarrhea, blamed on consuming water from contaminated water bodies, as some miners use hazardous chemicals including mercury to extract gold.
Impact On The Environment
“We have been invaded by foreigners who don’t care about our livelihoods,” said Anne Napeyo, a 30-year old mother in Rupa. “Many of our people are getting wounds on their skin because the water here is contaminated”
Thousands in Karamoja have taken jobs in the mines while others have become “artisanal diggers” digging their own holes and tunnels, risking cave-ins and other dangers in pursuit of buried treasure, local leaders say. In addition to hazards such as contaminated water bodies, mining activities are leaving behind gaping pits, which now dot vast areas as artisan miners leave these behind in search of new grounds. Small children sometimes drown in these pits, while local farmers have lost livestock.
Sacred grounds known as ‘Akiriket’ are also being destroyed. According to the Karamoja traditional setting, every community is socially organized to have its own Akiriket from where the assemble for social events from initiations to naming happens. Community leaders say the minerals are turning into a curse.
“We want development but it can’t be at the expense of our peoples’ lives and livelihoods,” said Margerate Lomonyang coordinator of Karamoja Women Cultural Group and Karamoja representative on the multi-stakeholder group for the Extractives Industries Transparency initiative EITI. “Investors are taking advantage of desperate people who are trying to make a living in the mines”
Land Grabbing
A total of 17,083 square kilometers of land area in Karamoja is licensed for mineral exploration and extraction activities, according to official data. In 2018, Chinese mining company Sunbelt was given 3.3 square kilometers of land to set up a $13 million marble mining factory in Rupa sub-county. A year later, the company expanded its operations to cover additional 4.1 square kilometers, ostensibly after a deal with local leaders. Hundreds of families have since been pushed out of their ancestral homes, local officials say. Locals accuse Rupa Community development trust, a community trustee group created three years ago, of conniving with investors to steal their land.
“The community leaders came to us with compensation documents saying they were going to help us demand compensation when investors come,” one local known as Lokol, said “They tricked us to sign them without paying anything, now we have nowhere to go.”
While Sunbelt insists that company representatives went through the right channels to acquire the land, including signing a memorandum of understanding with the local leaders, authorities are investigating the transaction, according to the energy and minerals ministry.
“Sunbelt violated the community members’ rights to fair and adequate compensation in the land acquisition process. They didn’t involve the community members who are the real custodians of the land,” said Lomonyang.
Another company DAO Marble Africa Limited, which operates a mining license to mine marble has been accused by Human Rights Watch for rights violations, including allegations that the company connived and paid off a few local chiefs without compensating the local residents.
Land ownership in Karamoja is under customary tenure and communally owned and managed. This means that land is held in trust by one generation for another with the elders as ‘stewards’. This very unclear land ownership model makes fair compensation a difficult issue as few elders negotiate with the companies for the temporary acquisition of land.
Local Miners Association To The Rescue
Karamoja Miners Association unites miners in the region and was formed to sensitize local mining communities about their rights, help locals demand accountability from their leaders, and seek fair compensation from mining companies.
Women engage in mining activities in Karamoja. Poor working conditions and environmental degradation pose health risks for them. Credit: Resource Rights Africa
“We organize miners in groups so that they have a formidable voice and can negotiate for better wages and working conditions from mining companies,” says Simon Nagiro the chairperson of the association. “We have also embarked on interpreting into local languages miners’ rights as enshrined under the mining laws.”
Regions’ Mineral Potential
Karamoja is endowed with a vast array of metallic and industrial minerals that have the potential to be developed commercially. A 2011 survey found that the region contains over 50 minerals including gold, limestone, uranium, marble, graphite, gypsum, iron, wolfram, nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium, and tin. With 61% of Karamoja’s 1.2 million people living in poverty, the region’s mineral potential holds the promise of economic development.
The region is endowed with over 50 different minerals, including marble, limestone, gold, silver, copper, and iron.
26 companies currently have exploratory or mining rights in the region.
The sector comprises both large-scale and artisanal and small-scale miners.
The Constitution of Uganda 1995, vests all mineral resources in the hands of government but article 244 provides that minerals shall be exploited taking into account the interests of landowners and local governments and further states that land will not be deprived of a person without prompt payment of fair and adequate compensation. Under articles 39 and 41, every Ugandan has a right to a clean and healthy environment and as such can bring an action for any pollution or improper disposal of wastes.
The Mining Act, 2003 is the principal law that governs mining in Uganda. Under Section 4 of the act, a person may acquire the right to search for and mine any mineral by acquiring a license issued by the commissioner. Section 15 provides for payment of compensation to owners of private land for damage done to the surface of the land or to any crops, trees, buildings, or for livestock injured or killed by the negligence of the holder of the license or an agent. Section 43 provides that a mining license shall not be granted unless the proposed mining program takes into proper account environmental impact assessment and safety factors.
Section 110 further makes it mandatory for every license holder to submit a costed environmental restoration plan which requires approval by the National Environment Management Authority. The Act however does not clearly address the regulation of mining activities by different government agencies and how they can follow up with the investors regarding royalties. This is worsened by the limited role local government plays in the regulation of mining activities due to resource constraints.
Rights Of Indigenous Groups In Uganda
According to Minority rights group international, Karamojong pastoralists, are some of the most marginalized minorities in Uganda, isolated economically and politically. Commonly stereotyped by their compatriots as violent and backward, other Ugandans refer to them as warriors. The African Commission’s International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs also recognizes the Karamojong people as indigenous minority groups in Uganda. However, Uganda does not officially recognize Indigenous minority groups. This lack of formal recognition by the state further disenfranchises Karamojong.
Uganda is a signatory to various international instruments that reiterate the rights of indigenous people. These include; the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People 2007, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. However, the country is still lagging behind in terms of protecting the rights of indigenous people.
A Karamojong woman digs a hole as she mines for gold in Rupa-sub-county. Such holes dot the area and have become death traps for both children and livestock. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire
“We are empowering communities by educating them about their land and property rights so that they are able to hold mining companies accountable,” says Abaho Herbert a program officer at Resource Rights Africa a local charity organization operating in the region. “We also work with local leaders to put in place by-laws that enable fair wages for miners to avoid being exploited by the mining companies”
Since Belgium-based Africa gold refinery set up a $20 million gold plant in Uganda, the country has become a magnet for gold mining activities, notably in Karamoja. Gold exports fetch $1 billion every year and have overtaken coffee as Uganda’s leading export commodity.
For many local leaders, this rush is the reason for increased insecurity, displacement of locals, and inter-communal clashes. Gold miners are routinely attacked by assailants looking for the highly sought-after metal, bringing back memories of the insecurity that plagued the region at the height of cattle rustling in the 1990s and 2000s. Illegal miners continue to flock to the 7 districts of Karamoja, driving up displacements, clashes over land ownership and shared water bodies.
Food insecurity is also a challenge in the region and reliance on natural resources has rendered livelihoods sensitive to climate change, already a reality manifested inform of recurring droughts, flash floods, and prolonged dry spells.
In June 2021, Uganda’s cabinet approved a draft mining law (Mining and minerals Bill 2019) that imposes steep penalties for violations in the sector, including fines of 1 billion shillings ($278,164.12) and prison terms of up to seven years for those found guilty of environmental degradation, illegal mining among other violations.
The new law will replace the old mining legislation that has been in place since 2003, when the region hadn’t discovered vast minerals, according to Vicent Kedi the commissioner licensing at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development.
“The new law will solve issues of non-compliance by mining companies to social and environmental safeguards, ” he says. “We are working with local leaders in the region to continuously monitor mining company operations.
This story was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network’s Indigenous Story Grants
Harare — Donning mini-skirts, popular for being dress codes for the oldest profession here, girls as young as 12, file past the railway tracks towards Harare-Chinhoyi highway, where one after the other, they are picked by motorists to unknown destinations.
Behind the girls, lies a slum settlement that stretches closer to Westgate, a medium-density residential area in Harare, where the girls brag, they have had a constant customer base for their sex services.
In fact, some of the girls claimed, posh vehicles every day in the evenings, often at sunset, drive up to their settlement to fetch them.
So, to quench the pleasures of the men frequenting their settlement, the girls are every day picked and later after business, dropped, to them a sign of thriving business even as they look underaged to be in the oldest profession.
“We have no choice. You can see the conditions we live under – poverty defines our daily living here and if we don’t sell sex, we can’t have food. As for me, I have no parents and I live with my little nine-year-old sister whom I have to feed because our parents died some three years ago,” 15-year-old Pegina Muzhandi, told Ubuntu Times.
Pegina made no secret about what killed her parents, saying they both died of AIDS, a disease she said neither spared her nor her little sister as they both acquired HIV at birth.
She (Pegina) said condom use is a rarity each time she engages her clients.
“More often, my clients who are much older than me – some men in their forties, just prefer not to use condom protection when they sleep with me. There is nothing I can do about it because at the end of the day what I need is money,” said Pegina.
In the slums where Pegina and her sister live with many other girls of her age, there are apparently scores of other grown women also in the business of sex trade – many in fact like 43-year-old Marian Chihoko who openly said sex workers of her age were facing competition from very young girls.
“Underage girls have put us out of business here because they are often preferred by almost every client who comes here because they look young and more attractive than some of us, but also because these young girls charge very little for their services,” Chihoko told Ubuntu Times.
Unidentified two teenage sex workers ready themselves for potential clients by the street in the dark corners of Epworth, a poor township 25 kilometers east of Harare, where poverty has pushed many underage girls into sex work. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
At Caledonia informal settlement, approximately 30 kilometers east of Harare, child sex workers are not a strange phenomenon.
Here, much-grown women like 63-year-old Memory Mhere, admitted that she was making brisky business hiring out desperate young girls to much-grown sex predators.
“The girls here now know I have a wider customer base and so they (girls) come to me asking me to connect them to the rich men who want sex services and I do that and payment is given to me and then I pay a smaller percentage to the girls,” Mhere told Ubuntu Times.
So, a pimp guru in her own right, Mhere admitted to making a killing trading out underage girls for sex – 50 to 65 dollars on a good day.
She however vehemently denied that she was responsible for fanning underage prostitution in her locality, saying in fact the girls approach her on their own.
“I don’t move around calling the young girls to come and sell their bodies. It’s them who come here knowing I am well connected to well-to-do men who frequent this area searching for young girls to sleep with,” said Mhere.
For development experts like Hebert Ruhaka based in the capital Harare, slums across Zimbabwe’s towns and cities have become fertile grounds for child prostitution.
“Poverty is rampant in slums and more often than not, girls there have no access to life’s basics and in order to get the basics, the girls have had to join the oldest profession whether they are in school or at home,” Ruhaka told Ubuntu Times.
According to Ruhaka, who is a holder of a degree in development studies from Zimbabwe’s Midlands State University, ‘slum settlements across the country here are infested with underage sex workers, who are as young as 13 years of age.’
Sadly, Ruhaka said, more often than not, elderly women hire very young girls to engage in sex with grown men, something seasoned pimps like Mhere did not dispute.
“The elderly women who lure young girls into sex work get paid by their clients who sleep with the poor underage girls more often without condom protection, with the girls rewarded with very little money by their pimps. At times they are not paid at all or if lucky they are instead rewarded with food handouts,” said Ruhaka.
According to many experts like Ruhaka, many underage sex workers in this Southern African country have dropped out of school, as their poverty-stricken families cannot pay school fees for them, with many of the girls like 15-year-old Pegina apparently orphaned.
In 2019, about 60 percent of Zimbabwe’s children in primary school were sent home for failing to pay fees, according to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee.
“We are seeing a spike in social vices like child prostitution and domestic violence,” says Father Martin Nyadewo of St. Peter’s Parish in Mbare, a high-density southern suburb of Harare. “Young girls are increasingly taking to the streets to sell their bodies to be able to feed themselves and their families.” Nyadewo’s remarks appeared in a July 2020 article in America, the Jesuit review magazine.
The South African government on July 14 confirmed it was deploying 25,000 troops in its two provinces, KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng, after police failed to quell violence and looting following the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma on July 7.
KwaZulu-Natal is Zuma’s province of origin, home of the Zulu people, South Africa’s largest ethnic group. Protests had erupted after the ex-leader handed himself over to police to serve a 15-month jail term for contempt of court.
Zuma, 79, defied a constitutional court order to give evidence at an inquiry investigating high-level corruption during his nine years in office until 2018.
When South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation on July 11 on new COVID-19 regulations, he condemned the protests as “acts of violence based on ethnic mobilization.”
Zulu nation prime minister prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi slammed President Ramaphosa for his “defamatory remarks about Zulu people.”
“I don’t understand what is meant by ethnic mobilization. It’s not about Zulu people against other people, even in the case where they mobilized support for our former president Zuma. Mr. Ace Magashule is not a Zulu and the leaders of Mpumalanga who came here to support Zuma were not necessarily Zulu. This has nothing to do with Zulus, so I don’t know what is meant by ethnic mobilization in what is happening now,” Buthelezi said.
By July 12, South Africa’s currency (the rand) tumbled against major currencies as the riots sprung up, disrupting public transport services and forcing businesses to close. The currency dropped by as much as 2% against the United States dollar. More than 200 shopping malls had been looted by mid-Monday afternoon and the economy lost an estimated US$3.4 billion dollars, according to the Gauteng Premier. Over 150,000 jobs have been placed at risk by the protests.
On July 16 over 2,100 arrests had been made and the death toll stood at 337 with many people trampled to death during looting at stores, while the police and the military fired stun grenades and rubber bullets to try to halt the unrest.
Black Poverty Is Not An Accident
The protests in South Africa are most likely a result of the deep-seated grievances that have not been resolved since the end of apartheid in 1994 like poverty and inequality. While the incarceration of Jacob Zuma has been cited as the turning point to the protests, the lack of ownership of the means of production among blacks is also an attribute to the chaos.
At the time of the end of apartheid in 1994, more than 80% of the land was in the hands of the white minority. According to the Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, suggestions are that just under 60,000 white-owned farms accounted for about 70% of the total area of the country in the early 1990s. The country’s land reform program has been slow with some indications that less than 10 percent of the total land has been redistributed from white to black ownership since 1994.
When former president Zuma left office in 2018, unemployment was at 27 percent and he emphasized that his party’s incoming government embark on what he termed “radical economic transformation” to address the economic imbalances created during apartheid. Under President Ramaphosa, the overall unemployment rate has risen to 33 percent, with 46 percent of those unemployed being below the age of 35.
As a result, white people continue to be more skilled than their black counterparts and also they attain higher education levels. Therefore, they are likely to attain higher positions in the job market, and on average, earning higher wages. The crisis in South Africa can therefore be understood as the white population’s extensive control over the country’s economy.
South Africa-based political analyst Rutendo Matinyarare said the anger shown by the protestors is symptomatic of the failure of the political economy in addressing the needs of the black majority.
“The violence goes beyond the Jacob Zuma arrest. The Zuma case was just a spark for the anger of people that includes lack of transformation from apartheid, the maintenance of an apartheid economy that is exclusionary in that it excludes black people from participation. The fact that black people have been left in the very exact position they were during apartheid where they had no factors of production, no land to put their own houses, no land to produce food, and the only way they had to survive was to work for capital,” said Matinyarare.
On July 16 President Ramaphosa visited KwaZulu-Natal province where almost 155 people were killed during the protests and acknowledged that the violence was “planned”.
Matinyarare also indicated that South Africa’s three-year recession and the lockdown imposed accentuated the looting and at the moment is difficult to come up with the total cost of damage incurred during the chaos.
“It is difficult to come up with a total cost of the losses incurred but the cost of violence is that there are deaths that have been reported. It has cost the nations unity. There are now divisions along racial lines. This is now set to create a big rift between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ who are the whites and blacks, respectively. A few blacks have been co-opted into the system, but when you look at it their wealth is not a result of legacy but debt because black people never had the opportunity to create wealth. It is just a bandage being put on a rotten wound,” added Matinyarare.
The South African government needs to do more to address widening inequality, rampant unemployment and deliver on the promises of development for all and not just a few. It needs to prove its detractors wrong – that its pursuit of what it terms “radical economic transformation” fulfills the promise of addressing the country’s skewed economic ownership patterns.
Written by George Orwell in 1949, 1984 detailed the imperative of resisting oppression and tyranny, offering great insight into a twisted and very cruel future if nations are allowed to fall to the rule of totalitarianism.
The book helped put in proper perspective, how totalitarian regimes attempt to control our thoughts and lives through surveillance and by seizing control of the mass media, most times, violently. In this brilliantly articulated piece of work, we see a “party” that deploys enormous resources into eliminating dissent to the extent of establishing edicts that criminalize holding anti-government thoughts and opinions. Do these methods sound familiar to you? If so, then I welcome you dear reader to 1984
In an event described as the “Nigerian Drama” by The New York Times in 1984, the regime of Buhari, violating human rights and international laws, staged a kidnap of a former Minister of Transport, Umaru Dikko, after he was ambushed at his London base. This is the same junta that had just overthrown an elected government of Shagari under whom Dikko served as Minister.
Biafra agitator, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Credit: MNK
Fast forward to 2021, close to four decades after, the same serial law offender staged a similar attack on Human Rights and International laws in the abduction of the IPOB leader and British Citizen, Nnamdi Kanu, in Kenya. This is after he returned in 2015 in a disguised democratic toga.
Shortly after the abduction of Kanu, barely 24 hours to a July 3rd protest declared by Yoruba secessionist group, the regime sent in masked DSS operatives after the Yoruba secessionist agitator and leader, Sunday Igboho, stormed his Ibadan residence at the dead of the night like armed assassins, arrested thirteen persons and in a public statement released by its PRO, Peter Afunnaya, boasted to have extra-judicially murdered two of Igboho’s allies.
On the day of the protest, however, the regime deployed combined forces of the police and military. The security forces shot violently and sporadically against the peaceful agitators and protesters, killing Jumoke, a 14-year-old female trader.
It should be recalled that as far back as 2015, there have been renewed calls for the secession of the Igbo people from Nigeria by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. The secession campaigns attained a threshold of popularity upon the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu on the 20th of October, 2015. And as the agitation grew bigger and larger, no thanks to increasing insecurity and socio-economic injustice in the country that has pauperized millions of Nigerians and made the country totally unsafe for habitation. This is also complicated by the manner in which the government protects and funds terrorists and bandits while deploying enormous resources into hunting, arresting, and killing protesters and all who maintain dissent against the regime.
But the secessionists were not the only group or persons to fall victim to the tyranny and brazen human rights violations of the Buhari regime. Recall that on August 3rd, 2019, at about 1 AM, Omoyele Sowore, leading investigative journalist and revolutionary activist was abducted in the middle of the night by masked men of the DSS who stormed his Lagos temporary residence like assassins.
For calling a RevolutionNow Protest against misgovernance and crass incompetence of the regime, Sowore spent five months in unjust detention after the regime violated two court orders for his release. Worst still, the regime in desperation to rearrest Sowore after it reluctantly obeyed the order to release the latter on bail, the DSS stormed the courtroom, violating the sanctity of the court right in front of the presiding judge who had to escape the violent scene instigated by the gun-wielding DSS operatives. The regime created an unfathomable precedent of judicial impunity when it turned Justice Ijeoma’s court into a war zone.
There is also El-Zakzaky whom the regime continues to hold hostage despite court orders that have mandated it to release him on bail. Aside from murdering his children extrajudicially, the regime has murdered scores of his followers for asking the government to comply with court orders granting bail to the Sheik.
The regime for the past six years of administration had equally devoted time to arresting, intimidating, and harassing journalists. According to media reports, no less than eight journalists have been killed on duty under the regime with over 500 falling victims to harassment, intimidation, torture, and unjust detentions. Today, it has become a norm to see journalists who have come to cover protests dressed in bulletproofs as though covering a war zone. No doubt, the regime had turned protest grounds into a theatre of war.
When the regime appeared not to be satisfied with simply attacking and gagging the press, it went straight for the social media, prescribing death by hanging for “hate speech’’; a deliberate attempt to gag Nigerians and violate their constitutional right to free speech. The regime did not want a free press, it frowned against citizen’s right to free speech and protests. It does not want Nigerians to protest offline and also against them expressing their frustrations on social media, especially Twitter. It was this gross hostility to free speech that forced the regime into banning over 200 million Nigerians from using Twitter.
No regime in history, military and civilian, has treated the judiciary and the rule of law with such disdain and brazen impunity. No regime in the history of the country has been so hostile to its citizens without any modicum of regard for their lives or constitutional rights. No regime in history had ever treated the press and the Nigerian people with so much hate and utter contempt.
The only regime that ever measured close to Buhari’s despotism is the military junta of 1984; the only Junta to have ever dethroned an elected government. Buhari’s capacity for lawlessness and impunity is second to none, such that only Buhari could have surpassed the record of his own lawlessness over three decades after.
Buhari may not only be classified as a despot with the unique ability to harness the powers of Nigeria’s systemic impunity to muster a social, political, and economic siege against the Nigerian people, he is the only Nigerian leader fit to be described as a serial law offender, ever to occupy Nigeria’s political space.
Several weeks back, Muhammadu Buhari in an Arise TV interview on the 11th of June, 2021, twenty-four hours before the commemoration of Democracy day, described an entire region in the country as “dot in a circle’’. This was days after he threatened to deal with the members of IPOB “in the language they understand’’. Instinctively and quite commendably, the Nigerian tweeps mobilized to report such wicked, unconscionable and thoughtless tweet that threatens genocide against a section of a country and a deliberate attempt to torment our memories with the ugly and horrific development of the Nigerian civil war; an event that has left unforgettable memories of sorrow, tears, and blood.
This is a government that rarely speaks to terrorists and bandits in the language they understand. On the contrary, it has continued to romance and reward them handsomely in ransoms, overseas scholarships, and social empowerment. But a government that begged bandits and terrorists with CBN loans a month before is shamelessly threatening genocide against a group of people agitating for self-determination and disdainfully described an entire region as “dot in a circle’’; a fascist statement that captures an intention and justification for genocide.
As is the character of Dictators, the regime reacted by suspending the use of Twitter in Nigeria. In order to massage its ego and desperate urge for impunity, the regime was willing to murder and completely bury the rights of its two hundred million citizens to social media rights, the same way it had consistently attacked all rights.
When it couldn’t achieve this with Twitter ban thanks to a generation that is not only defiant but also far above the regime’s backwardness, the government began seeking ways to negotiate with Twitter by using as a bargaining chip, millions of Nigerians who now have to rely on VPN to tweet. In the end, it was the Nigerian people that ended up suspending the regime from Twitter.
Although the “dot in the circle” statement as used by Buhari may have rightfully suggested a threat against agitation for self-determination, it also connotes a much deeper phenomenon upon paying close attention to the President’s interview, the disposition of the regime to other forms of rights and its general approach to governance.
What we see is a regime that has subjected free speech to persistent attacks, handled protests with utmost disdain and government critics have been treated far worse than terrorists. Everyone, groups, and ordinary Nigerians who oppose the regime’s anti-people policies have become victims of violent repression, incarceration and in some instances, extrajudicially murdered as in the case of endSARS and countless Shiite protesters whom the regime continues to kill like games.
The President in the Arise TV interview could not disguise his grudge and immense hatred for Nigerians, especially young people. You could see a President that was embittered when he said, “endSARS” protesters wanted to remove him. He made this statement as if to justify the Lekki massacre and the violent crackdown on the endSARS protest. Hence, the “dot in the circle” statement falls into a general pattern of a regime that has always handled dissent with state violence and is overtly hostile to democratic rights.
If anyone is still in doubt of the tribe Buhari’s ideology refers to as “dot in a circle”, then we need also to pay attention to how the government shot at protesters on democracy day, twenty-four hours after the Arise TV interview. The government on democracy day officially described Nigerians as terrorists by unleashing the counter-terrorism unit against protesters, who in turn, fired repeatedly at our Ojota protest ground.
Under Buhari’s regime, the “dot” people are the most endangered tribe in the entire country. They are the tribe whose social-economic, constitutional, and political rights are subjected to relentless attacks.
These are the tribes that were murdered in cold blood on October 20, 2020. This tribe is consistently murdered through overwhelming poverty, insecurity, lack of access to healthcare, housing, clean water, and basic welfare. This tribe does not only constitute a category of people demanding rights to self-determination, nor does it consist only of those being persecuted, arrested, shot at, brutalized, killed for fighting for socio-economic and political rights, the “dot” nation comprises also of all who are victims of government failings. This is the tribe of the 99% that has been subjected to years of neoliberal siege by a system of greed and power.
The Buhari administration has no doubt shown that it is hostile to all forms of rights. This is why it is important for the “dot” nation, organized across the length and breadth of the country, to unite in a struggle to put a permanent end to this regime of death and destruction.
The lawyer representing Ubuntu Times’ Zimbabwe correspondent Jeffrey Moyo, 37, says the State is “acting in an unjust way” after it issued an arrest warrant for his client on Thursday, June 24 without a legal basis.
Douglas Coltart said the arrest warrant, which was later canceled, is part of the State’s mechanisms to frustrate court proceedings before his client made an application for refusal of remand.
“We have been denied the right to make this application (refusal of remand) in the court and the magistrate insisted that we file the written submissions. The court issued an arrest warrant against my client without any legal basis because we were in court on time. We had to prove through paper trail that my client is not a flight risk and that we were in court on time.
“This shows the State, in this case, is acting in an unjust way,” said Coltart.
Moyo’s case is being heard in a Bulawayo court, about 450km southwest of the capital Harare, where he stays with his family. He is currently out of custody on ZW$5,000 (US$59) bail and denies allegations that he facilitated procurement of media accreditation cards for two foreign journalists without following due procedure.
Jeffrey Moyo, left, and his lawyer Douglas Coltart. Coltart says the State is not acting in good faith when dealing with his client’s case. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
According to Coltart, the State is yet to respond to his client’s court application for refusal of remand.
Zimbabwe’s government spokesperson Nick Mangwana told Ubuntu Times that Moyo is facing the consequences of contravening the country’s laws abusing journalistic freedoms.
Mangwana said Zimbabwe, despite being ranked 130 on the World Press Freedom index, enjoys cordial relations with both local and international media institutions and “Moyo’s arrest had nothing to do with media or press freedom.”
“As a government, we are doing well and not worried. We have good relations with media institutions, local and international. If the crime Jeffrey Moyo is alleged to have committed was committed by a medical doctor, that doctor was going to face similar fate. If that doctor was arrested, people should not say Zimbabwe is against medical doctors.
“There is nothing about press freedom in this case in which Moyo is charged,” he told Ubuntu Times.
Mangwana also indicated that government has not hindered or banned journalists from practicing in Zimbabwe “because there is a regulator (ZMC) who in my view has not banned anyone from practicing journalism.”
“We have an example of journalists who wrote stories that led to the resignation of a whole vice-president here in Zimbabwe and no one was been penalized for that. That is press freedom people want and they have it. But Jeffrey Moyo’s case is a different one. He committed a criminal offense by abusing his journalistic freedoms,” added Mangwana.
Moyo is set to return to court on July 8 for routine remand.
Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), a Zimbabwe-based NGO advocating for violence-free and conflict-free extraction of natural resources now wants the government to halt the scourge.
“We are gravely concerned on syndicates who abuse their proximity to power and defraud Zimbabweans and the central government of funds that should be expanding the country’s revenue base and improving the socio-economic lives of Zimbabweans,” says Simiso Mlevu, a project and communication for development chief at CNRG.
On May 9, South Africa’s Hawks Serious Organized Crime Investigation team arrested Tashinga Nyasha Masinire at OR Tambo International Airport on charges of illegally possessing 23 pieces of gold valued at $700,000.
The gold was discovered in Masinire’s luggage and he failed to produce a permit that allows him to transport the gold.
According to Mlevu, the arrest of Masinire by South African authorities raises questions about the porosity of Zimbabwe’s ports.
“The smooth departure of Masinire with his loot exposes the complicity of Zimbabwe’s immigration and security authorities in the smuggling of the country’s minerals,” she told Ubuntu Times in an email interview.
The NGO further calls the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the role of the Zimbabwe Miners Federation and politically connected cartels in the smuggling of minerals.
It further wants the judiciary to consider smuggling of minerals as a high-level crime and impose deterrent sentences on members of criminal networks involved in smuggling of minerals
Zimbabwe continues to lose billions of dollars annually to organized criminal syndicates which have spread their wings from diamonds, chrome, gold, semi-precious gemstones, coal to copper, among other minerals.
With the majority of Zimbabwean working population majorly found in the informal sector, many of those living in mineral-rich areas risk their lives digging underground in search of gold to better their lives.
Research by International Crisis Group estimated that over $1.5billion of gold is smuggled out of Zimbabwe each year, denying the cash-strapped economy of crucial foreign-exchange revenues.
The Central bank-owned Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR) is the sole legal buyer of extracted gold in Zimbabwe and is also the country’s notes and coins minter.
This, analysts say, could be a major factor for smuggling of gold because of the poor prices offered by FPR to the sellers.
Late last year, as one of the efforts to curb this, announced that it would close down all unmonitored airstrips, install a new radar control system to monitor small aircrafts flying in the country with a belief that they might be used to smuggle minerals out of the country.
A Zimbabwe magistrates’ court in the city of Bulawayo on Monday, May 31 threw out a bail application by Mr. Jeffrey Moyo, a correspondent for Ubuntu Times, citing that he is a “flight risk.”
Allegations against Mr. Moyo by the state are that he contravened the country’s Immigration Act by “fraudulently or misrepresenting in facilitating the entry of foreigners in the country” without due procedure.
Prosecutor Mr. Thompson Hove told the court Mr. Moyo assisted two foreign journalists to illegally enter the country and facilitated their press cards after the duo had been denied such by the Information Ministry.
In her ruling, magistrate Rachel Mukanga said Mr. Moyo is facing serious charges that could see him serve a ten-year prison sentence if convicted.
Mr. Moyo’s lawyer said he is “urgently” appealing the ruling at the High Court though the process might take “a week or even longer” to be heard.
“We certainly felt that Jeff was a very good candidate for bail. We hoped that justice would be done, but we have feelings that this is not unusual especially in the magistrates’ court where good candidates are denied bail in these politicized cases,” said Mr. Douglas Coltart.
Mr. Coltart said he is still waiting for the magistrates’ record though he has made a request.
He added: “As soon as we get necessary copies for us to file the appeal we will do so. By law, it (getting magistrates’ record) is meant to be on an urgent basis because all bail matters are urgent. But sometimes the record can take a week or even longer than that and once we file our appeal it will have to be set down by the high court.”
In Nigeria of today, under the clueless leadership of Buhari, Pantamism has come to join the ranks of notorious ”Isms” that deals particularly in the Affliction of the Nigerian people with the virulent disease of terrorism.
Just like how the regime deodorized corruption, Buhari’s recent endorsement of Pantami is nothing short of the institutionalization of terrorism and religious extremism. it translates to the legitimization of the ongoing terrorism in the north and unfair vilification of thousands of those who have fallen victim, some in fatal dimension, of religious extremism that has assumed the shape of insurgency.
Under Buhari’s regime, citizens are described as being anti-north simply for calling for the sack of a minister with concrete records of affiliation and support for Islamic terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda. Nigerians are regarded anti-Islam for calling for the need to protect the nation’s data from terrorists whom we can confirm have a sympathizer in a minister who handles the national data.
This government has not only justified our most ”esteemed” position as the third most terrorized country in the world; it has also assisted the narrative of ”fulanization” and ”Islamization” of Nigeria.
Meanwhile, this agenda in the real sense, have in the best scenario benefited elites of all ethnoreligious background, in a worse situation, profited their rich Muslim friends from across the North and South and in the worst circumstance, empowered their rich/powerful Northern cronies.
In the administration of Buhari, all government institutions have become institutions of terror against the Nigerian people.
Our security agencies terrorize and kill young people on daily basis, the ministry of Labor and employment terrorize workers in addition to being incapable of providing employment, the Ministry of power terrorizes the entire country with the darkness that is purchased at an expensive and unregulated rate.
The Ministry of housing terrorizes Nigerians with homelessness that has condemned millions of people to under-bridge settlers and street urchins that have now become child or teenage cultists and “hoodlums” that are available as government tools to foment election violence.
The regime on a frequent basis dispenses policies of terror that have rendered the naira useless, sustained Nigeria as the poverty capital of the World, reduced our nation to a situation where the law courts are shut down for weeks over issues that border on financial autonomy and independence of the judiciary. It has descended the country to where we have now resorted to the printing of money as opposed to policies that mobilize social wealth.
With Buhari’s Pantamism, we have lost our country to the rule of bandits and terrorists. But these beastly insurgents are not only organized in bushes, they have a full presence and adequate representation in government offices and sectors. They have now become emboldened by government patronage and empowerment to advance their nefarious activities from the highways to the schools and campuses.
And now, public opinion has it that they are now courageous enough to go after the national assembly; an institution built and sustained by taxpayers’ money but occupied by characters who have ensnared Nigerians in the webs of poverty and hardship complicated by the institutionalization of insecurity and total anarchy.
There is no getting out of this unimaginable mess if we fail as a people to put an end to a regime of terror and institutionalized poverty. There is no better time than now for the oppressed people of Nigeria, North, South, and across all religious divides, to come together in unison to chant the songs of BuhariMustGo and clench their fists for a people’s revolution.
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