Foreign
Uganda Election: Museveni Confirms Bid To Extend 40-Year Rule
The 80-year-old leader pledges economic growth from today’s GDP of $66bn to $500bn within the next five years.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has confirmed he will contest next year’s presidential election, setting the stage for a potential extension of his nearly 40-year rule.
The 80-year-old announced late on Saturday that he had expressed his interest “in running for … the position of presidential flag bearer” for his National Resistance Movement (NRM) party.
Museveni seized power in 1986 after a five-year civil war and has ruled ever since.
The NRM has altered the constitution twice to remove term and age limits, clearing the way for Museveni to extend his tenure.
Rights groups accused him of using security forces and state patronage to suppress dissent and entrench his power – claims he denies.
Museveni said he seeks re-election to transform Uganda into a “$500bn economy in the next five years”. According to government data, the country’s current gross domestic product stands at just under $66bn.
Ugandans are due to vote in January to choose a president and members of parliament.
Challenger
Opposition leader Bobi Wine, a pop star-turned-politician whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, has confirmed he will run again. Wine rejected the 2021 results, alleging widespread fraud, ballot tampering and intimidation by security forces.
Ugandan opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, poses for a photograph after his press conference at his home in Magere, Uganda, on January 26, 2021. – Ugandan soldiers have stood down their positions around the residence of opposition leader Bobi Wine, a day after a court ordered an end to the confinement of the presidential runner-up. He had been under de-facto house arrest at his home outside the capital, Kampala, since he returned from voting on January 14, 2021.
Tensions have risen in recent months after parliament passed a law allowing military courts to try civilians, a practice the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in January.
The government insisted the change is necessary to tackle threats to national security, but rights organisations and opposition figures argued it is a tool to intimidate and silence critics.
Uganda for years has used military courts to prosecute opposition politicians and government critics.
In 2018, Wine was charged in a military court with illegal possession of firearms. The charges were later dropped.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has criticised Uganda’s military courts for failing to meet international standards of judicial independence and fairness.
Oryem Nyeko, senior Africa researcher at HRW, said this year: “The Ugandan authorities have for years misused military courts to crack down on opponents and critics.”
Aljazeera.com
The Leader of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Primate Elijah Ayodele, has warned that the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, may be stoned.
In a statement signed by his media aide, Osho Oluwatosin, Primate Ayodele noted that the president will face attacks in an Arab country and that some nations will gang up to cause chaos in America.
“Donald Trump may be attacked and stoned in an Arab country; he needs to be very careful, and I also see some nations coming together to cause chaos in the USA The president must be watchful about this.”
He made it known that the policies of the president will destroy America and that if he continues, things will not go well in the USA.
“The USA will not be the same again because of Trump’s policies. His administration needs to be careful to avoid things going otherwise in the country.
“Trump needs to do better to make the world a better place; otherwise, America will pay for the damages even after his administration”
Primate Ayodele urged Trump to do better before it’s too late, as he foresees some problems befalling the nation very soon
“Trump needs to adjust so many things before it’s too late. A problem is coming, and something will happen which won’t favour the USA. Trump needs to reorganise and look into many things to avoid putting America into jeopardy; if not, they will regret voting for him.”
South Sudan has started holding a trial for First Vice President Riek Machar, who has been sacked by his decades-long rival, President Salva Kiir, and charged with murder, treason and crimes against humanity in relation to rebellion and an attack by a militia linked with ethnic tensions.
Machar and seven others who have been charged alongside him, including Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol, were seen sitting inside a barred cage in the court on Monday during a live broadcast on national television.
Machar has been held in house arrest at his residence in the capital, Juba, for months following investigations by the government of his allies.
Earlier this month, a decree read on state radio said Kiir suspended the first vice president due to charges stemming from his alleged involvement in attacks by the White Army against federal forces in March.
The White Army, a loose band of armed youths, attacked a military base in Nasir, northeastern South Sudan, and killed more than 250 soldiers on Machar’s orders, according to the government.
Edmund Yakani, executive director of South Sudan activist group Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, told local media that the trial must be transparent and fair to build up trust in the judicial system.
He urged both leaders and their parties to “adhere to the principle of resolving political misunderstanding through dialogue” rather than violence, which would benefit no one.
Machar’s party, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-in Opposition (SPLM/IO), has called the charges “fabricated” and said its members were arrested illegally. Machar’s lawyer on Monday said “an incompetent court” that lacks jurisdiction is judging him.
Fears of a return to ruinous civil war
After the vice president’s arrest, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) called on all parties to exercise restraint and warned that they risked losing the “hard-won gains of the past seven years” and returning to a state of civil war.
In 2013, two years after the country gained independence from Sudan following decades of war, oil-producing South Sudan descended into a civil war.
The devastating conflict, which scarred the country and left some 400,000 people killed, pitted Kiir and his allies from the ethnic Dinka group against Machar, who is from the Nuer, the second-largest ethnic group in South Sudan.
More than four million people, or about one-third of the population, were displaced from their homes before a 2018 peace deal saw the pair form a “national unity” government.
But they never fully saw eye-to-eye, leaving the country in a state of limbo.
Both leaders held on to their armed factions that were never fully integrated and unified despite agreements, while reforms were delayed, and presidential elections were repeatedly postponed.
Armed clashes have erupted in several parts of the country over the past months, with both sides accusing each other of breaking ceasefire agreements.
Authorities in South Sudan are, in the meantime, plundering billions of dollars in public funds as the impoverished country also deals with a deepening food crisis, according to the UN.
“The country has been captured by a predatory elite that has institutionalised the systematic looting of the nation’s wealth for private gain,” the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said last week.
South Sudan’s First Vice President Machar faces charges of treason and other serious crimes, local justice authorities said, as fears grow that the east African country could edge toward a return to civil war.
The United Nations body for human rights in South Sudan has called the government’s charges of treason against opposition leader Riek Machar “reckless.”
South Sudan’s First Vice President Machar faces charges of treason and other serious crimes, local justice authorities said Thursday, as fears grow that the east African country could edge toward a return to civil war.
Machar has been under house arrest since March after the transitional government he is a part of accused him of subversive activities against President Salva Kiir, who said Thursday that he was suspending Machar as his deputy because of the criminal allegations.
Pro-government troops have been fighting militias and other armed groups that they say are loyal to Machar, who has served as his country’s No. 2 under the terms of a delicate peace deal signed in 2018.
That agreement has not been fully implemented, with presidential elections repeatedly postponed.
In addition to treason, Machar and seven others face charges of murder, conspiracy, terrorism, destruction of public property and military assets and crimes against humanity.
The charges stem from a violent incident in March when a militia known as the White Army overran a garrison of government troops, killing its commanding officer and others. The justice ministry said in a statement Thursday that the attack in Nasir, Upper Nile state was influenced by Machar and others via ”coordinated military and political structures.”
Bringing criminal charges against Machar is likely to further destabilize South Sudan, whose government faces pressure from regional leaders to reach a political agreement that prevents a return to full-blown war.
It was not immediately clear when Machar would be presented in a courtroom. His precise whereabouts in South Sudan are unknown, and his political supporters have long called for his freedom.
Atiba Varsity Tasks New Staff, Places Premium On Academic Excellence
Tell Trump This: Primate Ayodele Sends Warning To Donald Trump In New Prophecy
