Category: World - Page 2 - African News Today

Okonjo-Iweala Accepts Apology from Swiss Newspaper over ‘grandmother’ Remarks

1Mar

By Chinedu IbeakanmaNo Comments

Africa, Economy, Trade, United Nations, Women Empowerment

Okonjo-Iweala Accepts Apology from Swiss Newspaper over ‘grandmother’ Remarks

The first woman and first African to lead the World Trade Organization on Monday welcomed an apology from a Swiss newspaper that had dismissed the seasoned international professional as a grandmother. “It is important & timely that they’ve apologised,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a tweet. The development economist took over as the new WTO chief on Monday after a long, high-powered career serving as minister of finance and foreign affairs in her native Nigeria and 25 years at the World Bank. But when several Swiss newspapers announced her appointment last month, they decided the most noteworthy thing to mention about the new WTO chief was as a matriarch. “This grandmother will become the boss of the WTO,” read the headline of the article published by the Aargauer Zeitung and...

Ghana to Receive World’s First Doses of Free Covax Vaccines -UNICEF

24Feb

By Chinedu IbeakanmaNo Comments

Covid-19, Ghana, United Nations

Ghana to Receive World’s First Doses of Free Covax Vaccines -UNICEF

Ghana is scheduled to receive Wednesday the first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines from Covax, a World Health Organization-backed effort to procure and distribute inoculations for free to poor countries. “These 600,000 Covax vaccines are part of an initial tranche of deliveries of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine licensed to the Serum Institute of India, which represent part of the first wave of Covid vaccines headed to several low and middle-income countries,” said UNICEF, which organised the shipment from Mumbai, in a joint statement with the WHO. Covax has said it would deliver two billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines globally by the end of 2021. AFP

Nigeria: Constitutional Force Majeure Proclaimed Over A Sovereignty Dispute

22Dec

By Ndidi UwechueNo Comments

Human Rights, Justice, Legislature, Nigeria, United Nations

Nigeria: Constitutional Force Majeure Proclaimed Over A Sovereignty Dispute

19th December 2020 On 16th December 2020, history was being made in Nigeria. On that day, there was an official declaration of Constitutional Force Majeure and demand for an orderly process to deal with the unjust and undemocratic situation in Nigeria of using what is referred to as the 1999 Constitution but that is simply Military Decree 24 in some disguise, and not at all a Constitution in the true sense of that word. This was a Joint Proclamation of a Sovereignty Dispute by Accredited Delegates of Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities of the Southern and Middle Belt Territories of Nigeria. This declaration of Constitutional Force Majeure is the pathway for Unionists seeking the Restructuring of Nigeria back to what we had at Independence, or even better than that; plus, it is also the...

Nigeria 1999 Constitution Deceit: Lawyers, Pastors and Priests – Unmute Yourselves!

18Nov

By Ndidi Uwechue1 Comment

Human Rights, Justice, News, Nigeria, United Nations

Nigeria 1999 Constitution Deceit: Lawyers, Pastors and Priests – Unmute Yourselves!

18th November 2020 As the end of 2020 approaches, needless to say Africa, and notably Nigeria will not achieve the African Union (AU) pledge set in 2013, “not to bequeath the burden of conflict to the next generation of Africans and undertake to end all wars by 2020.” Silencing the Guns in Africa is a chief initiative of the AU’s Agenda 2063, but it seems that Nigeria has chosen to go in the opposite direction for conflicts escalate, weapons proliferate, injustice increases. Whether one is a Unionist or a Non-Unionist* it is becoming clear that Nigeria is going to be reconfigured through the Union being reviewed. The reason being found in the defective social contract that Nigeria operates. Its 1999 Constitution was not only imposed upon the people, but is a prove...

Nigeria: Referendum By Ethnic Nationalities Not Restructuring

22Oct

By Ndidi UwechueNo Comments

Human Rights, News, Nigeria, United Nations

Nigeria: Referendum By Ethnic Nationalities Not Restructuring

So here we are. Sixty years after Independence we are the world’s poorest Black nation. Quoting from Borgen Magazine in August 2020, “Nigeria, a third world country in Africa, is known as the poverty capital of the world. The nation just exceeded India with the largest rate of people living in extreme poverty. In Nigeria, about 86.9 million people live in severe poverty, which is about 50% of its entire population….the nation is failing at lowering the rates of poverty. This is partly due to the mismanagement of the oil business and the presence of corruption. Along with this, the nation is going through a “population boom,” which will make managing poverty rates more difficult. One of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals is to end extreme poverty by 2050. However, Nigeria’s poverty ra...

Buhari Assures Okonjo Iweala of Support for WTO Job

12Oct

By Chinedu IbeakanmaNo Comments

Economy, Finance, Nigeria

Buhari Assures Okonjo Iweala of Support for WTO Job

President Muhammadu Buhari has restated the efforts of his administration in ensuring that former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, emerges the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Buhari who gave the assurance when he received Okonjo-Iweala at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja said she deserved all Nigeria has to offer because she had also served the country diligently. “I assure you that we will do all that we can to ensure that you emerge as the Director-General of WTO, not only because you are a Nigerian, but because you are a hardworking Nigerian. You deserve this,’’ Buhari affirmed. The President assured he will make more phone calls and send letters to some world leaders for more support. “I did the same for Dr Akinwunmi Adesina for Presid...

Okonjo-Iweala Makes Final Two in WTO Race

8Oct

By Chinedu IbeakanmaNo Comments

Africa, African Development, Finance, News, Nigeria, Women Empowerment

Okonjo-Iweala Makes Final Two in WTO Race

Former Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has made it to the final stage of the race to the office of the Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Mrs. Iweala made the final cut with South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee, Bloomberg reports. Okonjo-Iweala has experience working at international governance bodies as a former managing director of the World Bank and as a chairman at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation. Yoo is South Korea’s trade minister. During her 25-year career in government, she has helped expand her country’s trade network through bilateral accords with the U.S., China and the U.K. WTO General Council Chairman David Walker will formally announce the results to the institution’s delegates today in Geneva. United Kingdom’s Li...

Nigeria: Indigenous People and their Right to Self-Determination

28Sep

By Ndidi UwechueNo Comments

Africa, Biafra, Human Rights, Justice, News, Nigeria, United Nations

Nigeria: Indigenous People and their Right to Self-Determination

28th September 2020 Between years 2000 and 2002, a full one-third of the states of Nigeria declared that they would be governed by Islamic Sharia. These are twelve adjoining states in the core north also known as the Arewa region. In taking up Sharia for themselves, Arewa took up their entitlement to self-determination, and were not criminalised or penalised for it. In characteristic Nigerian fashion of confusing matters, although the 1999 Constitution (Section 10) that it operates mandates that Nigeria must be a secular country, it is also known that this Constitution is a forgery, thus null and void, and invalid. Therefore could it be that Arewa simply ignored the Constitution being unwilling to keep to the demands of an illegitimate social contract? What is clear is that A...

UN Watchdog Reports Continued Human Rights Abuses in Burundi

18Sep

By Chinedu IbeakanmaNo Comments

Burundi, Human Rights, News, United Nations

UN Watchdog Reports Continued Human Rights Abuses in Burundi

A UN watchdog reports that there has been continued human rights violations such as sexual violence, murder, and summary executions in Burundi The citizens had earlier hoped on a new era where peace will reign with the election of new President Evariste Ndayishimiye, who was elected in May after taking over from his predecessor Pierre Nkurunziza. Former President Pierre Nkurunziza stayed in office for 15 years and during his tenure, at least 1,000 people were killed with over 400,000 displaced during an unrest which lasted between April 2015 and May 2017, according to the UN. While there were expectations of a change of fortunes in the Central African Country after the transition of Government, a Commission of Inquiry on Burundi has reported disappearance and killings in...

UNICEF Expresses Concern Over Jailing of 13-Year-old Child in Kano for Blasphemy

17Sep

By Obiajulu Joel NwoluNo Comments

Child Abuse, Human Rights, Judiciary, Justice, News, Nigeria, Religion, United Nations

UNICEF Expresses Concern Over Jailing of 13-Year-old Child in Kano for Blasphemy

The United Nations Children’s agency, Unicef has condemned the sentencing of 13-year-old Omar Farouq to 10 years in prison with menial labour for blasphemy by the Kano State Sharia Court at Feli Hockey, Kano. UNICEF representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins condemned the sentence by the Sharia Court for uncomplimentary comments describing it as an abuse of child right. “It also negates all core underlying principles of child rights and child justice that Nigeria – and by implication, Kano State – has signed on to,” Hawkins said. According to him, the sentence was in contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Nigeria approved in 1991. It is also a violation of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child – which Nigeria ratified in...