Nigeria: Church Attack, School Kidnapping Rock Nigeria

Church Attack, School Kidnapping Rock Nigeria Nigeria Gunmen attacked a church in central Nigeria this week, just days after at least 25 schoolgirls were abducted in the country’s northeast, Reuters reported. The incidents have increased pressure on the Nigerian government as it faces mounting scrutiny over deteriorating security and threats to the nation’s Christian community. On Tuesday evening, armed men stormed the Christ Apostolic Church in the town of Eruku in Kwara state during a service, killing at least two people and kidnapping the pastor and several worshippers. Video footage showed parishioners diving for cover as gunfire erupted when the assailants entered the church and seized people’s belongings amid continued shooting. Kwara’s governor requested the immediate deployment of additional security personnel. Tuesday’s attack came barely 24 hours after a separate incident when unknown gunmen assaulted a girls’ boarding school in the predominantly Muslim town of Maga, in Kebbi state. Authorities said the attackers exchanged gunfire with police guards, killing two staff members before abducting the schoolgirls. Two girls managed to escape, and officials are cooperating with locals to find the abducted students, the BBC added. The separate attacks prompted Nigerian President Bola Tinubu to postpone a planned trip to South Africa and Angola. He ordered agencies “to do everything possible” to rescue the girls and hunt down the attackers in the church shooting. The United Nations condemned the Kebbi abductions and urged the “swift release” of the students, according to Africanews. The dual assaults have heightened political pressure on Abuja as US President Donald Trump and American conservatives amplify claims that Christians are being “targeted” in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has rejected those accusations as a misrepresentation of complex, overlapping security crises involving Islamist insurgents, armed bandits, and communal conflicts. The West African country has been grappling with a years-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast, kidnappings and killings by armed gangs in the northwest, and deadly skirmishes between mainly Muslim herdsmen and mostly Christian farmers in the central regions. Security analysts warned that persistent abductions and failures to prosecute known attackers continue to embolden armed groups and erode public confidence. While one such analyst said abductors often “dictate the terms” in negotiations, Nigeria’s chief of army staff said failure to rescue the children is not an option, the Associated Press noted. Share this story

Guinea Bissau Is Having Political Instability

‘The Absurd Is Becoming Normal’ in Guinea-Bissau as It – Finally – Holds Elections Guinea-Bissau Decades ago, the African Party of the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) led a 12-year liberation struggle against Portugal, which culminated in independence for Guinea-Bissau in 1974. Fifty-one years later, that party, Guinea-Bissau’s largest, has been essentially banned from running in the presidential and legislative elections on Nov. 23 for reasons critics call a “concocted” technicality. “…The absurd (is) becoming normal in our country,” said opposition leader Domingos Simões Pereira, PAIGC presidential candidate, of the ruling by the Supreme Court on Sept. 23 to block his candidacy: Judges said his application submitted on Sept. 19 was too late to meet the deadline of Sept. 25. But those types of political and legal absurdities are not unusual in this West African country, which has struggled with coups and authoritarian leaders for half a century, analysts say. “To survive (in the country), one must be in power,” wrote Vincent Foucher of France’s Sciences Po in the French-language edition of the Conversation. “This creates a cycle: a coalition of malcontents and opponents forms, and it manages to seize power through legal means via elections, the formation of a new majority coalition in the legislature, or through illegal means. Then the distribution of benefits provokes discontent within the coalition, which gradually fractures, inspiring the formation of a new coalition and attempts to seize power…” This current “cycle” started in 2020 after President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, a former army general, swore himself in as the president at a hotel in the capital of Bissau. Since then, he has overseen an “armed coup” against the Supreme Court judges, dissolved the elected parliament, and dismissed the opposition-led cabinet, replacing it with one of his own choosing. Pereira’s PAIGC won legislative elections in 2023 but says the president stopped them from forming a government. Meanwhile, voters in Bissau-Guinea were initially scheduled to choose a new president in November 2024. But Embaló postponed the vote, rescheduling it to November 2025, saying the country was not ready to hold elections. Critics, however, say his term expired at the end of February. In early February, the country’s top court extended his term to September 2025. Still, Embaló had pledged in 2024 to step down after his term expired. But then he backtracked earlier this year and said he would actually run again: “I will be a candidate in my own succession,” he said in March. While he has outlasted his initial five-year mandate, Embaló legally can run for a second term. As a result, analysts say, he’s doing everything he can to stop his leading rival from winning the presidency and the opposition from getting a majority in parliament. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies says the election chaos is just part of a long pattern of instability in Guinea-Bissau. The country has experienced four coups, more than a dozen attempted coups, and had 23 years of military-led government since 1974. Embaló says he has survived two alleged attempted coups since he took office in 2020. After an alleged attempt to overthrow him in 2023, he dissolved the opposition-controlled parliament, saying it was doing nothing to improve security. Critics say the coup attempts were not real but a ploy by the president to consolidate power and remain in office. Still, at the end of October, multiple senior military officers were arrested for plotting yet another alleged coup. Meanwhile, the political jockeying, the repression of dissent and the media, and the lack of focus on development leaves the average citizen struggling: With its monoculture agrarian economy – it’s one of the world’s leading producers of cashew nuts, accounting for much of its exports and providing a livelihood to about 80 percent of the population – the country is one of Africa’s poorest, heavily dependent on foreign assistance.  As a result, the country is looking to tap its mineral wealth, having made overtures to Russia this year for help in developing a bauxite mining operation. However, it will likely also remain a central cog in the international cocaine trafficking system – the country is dubbed “Africa’s first narco state” – an enterprise mainly run by the political elite. Regardless, analysts say the elections come as the country is at a crossroads, grappling with power struggles between the president and the legislature, the president and the opposition, and the president and a vigorous, albeit repressed, civil society – all watched over by a military that feels entitled to interfere. “Guinea-Bissau faces two possible paths: It could transition into a liberal democracy if presidential and legislative elections restore functioning institutions,” wrote Democracy in Africa. “Alternatively, it could slip into dictatorship marked by unchecked presidential power, repression of opposition, and lawlessness, including armed groups and drug trafficking. In a region already struggling with Islamist insurgencies and instability, Guinea-Bissau’s trajectory matters.”

South Africa: Do Afrikaners Regret That Apartheid Was Abolished?

Profile photo for Kyle Baston Kyle Baston · Follow Feb 3 Do Afrikaners regret that apartheid was abolished, with South Africa looking like the Balkans in the 1990s? I think most white South Africans who were realistic about the prospects of South Africa, left after apartheid ended. 2/5 to be exact. 2/5 black university graduates are leaving as well. My family filled out the immigration paperwork to Australia in 1994. The reality is if you can accept an African standard of living and government, then South Africa is for you. Africa belongs to Africans, and the African mind set will always treat white and Indian people who have lived there for generations as outsiders. I understand why they would hate us, I just sometimes wish they would look at the lessons of the Indian expulsion from Uganda and the white expulsion from Zimbabwe, and accept reality. South Africa is extremely corrupt, and it’s the Indian and the white population that are the main drivers of the economy. There is the constant tiresome excuse of apartheid = lack of progress. There are 52 countries in Africa. South Africa represents 1/7 of africas gdp. Africa despite being one of the most resource rich continents on the planet represents 2.5 % of global gdp. Despite colonisation being blamed Ethiopia and Liberia are the two examples of places in Africa that were never colonised . Ethiopia has been in a constant state of famine and war for decades, and Liberia has just been through a brutal civil war in which cannibalism was rampant. Driving the white farmers from Zimbabwe resulted in 79.5 billion percent peak inflation. 25 % of their food supply comes In a form of a gift from the evil colonising countries who run the world food program. Colonisation existed everywhere in Europe, and in the americas and Africa on a tribal warfare level. It’s called tall poppy syndrome , its easier to resent another persons success than it is to acknowledge your own societies failings. The Jews despite enduring a 1000 years of oppression, not being allowed to own land in Europe and enduring a genocide in world war 2 , managed to build the only democracy and most successful dynamic economy in the Middle East in less than 20 years. It is possible , it’s about societal and cultural standards. If you don’t get that right then expect to be as impoverished as the rest of Africa.

Gabon Court Sentences Former First Lady and President's Son To 20 Years In Prison

Gabon court sentences former first lady and president's son to 20 years in prison By Jves Laurent Goma, 1 days ago Gabon President Family Trial AFP or Licensors Gabon's former first lady and her son were sentenced in absentia by a special criminal court to 20 years in prison following a two-day trial in Libreville. Sylvia Bongo and Noureddin Bongo Valentin were convicted of concealment and embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, criminal association and forgery. The court sentenced the duo late Tuesday, according to a judgement, and also issued an arrest warrant for them. They were ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages for “crimes against the Gabonese state." Valentin said the verdict had long been “predetermined" under the office of President Oligui Nguema and called the trial a “simple formality." Sylvia Bongo and Noureddin Bongo Valentin were influential during former president Ali Bongo's 14 years in power of the central African country. Ali Bongo was ousted in a coup in 2023 after winning a disputed election that the military and opposition said was marred by fraud. The coup put an end to the Bongo dynasty's 56 years in power. Ali Bongo's father, Omar Bongo, ruled for 42 years. The prosecutor accused both defendants of manipulating the former president's health issues to control state funds. Valentin, who held the position of coordinator of presidential affairs, was described by witnesses during the trial as the main person giving orders at the presidential palace after his father suffered a stroke in October 2018. Following Ali Bongo's ouster, both Valentin and his mother were detained for 20 months before being allowed to travel out of the country. The Bongos, who live in London and hold French citizenship, refused to participate in the trial. During the trial, the prosecutor released images of two private jets allegedly procured with laundered money and listed land holdings including a mansion in London and Morocco. “They reigned unchallenged, and tried to pass themselves off as victims of the system they shaped,” said Eddy Minang, prosecutor general at the Libreville Court of Appeal.

Nigeria: The Geography of Violence

The Geography of Violence: Nigeria Grapples with Militants, Bandits, and Tribal Conflicts as the US Mulls Intervention Nigeria Comfort Isfanus was cooking dinner at her home in the Bokkos area of Plateau State in north-central Nigeria, when her husband ran into their kitchen and told her that armed men were heading their way. As she and their children fled to safety, he stayed behind with his brother. “They killed them,” she told Deutsche Welle. “Our houses were burnt down, and now we are suffering with…no shelter for our children. Now they don’t have (anything) to eat, no school, no business, nothing.” For decades, Nigerians across the country and across religions have been grappling with such violence from Islamist militants, criminal gangs, and tribal rivalries. Thousands of people have been killed annually in the violence that the government has struggled for years to contain. But now, the situation in the West African country has sparked anger in the United States, where US President Donald Trump has claimed that there is a “Christian genocide” taking place. He has threatened to cut off aid and send the military into Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” if the government does not halt the violence, CNN reported. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth. All this attention from the world’s most powerful leader has led to shock in the country. “There is no genocide taking place in Nigeria,” said Daniel Bwala, a spokesperson for Nigerian President Bola Tinubu on X. “Rather, the nation faces serious security challenges that have affected people across all faiths, including Christians.” “Nigeria remains a sovereign nation, and while collaboration with international partners in addressing insecurity is welcome, any form of intervention must respect our sovereignty,” he added. With more than 230 million people, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, with more than 200 ethnic groups. The population is almost evenly split between Muslims, predominant in the north, and Christians, who mainly live in the south. The states of Benue and Plateau, in the north-central region known as the Middle Belt, experience the worst of the violence, with armed criminal groups known as bandits regularly murdering or kidnapping residents, and destroying schools, hospitals, and places of worship. Meanwhile, criminal gangs target both Muslims and Christians in rural communities in the northwest of Nigeria, kidnapping individuals for ransom payments and also burning villages. “They bomb markets. They bomb churches. They bomb mosques, and they attack every civilian location they find. They do not discriminate between Muslims and Christians,” Bulama Bukarti, a Nigerian lawyer and analyst, told Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, jihadist militant groups Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, active in the northeast of the country, have killed more than 40,000 people and displaced more than 2 million over the past 15 years. The groups aim to establish their radical interpretation of Islamic law in the areas they take over, and have often targeted Muslims they deem not Muslim enough. At the same time, the Fulani tribe, mainly Muslims, have been accused of mass killings of mainly Christians across the northwest and central regions, where a decades-long conflict over land and water resources has led to violence between farmers, who are usually Christian, and herders, who are mainly Muslim Fulani. The farmers accuse the herders of allowing their livestock to graze on their farms and destroying their crops. Herders argue, however, that those areas are legal grazing lands, the Associated Press explained. In April, gunmen believed to be herders from the Muslim Fulani tribe killed at least 40 people in a largely Christian farming village. Two months later, more than 100 people were massacred by gunmen in Yelwata, a largely Christian community in Benue state, according to Amnesty International. John Joseph Hayab, a pastor who leads the Christian Association of Nigeria in the country’s northern region, told CNN there is “systematic killings of Christians” in that area, adding that he had presided over numerous mass burials of slain Christians: “Every state in northern Nigeria has suffered its own terrible share of killings targeting Christians.” Still, analysts say that accusations of a “Christian genocide” are false and simplistic. They argue that while Christians have been targeted, most victims of violence in Nigeria are Muslims, the Associated Press wrote. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a US crisis-monitoring group, out of the 1,923 attacks that targeted civilians in Nigeria so far this year, about 50 targeted Christians because of their religion. “The crisis is far more complex than a simple religious framing suggests,” said Taiwo Hassan Adebayo of the Institute for Security Studies. “…geography…largely determines who becomes the victim.” Still, some across Nigeria called on the government to find ways to fight Islamist groups in an effort to prevent foreign troops from entering the country. Analysts say that the Tinubu administration, in power since 2023, has made more efforts to tackle the violence than its predecessors. Still, about 10,000 people have been killed and hundreds abducted since he took office. At the same time, some Christians, while welcoming US support and intervention, said US action could worsen the situation. Ochole Okita, 28, standing outside a church in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, told the Washington Post that she hoped that US intervention would stop the violence ravaging farming communities. “I was excited but with mixed feelings,” Okita said, adding that she was happy the US seemed to care. “(Any intervention) is still going to affect us. We’re the ones (on the ground) and are going to suffer, especially when the aid is taken (away).” Share this story

The Collaborators Who Betrayed Their Country For Donald Trump

https://www.news24.com/opinions/columnists/adriaan-basson-the-collaborators-who-betrayed-their-country-for-trump-20251110-1110?lid=njadl2cw469w

Cape Town Is Now One Of The Most Congested Cities On Earth

Cape Town is now one of the most congested cities in the world For South African expats returning to the Mother City, the shock isn’t just seeing Table Mountain again, it’s surviving Cape Town’s traffic! By James Durrant 10-11-25 09:19 in News Cape Town traffic For South African expats returning to the Mother City, the shock isn't just seeing Table Mountain again, it's surviving Cape Town's traffic! Image: Wikimedia Commons For South African expat Londoners returning home, the shock isn’t just seeing Table Mountain again, it’s discovering Cape Town’s traffic now rivals the gridlock they thought they’d left behind, with drivers losing nearly four full days each year to congestion. Look, I’ve spent years navigating London traffic. I thought I’d seen it all. But coming back to Cape Town? The traffic situation has become genuinely alarming. The numbers don’t lie. According to the INRIX 2024 Global Traffic Scorecard, Cape Town drivers lost an average of 94 hours in 2024 sitting in traffic. Think about that. Nearly four full days of your year, gone, just staring at the car in front of you. ITS International and other sources now rank Cape Town in the top 10 of the world’s most congested cities. We’re talking Mumbai levels. Bogotá levels. Manila levels. The daily grind I experienced this first-hand during my week in Cape Town in October. My son was attending a course in Woodstock, which meant a daily commute into town from the southern suburbs. Every single day, the same crawl. You’d think after years of battling London traffic I’d be adjusted to congestion. When special events become traffic nightmares Then came the Redbull Flugtag on the Sunday. Yes, it was a massive international event at the V&A Waterfront. I get that. You expect some traffic for something that big. But the reality was unimaginable. From the moment we hit the backed-up traffic on Nelson Mandela Boulevard, it took over an hour just to find a parking spot at the V&A. Over an hour. For a less than 2km drive. And here’s the kicker – I live in London. I’m supposed to be immune to traffic chaos. I’ve sat through gridlock on the M25. I’ve crawled through rush hour in one of Europe’s busiest cities. Yet even I found myself gobsmacked by how bad Cape Town’s become. When someone from London is shocked by your traffic, you know you’ve got a serious problem. Every road, every day The southern suburbs to town route is now a daily nightmare. Woodstock, Sea Point, the CBD – doesn’t matter where you’re heading, you’re crawling. And it starts early. No beating the rush anymore because the rush is basically all day. The reasons are obvious when you think about it. Cape Town’s squeezed between a mountain and the ocean. There are only so many roads you can build. Add in decades of prioritising cars over public transport, rapid growth, and inadequate infrastructure, and you’ve got a perfect storm of gridlock. What’s really at stake Here’s what worries me most. It’s not just the frustration of sitting in traffic, though that’s bad enough. It’s what this does to Cape Town. People are losing productive hours. Businesses are suffering. The pollution is increasing. And the city’s reputation as a great place to live? That’s taking a serious hit. The data confirms Cape Town has a traffic crisis. The real question is whether there’s the political will to actually do something about it. Because right now, it feels like we’re just watching it get worse. Time’s running out. And so is everyone’s patience. 'SA People' is hiring! Freelance writer positions available. Send us your CV