Nigeria’s Victor Osimhen and Asisat Oshoala win footballer of the year awards while Morocco are named team of the year.
Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen has been named African Footballer of the Year after beating Mohamed Salah to the award at a ceremony in Marrakesh.
Osimhen’s compatriot Asisat Oshoala bagged the women’s prize for a record-extending sixth time at the gala on Monday night. The star striker, who plays for Barcelona, battled injury to help her side to the round of 16 at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, where they took England to penalties.
The 24-year-old Osimhen scored 26 goals as he helped Napoli to a surprise triumph in Serie A last season and was the leading marksmen in Italy’s top division.
Egypt’s Liverpool forward Salah and Morocco’s Paris St Germain right back Achraf Hakimi were the other two final nominees, but Osimhen claimed the prize to become the first Nigerian winner since Nwankwo Kanu in 1999.
“It is a dream come true. I have to thank everybody who has helped me on this journey and all Africans who have helped to put me on the map despite my faults,” Osimhen said.
Morocco won National Team of the Year in the men’s category after their thrilling run to the World Cup semifinals in Qatar while their manager, Walid Regragui, won Coach of the Year.
Nigeria took home the trophy for National Team of the Year for women, but South Africa’s Desiree Ellis won women’s Coach of the Year for the fourth time in succession.
France-based Chiamaka Nnadozie was named the top women’s goalkeeper on the continent.
Osimhen, Oshoala and Michelle Alozie also made the teams of the year.
The Nigerian Presidency congratulated all the country’s winners, describing their awards in a post on X as inspirational.
“This recognition at the highest level is a massive shot in the arm for Nigeria football,” Abuja Football Association Chairman Adam Muktar Mohammed told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
“Evidently, there is an abundance of talent in Nigeria. We only have to harness this talent to be a major force in international football.”
However, Nigeria’s 2026 World Cup hopes are already in jeopardy after they drew their first two qualifiers against Lesotho and Zimbabwe last month.
The men’s team also failed to reach last year’s World Cup in Qatar after losing to Ghana on away goals in a playoff.
Several Super Eagles stars led by captain Ahmed Musa and defender William Ekong as well as coach Jose Peseiro joined in the tributes for Osimhen after he was named CAF Player of the Year.
“Congrats once again @victorosimhen9 @asisatoshoala proud of you,” Musa wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Well deserved @victorosimhen9, we are all proud of you,” Ekong added.
Nairobi, Kenya – On December 12, 1963, six months after Kenya’s independence from the British, the former colony officially became a republic. It is an occasion that has been marked ever since as Jamhuri Day.
With the new status came the fight against a colonial-era hierarchy in which Europeans sat at the top, followed by South Asians and then Black Africans who were granted the least economic and political rights, he fought for African nationalism and land distribution.
Today, as Kenya celebrates the 60th anniversary of Jamhuri Day, some of the heroes of its liberation struggle and fight for equality remain unsung. One of them is Pio Gama Pinto, the radical journalist, politician and socialist. His role has been largely forgotten, partly because he died aged just 37 in what was effectively Kenya’s first political assassination on February 24, 1965.
His eldest daughter, Linda Gama Pinto, was just six years old when he was shot dead in the driveway of their family house in broad daylight in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Three men were jailed for his murder yet those close to the story believe the real perpetrators behind the assassination remain unknown.
Linda says her father remains part of the country’s story, even in death.
“[He] is woven into the fabric of Kenyan history and I’m very proud of his contribution,” she said from her home in Ottawa, Canada, where the family emigrated to after the assassination. “My father’s memory has been nurtured by [only] a few people … this was a selfless man who had at his core, the desire for equality.”
Some scholars say he was seen as a threat first by British colonialists and later by the Kenyan post-independence government due to his advocacy.
“By the time of Kenyan independence, he had reached a point where he could oust the capitalist, conservative ruling elite that had replaced the colonial powers,” says Wunyabari Maloba, professor of African studies and history at the University of Delaware. “He had a radical vision and was very much respected by Black Africans so it was extremely important for him to be silenced. Yet his death can’t be viewed just within the domestic context, this was also the time of the Cold War and Kenya was at a pivotal place in eastern Africa.”
Political life
Pinto was born in Nairobi on March 31, 1927, to parents of Goan descent. His father was among the many economic migrants from the Indian subcontinent who took up roles within the colonial administration in East Africa. Pinto, who spent his early school years in India, became politically engaged and joined liberation protests against British and Portuguese rule in the country, working with trade unions in Mumbai (then known as Bombay) and Goa.
A founding member of the Goa National Congress, his activism led to the colonial authorities issuing an arrest warrant so he was forced to return to Kenya in 1949. By then, India was independent, and calls for decolonisation were spreading across the British Empire, even to Kenya.
He learned Kiswahili and, as historian Sana Aiyar has noted, took on editorship roles at the Daily Chronicle newspaper, convincing the owner to print pamphlets in various vernacular languages. He also spoke out against the British on his Swahili programme for All India Radio, which colonialists described as a “consistent denigration of British rule in Africa”.
His role in supplying the Mau Mau – an anticolonial armed uprising led by the Kikuyu people – with arms and co-producing its media mouthpiece The High Command led to his arrest by the British in 1954. He was held until 1959.
British-Kenyan author Shiraz Durrani has been collecting documents on Pinto for 40 years. In 2018, Durrani published Pio Gama Pinto: Kenya’s Unsung Martyr. He told Al Jazeera that Pinto was a skilled journalist who knew how to use his voice to rally people.
“When he was not on the streets talking to people, Pinto used to spend most of his time writing letters and articles,” he told Al Jazeera. “He kept the outside world informed of anticolonial protests and exposed what the British were doing. His ideological stance was also very important and Pinto was not shy about saying that socialism was the solution.”
Indeed, he was also connected with anti-imperialist and socialist movements globally, as well as with American revolutionary Malcolm X.
Personal life
Stories of his personal and financial sacrifice are consistent throughout his brief life. For instance, in prison where South Asians received better treatment, Pinto would share his rations with Black inmates.
It was a contribution made further possible with the support of his wife, Emma Christine Dias, a Goan woman whom he married in 1954, five months before he went into prison. Pinto is said to have used the wedding money gifted to the couple by Emma’s father on a printing press.
“She constantly wrote to him in prison and my father said that without that link to the outside, he may not have survived as well as he did,” Linda told Al Jazeera. “He also taught other inmates to read using her letters. He was allowed to be a very absent father to me and my two sisters and dedicate himself to a larger collective of people.”
While there were also other South Asians who joined Black Africans in Kenya’s independence struggle, Pinto was the most visible among them amid the fight for an equal society across racial lines, Maloba told Al Jazeera.
“This idea – insofar as the colony concerned – was a big problem because the imperial colonial framework was based, and its survival depended on, the idea of divide and rule,” he said. “Pinto was against the idea that the Africans who were taking over from the British should perpetuate the system that oppressed and exploited Africans. His definition of independence was linked to economic power, equality, and sovereignty.”
After his release in 1959, he co-founded the Kenya Freedom Party, which later merged with the Kenyan African National Union, a political party that remained in power until 2002.
‘Nothing has changed’
In recent years, Pinto’s memory has increasingly returned to the surface, including in an exhibition on his life that launched at the Nairobi Gallery in March and is set to travel the country next year.
April Zhu, a Nairobi-based journalist who collaborated on a 2020 podcast series Until Everyone is Free that looks at Pinto’s life and politics, says the success of the first podcast has led to an expansion of the project that will begin airing next year.
She has encountered enthusiasm from young Kenyans when discussing this part of their history as it was missing in their school curricula. One of them is Stoneface Bombaa, host of the podcast and a 25-year-old community organiser from Mathare, an informal settlement in the capital.
“It was a very sanitised history,” he tells Al Jazeera of his time in school.
Having learned more about Pinto in recent years, he describes him as a beacon of hope in a society that remains unequal. “From a younger age, he was fighting for change, fighting for freedom, he wanted people to have their lands right back and to see the end to corruption, poverty, and disease. Since his assassination, nothing has changed, these are the things we are still fighting for today.”
Even with the renewed examination of Pinto’s legacy, Zhu acknowledges that there is still work to do in preserving his legacy.
“It would be a shame if he became memorialised without his politics being brought into the current context,” she said. “For example, why are there no militant trade unions left in Kenya? The things that still plague the majority of working-class Kenyans today are the very things that Pinto fought for. Going forward, that needs to be the centre of any effort to memorialise Pinto.”
Ogoja, Nigeria – Rebecca stares down her sandy street past the palm trees and T-junction. No sign of Blessing. It is already after 7:30am, and their school’s morning assembly will soon start. Rebecca sighs with relief when she sees her friend running towards her. “Sorry, sorry,” Blessing gasps, “I had to queue for hours to get water this morning.” The two 15-year-olds hug and quickly make their way to their secondary school, a stone’s throw from Rebecca’s home in Ogoja, a town in southeastern Nigeria about 65km (40 miles) as the crow flies from the Cameroonian border.
The best friends sport similar buzz cuts and wear the same white blouse and navy blue skirt uniform. As they hurry to school while chatting in Pidgin, there is little to suggest that they come from different countries. Yet Rebecca Jonas was born and raised in Nigeria, while Blessing Awu-Akat is a refugee whose family fled violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions where Francophone government forces are fighting English-speaking separatists.
Rebecca’s family lives in town in a duplex with a gas stove and indoor bathrooms. Blessing lives in Adagom I, a settlement on the outskirts of Ogoja where almost 10,000 Cameroonian refugees reside. Her family uses firewood to cook and shares latrines and showers with other refugees. And in the morning, when everybody is waking up, she has to wait in line to use the communal water taps to wash and collect water to prepare breakfast. Which is why Blessing’s friend cuts her some slack when she is late.
Blessing’s mother Victorine Ndifon Atop stands in front of the house shared by the family of nine in the refugee settlement of Adagom I [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
An open settlement
Blessing’s family fled to Nigeria in November 2017. She remembers the morning when an army helicopter suddenly hovered over their village of Bodam, which lies close to the Nigerian border. “Everyone started running into the bush. But there, soldiers were shooting at people,” she recalls.
A friend of hers was shot, Blessing says, shivering in horror as she points at where the bullet shattered her friend’s arm. She, her parents, her three siblings and two cousins, escaped on foot to the Nigerian border unharmed, but destitute. “There was no time for us to pack. All I had was the dress I wore that day.”
Just across the border, the violence was never far away, and at night, gunshots on the Cameroonian side kept the then nine-year-old girl awake. Because the border area was not safe for the thousands of refugees, Nigerian authorities decided to move them further inland. This is how Blessing’s family was resettled at Adagom I, 63 hectares (156 acres) of federal government land that Nigeria offered to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR to use as a settlement for the refugees. “Here I finally managed to sleep through the night,” Blessing says.
Adagom I, named after the village in the Ogoja area where the refugees were resettled, is not a refugee camp with curfews, exit restrictions and separate camp schools and clinics, but an open settlement of about 3,000 households where inhabitants can come and go as they please and interact with their Nigerian neighbours freely. In Nigeria, a country already faced with the challenge of more than two million internally displaced people (IDPs), mostly in the northeast, all 84,030 UN-registered refugees from Cameroon enjoy freedom of movement, access to healthcare, education and the right to work – rights that many wealthier countries in the world do not immediately grant to foreigners seeking refuge within their borders.
The government also waived school fees for refugee children to enable them to continue their education and return to as normal a life as possible. That is how Blessing and Rebecca became classmates and best friends at Government Technical College, Ogoja.
Blessing and Rebecca head to their classroom at Government Technical College, Ogoja [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
Knowing what it’s like to be new somewhere
Blessing and Rebecca barely make it to the school assembly on time; the band has just started playing the school anthem as they rush through the wrought iron gate. When the assembly is finished, they head to their classroom, where they always sit together, preferably at the front. As they wait for their English lesson to start, they recount how their friendship started.
It was Blessing who welcomed Rebecca on the first day she came to school in March 2021. Rebecca had just moved from Lagos with her mother and brother – her father stayed behind to run his business selling home appliances. She dreaded her first day in a new school. But there was Blessing, a friendly girl who had attended the school since her family arrived in Ogoja in September 2018. She greeted the more timid Rebecca when she entered the classroom and moved over to make space for her to sit down.
“She was the first to accommodate me,” Rebecca says with a smile. “She knew how it was to be completely new somewhere.” After school, it turned out, they took the same route home, and since that first day, Rebecca has waited for Blessing to pass by her house in the mornings so they can walk to school together.
Rebecca is aware that violence drove her friend out of her country, but she does not ask her about it. “I don’t want to make her cry,” she says.
Sometimes, she sees sadness in Blessing’s eyes, and her chatty friend grows quiet. Then Rebecca tries to cheer her up by telling her a silly story or getting her to sing – they love to sing gospel songs together. Sometimes, she notices Blessing finds it hard to concentrate in class. “Then I know that afterwards, she’ll be asking to take my notes home to copy them,” she says. Even though it means she won’t be able to study that day, Rebecca says, “I have to lend her what I can. She’s my friend.”
Their English teacher Comfort Ullah Solomon, 46, remembers how lost and lonely many of the refugee students appeared when they first arrived in Ogoja. “They seemed miles away, sometimes they were not even listening, as if they were in a trance,” she recalls. When Adagom I opened in 2018, a lot of Cameroonian children came to the school. In the first year, almost one-third of the students were from Cameroon. Today, as they have moved to other schools in Ogoja, about 150 of the more than 1,000 pupils of the secondary school are Cameroonian.
Comfort Ullah Solomon teaches English to students in Rebecca and Blessing’s year [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
Sometimes, in those early days, there was friction, the teacher says. She describes an incident where a Nigerian and Cameroonian student were running around when the former playfully shouted, “I will shoot you!” The Cameroonian teenager broke down, leaving his classmate puzzled. Comfort sat down with them and explained to the Nigerian pupil the violence his classmate had fled, and how for him the game might have felt real. “They became friends,” she says.
She made an effort to comfort the new students. “I kept them close, told them they were worthwhile. After a while, their absent-mindedness disappeared.”
Blessing confesses she was scared when she first arrived at her new school. “I thought the Nigerians would bully us and ask us what we are doing in their land,” she recalls. But the way the school teamed up the refugees with their Nigerian fellow students for the Friday quizzes and debate teams quickly made her feel accepted.
Her 17-year-old Nigerian classmate, Benjamin Udam, admits he was also worried when the new students came. “I thought maybe they had a different way of life than us. But we turned out to be just the same,” he says.
Blessing’s Nigerian classmate Alice Abua, 16, remarks that Cameroonians prepare their soup with very little water, another mentions they dance the makossa, while another suggests their English sounds a little different. Apart from that, they don’t see any substantial differences between Nigerians and Cameroonians. And when asked who has a friend from the other country, everyone in the classroom raises a hand.
Rebecca and Blessing prepare rice and beans at Blessing’s place [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
Rice and beans
After school, Rebecca joins Blessing at her place to cook rice and beans, their favourite meal. They stroll to the settlement market to buy condiments, over the redsand paths lined with papaya, palm and mesquite trees, past the one-storey houses refugee families built with bricks and roofing sheets provided by the UNHCR.
The market vendors are a mix of refugees and locals. Janet Aricha, the woman the girls usually buy crayfish from, is from Ogoja. She never saw the refugees as a threat. “I felt bad for them,” she explains. “Imagine to lose your home and everything in a single day.”
Much like the other Nigerian sellers at the market, she saw the influx of new customers as a business opportunity. Even in town, most people agree that economic opportunities in Ogoja, home to an estimated 250,000 people, grew with the arrival of Cameroonian refugees.
Meanwhile, the girls realise the money Blessing’s mum gave them has finished before they have managed to buy all the ingredients they need. “How did we forget pepper?” Rebecca asks her friend in disbelief. But Blessing has a solution; on the way back, she asks a neighbour if she could pluck some chillies from their garden.
At home, Blessing’s mother has started the fire. While her daughter and her best friend prepare the meal, Victorine Ndifon Atop talks about life in this new place.
It’s not easy, but for the children she tries to make life as familiar as the one they left behind, the 43-year-old says. She points at the garden in front of the 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) house the now family of nine shares. The small patch of lawn is meticulously cut and the white periwinkle and hibiscus shrubs are blooming.
She only knew Nigerians from Nollywood movies when they first came to Nigeria. “In those movies, they are always shouting at each other,” she says. “So back home, we thought they were all ruffians.” But six years in Adagom I changed her mind. When the refugees first arrived, complete strangers from town brought them clothes and provisions. And one day, a Nigerian neighbour from the host community of Adagom gave her a plot of land she now grows cassava on to prepare fufu, a popular Western African dish, to sell. “They embraced us and received us like family,” she says.
Nigerian vendor Janet Aricha, right, says she feels for the Cameroonian refugees who came to the area after losing their homes to violence in their home country [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
‘They are like us’
Down the road, a five-minute walk away, Adagom I chief Stephen Makong shrugs to indicate he finds his community’s hospitality towards refugees self-evident. “Of course, we gave them land to farm on. If you don’t, what are they going to eat?” he asks.
When the village leader was told about the refugee settlement plan in his community, he saw it as a blessing. “My father taught me: for strangers to come to your house, you must be a good person.” Not everyone in his community thought so, he adds. “Some young men were afraid they would come and claim ownership of the land. But I told them they did not come to steal our land. They are running from war. You cannot drive them away again.”
But there are occasional disputes. “Even when two brothers live in a house, they quarrel,” the chief says. When some refugees cut trees in the forest for firewood, a town hall meeting was called to explain that in Cross River State you only use deadwood for cooking. But life together has been largely harmonious, most people in the village say. They have also benefitted from the settlement’s development. The UNHCR divides investments in the local infrastructure between the refugee and host community, reserving about 30 percent of its budget for the latter. The drilled wells, water taps and the widened road through the village wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for the refugees.
On top of that, the locals discovered that some Cameroonians are from the same ethnic group as them – the Ejagham who live on both sides of the border. So they even share a language, says Makong. “They are like us. We are the same people.”
That cultural proximity, combined with the perceived economic advantages, could explain why Ogoja has taken in thousands of Cameroonians without much local resistance. Farmers who used the federal land where the refugees were settled may grumble a bit even though they have been compensated for the crops they could not harvest. And with inflation making everyone’s money far less valuable, the town’s economic activity has ground to a halt, much like in the rest of the West African country. But that does not make the refugees less welcome, says the chief. “We enjoy together, and we suffer together.”
This hospitality towards strangers on the run from violence is not an exception in Nigeria. Three-quarters of the Cameroonians seeking refuge in the country did not have to go to a refugee settlement – they found shelter within a community. Just as, according to the UN, more than 80 percent of Nigerian IDPs found refuge with fellow Nigerians.
Rebecca and Blessing greet each other in the morning before going to school [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]
‘She is my friend’
Back at Blessing’s home, the two girls have finished cooking and sit in the shade with a plate of steaming rice topped with smoky bean sauce on the floor in front of them. For a while, the chatting stops and the only sound is the clicking of two spoons on the shared aluminium plate. When they finish their meal, Blessing teases her slender friend, “The way you eat! I don’t understand you’re not fatter.”
The sun is on its way down when Rebecca arrives back home, but her mother does not mind. She is happy her daughter has found such a good friend. “When I look at them, they remind me of my best friend and me back home in Akwa Ibom,” says 39-year-old Favour Jonas, referring to the Nigerian state she grew up in. “I remember how we used to gist, play and sing together as girls.”
Next year will be the girls’ final year in secondary school. Afterwards, even if they go to different universities, Rebecca is sure they will stay in touch. For now, she has more immediate things to think about. Tomorrow they have a maths and an economics exam, and Rebecca hopes Blessing won’t be late. But even if she is, she will wait for her. “I have to,” she says. “She is my friend.”
This article has been produced with the support of UNHCR.
Glasgow, United Kingdom – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spent the weekend trying to persuade rebel MPs from his own party to back his latest plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda ahead of a crucial House of Commons vote on the policy.
The embattled Conservative Party leader wants to hand over refugees and migrants to the African nation for potential resettlement in a bid to discourage people from crossing the English Channel to Britain in small boats.
But following the UK Supreme Court’s decision last month to strike down the original legislation on the grounds that Rwanda is not a safe country for asylum seekers, Sunak introduced the so-called Safety of Rwanda Bill, which would make it harder for courts to challenge British deportations to the landlocked republic.
The 43-year-old, who faces a potential rebellion from the centre of his party over concerns his policy contradicts international law, has denied that Tuesday’s Commons session is essentially a vote of confidence in his premiership.
Meanwhile. as well as concerns that the policy is illegal by international law, Conservative politicians further on the right declared on Sunday that it was not “sufficiently watertight”.
Sunak’s denial comes despite Robert Jenrick resigning his role as British immigration minister last week after accusing Sunak of presiding over legislation that was not fit for purpose.
Academic Tim Bale likened Sunak’s predicament to that of former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May’s ultimate failure to deliver on Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union during her tenure.
Bale said May was forced to stand down in 2019 after being “unable to negotiate a withdrawal agreement with the EU that would simultaneously satisfy all sides of a parliamentary party that – just like it is now – was not only ideologically split but panicking about polling which suggested it was losing support big time”.
The professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London told Al Jazeera: “The only difference is there’s no Boris Johnson-type figure waiting in the wings to take over, meaning that they’re probably stuck with Sunak – an agonising position both for him and for his MPs.”
Opinion polls show Sunak is facing political annihilation at the next general election, which is scheduled for no later than January 28, 2025.
The first Briton of Asian descent to secure the UK premiership took office after the resignation of Liz Truss in October 2022 after she had served 44 days in the post. Sunak was Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer from 2020 to 2022 under former premier Johnson.
But the wealthy former hedge fund manager – whose combined wealth with his wife, Akshata Murty, is estimated to be 529 million pounds ($664m), according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2023 – has so far failed to turn around the fortunes of the Conservatives, who remain about 20 points behind the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls.
Sunak has made his anti-immigration “stop the boats” campaign a central plank of his government’s agenda. He has also made it part of his campaign to win back right-wing voters, who have abandoned the Conservatives for the Labour Party, led by former lawyer Keir Starmer.
While “there are clearly some right-wing voters who are … obsessed with the small boats issue, … there’s nowhere near enough of them to win Sunak’s Conservatives re-election”, Bale said.
Moreover, the prime minister’s determination to deport asylum seekers to a deprived country 6,400km (4,000 miles) away is unlikely to play well with Britain’s more immigration-friendly voters.
“I think sending migrants to Rwanda is cruel and impractical in equal measure and was dreamed up to appease the Conservative right,” Elizabeth Moore, a designer from Bristol in southwest England, told Al Jazeera.
Central Africa expert Phil Clark said the UK “should be seen as a human rights pariah for its refusal to deal with refugee and asylum claims on its own shores”.
Clark, a professor of international politics at SOAS University of London, added: “However, there has been limited global outcry because many Western states want to emulate the UK’s offshoring approach. Already Denmark and Austria are negotiating similar migration deals with Rwanda. … What the UK is attempting to do with Rwanda, tragically, will soon be the norm for how wealthy countries outsource their refugee responsibilities to poorer states.”
Should Sunak emerge from Tuesday’s vote with his authority intact, he will likely press ahead with trying to turn his Rwanda policy into law in the hope of justifying the 240 million pounds ($300m) already given to the African state as part of the deal.
But many analysts see few long-term benefits for Sunak of pursuing such a controversial piece of legislation so close to the next UK general election.
“Most voters are clearly far more preoccupied with the cost of living and the state of the National Health Service,” Bale said.
“To them this is just a distraction and another example of the Conservatives fighting each other like cats in a sack – never a good look because divided parties tend not to win elections.”
Turkish media say Mohammed Hassan Sheikh Mohamud crashed into and killed a motorcycle courier before leaving country.
The Somali president’s son allegedly killed a motorcycle courier in a traffic accident in Istanbul’s Fatih district, according to Turkish media reports, which said he fled the country after the incident.
Mohammed Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the son of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, crashed into Yunus Emre Gocer with the car he was driving on November 30, the reports said on Saturday, quoting the official police report.
National daily Hurriyet reported that Gocer was thrown into the air by the impact and was seriously injured. Paramedics who arrived at the scene took him to hospital. But Gocer, a father of two, died on December 6.
The police report on the accident stipulated that the motorcycle rider did not violate any traffic rules. The car driver was found to be primarily at fault.
Police released Mohamud without any bail conditions after preliminary investigations into the accident, said daily newspaper Cumhuriyet.
Arrest warrant issued
The prosecution issued an international arrest warrant for the president’s son on Friday, days after he left the country, the reports said, adding that the suspect’s exit from Turkey was on record and he could not be reached by the authorities.
Police went to the suspect’s home only to find “he had been gone since December 2”, broadcaster A Haber reported.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu criticised the authorities for allowing the suspect to leave the country.
“He [Gocer] was taken from this life due to an accident caused by the son of the President of Somalia,” Imamoglu posted on X.
“We said we would follow the legal process, but the suspect left Turkey with his hands free. The pain of the victim’s family increased even more,” the mayor said.
“The mentality that turns a blind eye and allows this escape, unfortunately, is too weak to defend the rights of its own citizens in its own country,” he added.
There was no immediate response from either the Somali president or his office.
Turkey has steadily increased its footprint in Somalia in the past decade and is the Horn of Africa nation’s leading economic partner, notably in the construction, education and health sectors.
Ankara has been a significant source of aid to Somalia following a famine in 2011. Turkish engineers have helped to build infrastructure in Somalia, businesses have invested in the country and Turkish officers have trained Somali soldiers as part of efforts to build up the country’s army.
Harare, Zimbabwe – When Obert Manduna was elected member of parliament for Nketa constituency in Zimbabwe’s second biggest city of Bulawayo in August, the former humanitarian worker was elated.
“It has always been my passion to work with the downtrodden, vulnerable, and disadvantaged members of the society,” Manduna told Al Jazeera. “So this has been a calling, an inborn talent that is in me to help [the] community, and this desire was cemented by my entry into politics.”
But this Saturday, his seat and that of 14 other members and eight senators, all members of the country’s main opposition, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) are up for grabs in a by-election. The events leading up to the vote have been a bizarre episode even in a country all too used to unpredictable political developments.
Barely a month into his new role, Manduna was shocked to discover on social media he had been fired from his dream role. A man purporting to be the CCC secretary-general, had recalled him and the other 20 opposition lawmakers.
“Kindly be advised that the following members of the senate were elected under Citizens Coalition of Change (CCC) political party and have ceased to be members of the Citizens Coalition for Change political party,” read part of a letter dated October 3. It was authored by one Sengezo Tshabangu to Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda.
The news hit him hard.
“It affected me psychologically for a few minutes but I am [a] strong believer in community development and I have continued with my work,” Manduna said.
Under Zimbabwean law, a member’s seat can become vacant when parliament is dissolved, if he or she ceases to be a voter, is absent for 21 consecutive days, or is certified mentally unfit or “intellectually handicapped”. And then, a resignation letter to the president of the Senate or speaker of parliament is sent by the party he represents.
None of that had happened to the affected lawmakers. One more thing struck them as odd: the man claiming to be the main opposition’s interim secretary general was neither a member of CCC nor its secretary-general. The party said it had never heard of him either.
Naturally, the CCC disowned Tshabangu but Mudenda the speaker of parliament nevertheless heeded the request to recall the legislators.
Following their recall, President Emmerson Mnangagwa proclaimed a by-election on December 8 in line with the country’s laws.
A woman casts her vote at a polling station in Kwekwe, Zimbabwe, Wednesday, August 23, 2023 [AP Photo]
‘A joke’
The drama, which sent the entire opposition into panic mode and ignited debate in Zimbabwe’s political arena, was further complicated by this week’s events.
On December 7, Manduna and his 21 displaced colleagues were barred by the High Court from participating in the elections in their constituencies. The court ruled that the nomination body should not have accepted them as candidates in the by-elections.
CCC alleges that Tshabangu is a governing party operative bent on undermining the main opposition, a charge he has denied. ZANU-PF Secretary-General Obert Mpofu, secretary-general of the governing Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) has also said his party has “nothing to do with what is going on”.
“I don’t even know Sengezo myself,” Mpofu said on the campaign trail in November. “I have never seen him … I really take all that allege that we have something to do with CCC as a joke.”
Meanwhile, CCC spokesperson Promise Mkhwananzi says the recalls are “unacceptable and disturbing” as they run parallel to the wishes of the people of Zimbabwe.
“It’s an attempt to subvert and undermine the will of the people, to disrespect the right to vote, to disregard the right of choice of the people of Zimbabwe. It has become meaningless to vote in Zimbabwe because when you vote, your vote is undermined,” Mkhwananzi said.
Political analysts said the opposition should have boycotted the by-election from the beginning.
Harare-based political analyst Rashwheat Mukundu told Al Jazeera saying the situation was a continuation of “manipulated electoral processes”, a reference to the disputed presidential election.
He said the opposition, must now engage the “broader society, churches, students, labour” to “demand for rule of law, independent state institutions and free and fair elections”.
“CCC cannot participate hence legitimise and cry foul at the same time,” he added.
President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa looks on as he addresses a news conference at State House in Harare on August 27, 2023 [Jekesai Njikizana/AFP]
A broader plan
Others say the recalls are part of a much broader plan by Mnangagwa to consolidate power in his second and final term.
The governing party, won a total of 136 seats in the polls while CCC got 73 seats. The recalls are therefore seen as an attempt to tilt the balance of power in ZANU-PF’s favour by ensuring it ends up with a two-thirds majority in parliament.
With a parliamentary majority, the presidency would have more extensive powers, including the capacity to elongate his tenure, analysts said.
Under the Southern African country’s constitution, presidential terms are capped at a maximum of two five-year terms. A two-thirds majority in parliament would be key in pushing constitutional amendments.
CCC youth wing interim spokesperson Stephen Chuma called it a “clear decimation of multiparty democracy” and reversal of the gains of the liberation struggle from British colonial rule.
That struggle ended in independence in 1980 and helped foster the dominance of ZANU-PF at the national level since then. Its disputed win in August extended that run.
Across Zimbabwe, the fear of the erosion of multiparty democracy being installed in the country is on the rise, even as a long list of opposition figures and supporters, journalists, and dissidents are being arrested or detained arbitrarily.
One of them, Job Sikhalala, has been in prison since June 2022 for allegedly obstructing justice and inciting public violence. It is his 65th arrest since joining partisan politics in 1999.
“It is clearer now that ZANU-PF seeks to impose [a] one-party state system in the country. ZANU-PF knows they are unelectable hence they want to bar CCC from contesting elections,” Chuma told Al Jazeera. “So many people died during the liberation struggle for the right to vote now some greedy individuals violate that right. The situation calls for progressive citizens to unite and fight this dictatorship.”
Stanford Nyatsanza, a researcher at the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute concurred, saying the developing situation is an indication that ZANU-PF is overseeing a series of “choiceless elections” to gradually make this happen.
“Politically, it means the opposition faces an uphill task to dislodge a competitive authoritarian regime from power which effectively captures all institutions of democratic contestation,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The absence of opposition CCC candidates from ballot papers in the by-election is a clear testament to holding elections in which opposition supporters cannot freely make their choices,” Nyatsanza added. “Basically, ZANU-PF is going to compete against itself on 9 December and that cannot be classified as an election.”
This week Al Jazeera covers the impact of ‘NewCo’, surf therapy, and playing football in Robben Island prison.
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English women’s football is set to enter a lucrative new era from next season as the top two tiers break from the Football Association (FA) and a new company, NewCo, takes over the running of the women’s professional game.
Kelly Simmons, former FA director of the women’s game, says the FA wasn’t the right long-term fit to develop the women’s game, which is soaring in popularity – especially after a highly successful World Cup.
“We were concerned that if the women’s leagues just rolled into the men’s Premier League, it would not have sort of the laser focus or an independent voice and might not be the highest priority,” Simmons told Al Jazeera.
“So we [at the FA] all agreed unanimously that the best model would be to set up a new company that has a laser focus, a board and an executive that is solely focused on making the best decisions for the women’s professional game.”
Alex Culvin, a former professional player now heading women’s football strategy and research at FIFPRO players union, says the leagues’ decision to function independently has come at the right time.
“I think, in England, having the independence and the ability to strategically prioritise the growth of the women’s league is something that hasn’t been done before. It’s important, and I’m incredibly excited,” Culvin told Al Jazeera.
The Women’s Super League (WSL) now believes it can become the first billion-pound ($1.24bn) women’s football league in the world within a decade.
WSL clubs will reportedly receive 75 per cent of the combined revenues and have all the voting power on commercial and broadcast matters.
Culvin raised concerns about a power grab by top clubs.
“For me, it is quite problematic because, again, there’s a consolidation of power among the bigger clubs,” Culvin said. “For this new foundation, I think it’s important that there’s no vested interest in providing an undemocratic decision-making amongst clubs.”
Simmons says that revenue sharing further down the pyramid would have to be addressed in the future and that NewCo would still need to work closely with the FA.
“The FA will need to think through how they manage and develop the relationship with the new company to make sure that there’s a joined-up strategy, particularly across things like youth talent, talent development and club development,” she said.
Meanwhile, much about how the governance will operate remains unclear. No financial fair play rules have been announced. Even the name is a placeholder.
So while there is excitement over the potential of the women’s game, it’s tempered by concerns that women’s football could end up replicating some of the stark inequalities and avarice of the men’s game.
Elsewhere this week:
A way of saying ‘we shall overcome’: Playing football and resisting apartheid on Robben Island.
Fixing-convicted former Pakistan cricket captain Salman Butt withdrawn as Pakistan Cricket Board consultant.
‘It gave me a purpose’: Surf therapy transforms lives in South Africa.
Koroma, who strongly condemned the attack, said he was ‘ready to support the police investigations to the fullest’.
A former president of Sierra Leone has been called in for questioning by police over recent attacks that officials say was a failed coup, an official said on Thursday.
The police summoned ex-president Ernest Bai Koroma to its headquarters “for questioning on the failed attempted coup” on November 26, information minister Cherno Bah said in a statement.
Koroma, who led the West African nation for 11 years until 2018, has been asked to appear at the criminal investigations department in the capital, Freetown, within 24 hours, the information ministry said.
His summons follows the earlier arrest of his former security aide.
Dozens of gunmen launched a brazen attack last month in Freetown during which they broke into Sierra Leone’s key armoury and into a prison, freeing most of the more than 2,000 inmates.
At least 18 members of the security forces were killed during the clashes, while more than 50 suspects – including military officers – have been arrested so far.
Among those arrested was Amadu Koita, who worked as a security guard for Koroma until 2018 when the former president left office. Police on Wednesday released an image that they say shows Koita with a gun in a surveillance photo captured when the prison was attacked. A bodyguard of the former president was also killed during the attack.
Koroma said that he would honour the police summons, and asked his supporters to be calm, according to a statement issued by his office.
“I maintain an open mind and stand ready to support the police investigations to the fullest. Let the rule of law reign supreme in our democracy,” said the former president who had “strongly condemned” the attack when it happened.
Although he has officially retired from politics, Koroma remains an influential figure within his political party and often hosts prominent politicians in his hometown of Makeni.
There have been political tensions in Sierra Leone since President Julius Maada Bio was re-elected for a second term in a disputed vote in June. Two months after he was re-elected, police said they arrested several people, including senior military officers planning to use protests “to undermine peace”.
For nearly three decades, the chaotic, overcrowded Owino secondhand market in Uganda’s capital has been the cornerstone of Hadija Nakimuli’s life, helping the widowed shopkeeper build a house and raise 12 children.
But a potential government ban on the sale of used clothing threatens to sever this crucial lifeline for Nakimuli and tens of thousands of vendors like her.
“Where is our future if they stop secondhand clothes?” the 62-year-old asked, rummaging through her stash of underwear, dresses, shoes and bags.
Established in 1971, the sprawling market employs some 80,000 people, 70 percent of them women, according to Kampala city authorities.
“Other than students, my clients include ministers [and] members of parliament who call me to deliver clothes to their air-conditioned offices,” said Joseph Barimugaya, whose stall stocks menswear.
“This trade should not be tampered with. Everyone benefits, including the government, which gets taxes,” the father of four said.
Every day, hundreds of customers squeeze through the narrow alleys separating the makeshift wooden stalls, eager to grab a bargain.
Here, a secondhand Pierre Cardin blazer goes for 40,000 Ugandan shillings ($11), a fraction of the price of a new one.
“As a teacher, I earn less than 500,000 shillings [$131]. If I am to buy a new garment, it means I would spend all my salary on clothing,” Robert Twimukye, 27, said while shopping at Owino on a Saturday afternoon.
He is not alone.
Although there are no official figures available, the Uganda Dealers in Used Clothings and Shoes Association estimates that 16 million people – one in three Ugandans – wear used clothing.
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