Foreign news
British citizens on Thursday, July 4, 2024, trooped out to the polling units to elect members of parliament that will form a new government.
In the election, the Labour Party won overwhelmingly to secure 412 seats out of 650 to end the 14-year rule of the Conservatives, the PUNCH has reported.
Consequently, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer has been officially appointed as the British Prime Minister, after Rishi Sunak conceded defeat and resigned as Tory leader.
Presenting, four prominent British-Nigerians who were victorious at the polls:
Kemi Badenoch returns as Tory MP despite Conservatives’ ouster
Renowned British-Nigerian in the United Kingdom Parliament, Kemi Badenoch, won her seat in North West Essex in the July 4 Parliamentary elections.
Badenoch was re-elected as a Conservative Party member of Parliament despite a landslide loss of the Tories to the Labour Party.
She won with 19,360 votes defeating her main challenger, Labour’s Issy Waiter, who garnered 16,750 votes.
Speaking shortly after her victory at the polls, Badenoch said, “Many of my friends and colleagues have lost their seats. They have served their country with distinction. Their service will never be in vain. But the public have spoken and they have said loud and clear that the Conservatives have lost their trust.”
Born on January 2, 1980, Badenoch served as Britain’s Secretary of State for Business and Trade from 2023 to 2024. She also served as the President of the Board of Trade and Minister for Women and Equalities from 2022 to 2024.
Resilient, bold and diligent, Badenoch was tipped to succeed the immediate past UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, as she showed interest after Liz Truss resigned in October 2022.
The 44-year-old British politician has been in the UK Parliament representing Saffron Walden as an MP from 2017.
Badenoch studied Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Sussex and got a Master’s degree in 2003. She also studied Law at Birkbeck, University of London.
She got married to Hamish Badenoch in 2012 and is blessed with three children.
Businessman Bayo Alaba wins Newcastle for Labour Party
British-Nigerian businessman, Bayo Alaba, won the Southend East and Rochford for Labour Party.
Alaba won with 15,395 votes against the Conservative Party’s candidate, Gavin Haran with 11,368 votes.
Widely known as a successful former Parachute Regiment soldier, and youth mentor, Alaba is currently serving as the first black councillor for the London Borough of Redbridge.
Born and raised in Forest Gate, east London, Alaba is a Board Trustee for Phoenix Resource Centre, a sustainable charity with operations in the UK and abroad.
Commenting on his victory, Alaba said, “The people of Southend East Rochford have put their trust in our changed Labour Party. Now is the time to deliver.
“This will be the greatest thing of my life. I will work every day to repay the trust you put in me,” he added.
Former Shadow Minister, Taiwo Owatemi who staged comeback
A former Member of Parliament of Nigerian descent, Taiwo Owatemi, also won the UK Parliament election in Coventry North West for the Labour Party.
Owatemi polled 19,696 votes to defeat her main rival, Tom Mercer from the Tories, who secured 8,522 votes.
She served as the Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities from September 2021 to September 2022.
Born on July 22, 1992, Owatemi who grew up in Plumstead was first elected into the UK Parliament in 2019.
The 31-year-old politician got a Master’s degree in Pharmacy from the University of Kent. She worked at a cancer unit in Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust before venturing into politics.
Owatemi was a member of Labour Friends of Israel and part of the delegation that travelled to the country in February 2023.
After her victory in the election, Owatemi, who was a spokesperson for the Medical Research Council, said, “Words cannot express my gratitude to the people of Coventry North West. Your trust in me, in our shared vision, for a brighter future, is truly humbling.”
“It is the honour of my life to represent you and I will continue to work tirelessly to ensure your voices are represented,” she added.
Chi Onwurah continues winning streak
Chi Onwurah has been re-elected as an MP to represent Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West for the Labour Party in the UK Parliament election.
Onwurah came victorious with 18,875 votes on July 4 as the Labour Party recorded a landslide win that unseated the Tories.
Before the election, Onwurah born on April 12, 1965 was the Shadow Minister for Industrial Strategy.
The 59-year-old born in Wallsend, who was first elected into the UK Parliament in 2010, defeated her closest opponent Ashton Muncaster of the Reform Party who had 7,815 votes.
She attended Kenton School, Newcastle and got a degree in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College London.
In her remarks after the secured victory, Onwurah said, “Thank you from the Labour team to everyone in Newcastle Central and West for putting your confidence in Labour and electing me as your Member of Parliament. We will not let you down!”
Seventy-five percent of the clients at Thornaby’s Sprouts Community Food Charity (SCFC) are now Nigerian students grappling with financial difficulties, charity manager Debbie Fixter revealed in a BBC News report.
The charity, which offers food, clothes, and household items, has experienced a surge in Nigerian students seeking help.
Fixter said the charity has reached its “maximum capacity.”
SCFC reported a shift in its clientele in recent months, with the majority of visitors being Nigerian master’s degree students from Teesside University.
Nigerian students in the United Kingdom have recently been making headlines, with some being blocked from continuing their studies and ordered to return to Nigeria due to unpaid tuition fees.
The devaluation of the Nigerian currency has reportedly wiped out some students’ savings, forcing them to cut back on essentials.
Fixter noted that an increasing number of Nigerian students in the UK are turning to community charities and organizations for much-needed assistance. “They’re really struggling, they need help, and they’re part of our community,” she said.
Boluwatife Elusakin, a Nigerian student in the UK, told the BBC that he has had to “dive deep” to afford the cost of living and studying in the UK.
“Things are no longer the same, I’ve had to cut costs because of the currency crash. It hit my savings as I’d already budgeted funds to come here. It makes me feel sad, but I hope I can endure just one year and all will be well,” he said.
Another student, who wished to remain anonymous, criticized the university for changing its payment plans from seven installments to three, exacerbating the problem.
He also pointed out that students hoping to find jobs to fill funding gaps are limited by the number of hours they are legally allowed to work.
“When I was applying, the exchange rate was around 600 naira per pound, but by the time I arrived, it was 1,400. At the time we filled out forms, we had proof of funds to cater for nine months. But the money is not enough; you don’t have a job or the means to get one. The little you have is depleting, and a lot of us are facing difficulties. When you don’t have funds in your pocket, frustration sets in and many are experiencing mental health issues. Some wish they had never come.”
Fixter emphasized that more needs to be done to address the crisis, stating that SCFC is currently at “maximum capacity” and struggling to meet the demand for assistance.
..workers whose sponsoring company had been sanctioned are also being punished
Thousands of migrant care workers have been threatened with deportation, despite doing nothing wrong, after the Home Office took enforcement action against their employers, the Guardian News in the United Kingdom has reported.
In one case, a brother and sister from India who paid a recruitment agency £18,000 to secure care jobs in the UK, only to find they had been scammed, were told they must find another company to sponsor them in 60 days or leave the country.
Zainab Contractor, 22, and her brother Ismail, 25, had borrowed money from relatives to cover the costs of moving to the UK. But when they arrived, they say the accommodation they had been promised did not materialise and they were not given any shifts.
In April, they found out that the company that had sponsored their visas had been stripped of its licence to recruit workers from abroad by the Home office. But the enforcement action would also punish them: the siblings were sent a letter saying that because their sponsorship was linked to the sanctioned company, it was no longer valid.
They have since applied to more than 300 employers between them in the hope of finding another company to sponsor them. But, as is common, they have been unable to find any willing to take them.
Zainab, who moved from Maharashtra in India to build a better life for her two-year-old son, said they now faced returning home with debts they had no prospect of being able to repay – unless they can find another sponsor by June. “We don’t know how we will survive,” she said.
Ismail, who quit his job as an investment analyst to come to the UK, said: “It’s not fair. We are being thrown out without being heard.”
Their case is not a one-off. An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Observer has found that 3,081 care workers had their certificates of sponsorship cancelled by the Home Office in 2022 and 2023.
In 94% of cases, the reason for the cancellation was that the company that hired them had its right to sponsor workers revoked.
Another care worker threatened with deportation described the experience as “hell”. The 32-year-old woman, Katherine*, left her job as a teacher in Nigeria to become a care worker in the UK. She and her husband sold their land and car dealership business to cover relocation costs .
But she says she was not given the work she had been promised. “[The manager] was not taking my calls,” she said. “We were frustrated and confused.”
Kay Mayo, registered manager of S&K Care 24, admitted no care worker sponsored by the company had been given any work because it had not managed to secure care provision contracts with local authorities.
As a result, and because the company was acting as a recruitment agency, the Home Office revoked its sponsor licence. Katherine was sent a 60-day letter in March and now has until mid-May to find a new sponsor or lose her visa. “My experience in this country has been from one hell to another,” she said.
The findings have prompted calls for reform of the tied visa system for care workers and demonstrate how workers are suffering for their employers’ actions – first exploited or given overblown promises, and then threatened with deportation by the government.
Aké Achi, the founder and chief executive of Migrants at Work, which supports people on work visas, said the Home Office was penalising people who had “followed the rules”. “They’ve been punished twice,” he said.
The Home Office said it had taken action to “crack down on worker exploitation and abuse” within the care sector and was working hard to “support care workers into alternative jobs when their sponsor has had their licence removed”. But when asked about what this support was, it did not provide details – saying only that the work was “ongoing”.
Christina McAnea, Unison general secretary, said workers were being “left in the lurch”.
“Many migrants have sold everything, uprooted their lives and racked up huge debts, only to find they’re now at risk of deportation,” McAnea said.
“The government asked migrant care staff to come here. So it’s only right when things go wrong and staff lose their sponsoring employer, they get help to find new work and longer to secure support for a new visa.”
Balakrishnan Balagopal, a community activist and journalist who has launched a petition calling on the government to try to scrap the 60-day rule, said it was often not long enough to find another sponsor, or to arrange departure. He added that it was especially hard on families who had to find money for plane tickets at short notice, exit rental contracts abruptly and pull children out of school.
“Innocent people are finding themselves abandoned when a previously legitimate sponsor loses their licence,” he said.
Aside from losing its overseas sponsorship licence, there are often no further consequences for a sponsor that breaks the rules. The company can continue to operate as normal simply by hiring UK workers.
The government has also been accused of dramatic failings in the vetting process for companies granted sponsorship licences in the first place.
An Observer investigation revealed in March that hundreds of newly established care providers had been granted licences despite having no track record of providing services in Britain.
Suspected bogus companies with copy-and-paste websites, fake-looking reviews and PO boxes as addresses were among those granted licences allowing them to sponsor workers to come to the UK. Newly formed companies that have never filed accounts and are only a few months old have also been granted permission to hire from abroad – as well as at least 268 companies that had never been inspected by the Care Quality Commission.
Some care workers who faced losing their visa after licence revocations have been able to find a job within the small window given by the Home Office. With five days left before her deadline, Rachel*, 43, from Nigeria was able to secure a sponsorship with the help of a friend from church.
She said the process not only affected her but also her three children who came to the UK, alongside her husband, as her dependants. “Each time they come back from school, they will ask me if we’ve seen another sponsor. So it was really stressful for them,” she said.
She said others in her company have not been so lucky. “It’s terrible – some of them cry,” she said. “You see a grown woman crying like a child … you wouldn’t even know the words you would tell her to console her.”
*Some names have been changed
A lecturer with Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo in Ikenne local government area of Ogun State, Yinka Olowojobi, has been shot dead at a relaxation center in Iperu.
The development was confirmed in a statement by the spokesperson, Ogun State Police Command, Omolola Odutola.
According to the statement, Odutola, Olowojobi was among three persons shot by gunmen who invaded Ajadeh Event Centre on Sagamu Road, in Iperu, around 9.20pm last Friday.
“The lecturer was taken to Babcock University Teaching Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
She said about eight men dressed in black and armed with guns emerged from an unknown place into the relaxing lounge and opened fire indiscriminately.
Olowojobi was said to have been shot in the chest for refusing to go away with them, while a manager of a car stand, simply identified as Dare and another yet-to-be-identified person were abducted by the armed men.
Odutola added, “a suspicious coincidence led the police to arrest one Awada Ishaya “m” of Plateau state who was employed two weeks ago, when the event center was launched as a security man for further interrogation.
“The lecturer was taken to Babcock University Teaching Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Efforts are underway to apprehend the culprits and rescue the kidnapped victims. Further updates will be provided as the situation develops.”
Just a few months ago, the man set to be Senegal's next president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, was sitting in a prison cell, a relatively unknown figure outside his opposition party Pastef.
Everything changed for him when the party's firebrand leader, Ousmane Sonko, who was also detained, was charged with insurrection in July and barred from running in elections to succeed President Macky Sall.
That cleared the way for Faye to emerge from the shadow of his former boss and eventually from prison, take over the race and on Monday - the day of his 44th birthday - emerge as victor after his opponent conceded defeat.
It was an unlikely climb to the top for an unlikely national figurehead. Faye was a tax inspector before he became Sonko's trusted lieutenant and Pastef's secretary general.
Where Sonko is charismatic, with a verve that has attracted thousands of country's jobless youths to his anti-establishment movement, Faye cuts an austere figure.
Sonko's endorsement of his former deputy in the run-up to Sunday's delayed election was crucial, but a little short on rabble-rousing emotion.
"My choice of Diomaye is not a choice from the heart, but from reason. I chose him because he meets the criteria that I have defined. He is competent and has attended the most prestigious school in Senegal," Sonko said in a video message.
'HE IS MORE HONEST THAN ME'
"No one can say he is not honest. I would even say that he is more honest than me. I entrust the project into his hands," Sonko said.
According to Faye's biography on his campaign website, he was often the top of his class growing up. He graduated from high school on Senegal's southern coast in 2000, then studied law and got a master's degree from Dakar's Cheikh Anta Diop University.
In 2004, the devout Muslim passed the competitive entrance exam to Senegal's National School of Administration which trains the former French colony's top civil servants, where he specialised as a tax inspector.
He was arrested in April 2023, a few months before Sonko was also held, and charged with contempt of court and defaming magistrates, charges Faye had denied. Crucially, unlike Sonko, he was not barred from running in elections.
Convinced that Sonko's detention and the banning of Pastef were part of a ploy by Sall's government to eliminate strong rivals from the election - all accusations rejected by the government - several party members including Faye put their names forward.
Faye eventually made the cut while still in prison, despite a late challenge from ruling coalition candidate Amadou Ba to have his candidacy rejected by the Constitutional Council.
A coalition of more than 100 parties, and some political heavyweights including former prime minister Aminata Toure, joined Faye's campaign under the banner "Doimaye mooy Sonko", which in the local wolof language means "Diomaye is Sonko."
'ONLY ONE PERSON IS ELECTED'
Thanks to a general amnesty law passed shortly before the vote to ease political tensions, Sonko and Faye left their prison cells in Dakar earlier this month, accompanied by thousands of supporters who danced and chanted through the night.
Both hit the campaign trail, crisscrossing the country and drawing thousands to their rallies and caravans.
Sidy Lamine Badji, a 36-year-old part-time driver who voted for Faye on Sunday, rejected criticism that the candidate who lost a municipal election in his home town in 2022 was inexperienced in government affairs.
"This is false. He has dignity. I believe in his promise and that he will not betray us," Badji said, his voice choking.
Faye has declined to say what role Sonko might play in any future government, and has insisted he will be his own man.
"Why do we want to focus on just one person in a government when I have a coalition that includes more than 120 people?" he said, brushing off concerns held by some voters that if he won, the country would end up with two men who believe they are president.
"In a presidential election, only one person is elected in the end, and it's he who is the president of the republic," Faye said.
The UK has announced it would raise the minimum salary threshold for a skilled worker visa and prevent overseas health and social care staff from bringing family dependents to Britain.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office trumpeted the proposals as “the biggest clampdown on legal migration ever”.
But critics said it would damage the state-run National Health Service (NHS), which faces staff shortages.
Immigration is set to be a key issue in nationwide elections that must be held by January 2025 at the latest, and which the main opposition Labour party is currently favoured to win.
Sunak has pledged to reduce new arrivals and has been under pressure ever since statistics released last month showed that net migration to Britain hit a high in 2022.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the number of people who arrived in Britain last year was 745,000 more than the number who left.
Interior minister James Cleverly said his plan would result in 300,000 fewer people coming to the UK in the coming years.
“Enough is enough,” the home secretary told parliament as he laid out his proposals, which will take effect early next year.
Cleverly said skilled foreign workers wanting a UK visa would have to earn £38,700 ($48,860), up from £26,200 and in line with the median full-time wage.
He exempted health and social care workers, but said they would be prevented from bringing family dependents.
NHS Providers, which represents hospital groups in England, said changes that might deter care workers from coming to the UK were “deeply concerning”.
Care England, a charity representing independent adult social care providers, said immigration had been “saving the social care sector”. Staff shortages have been exacerbated by Brexit.
Cleverly also raised the minimum income for family visas to £38,700 and confirmed restrictions on international students bringing dependents.
He reaffirmed that Britain would increase the surcharge that migrants pay to access the NHS by 66 percent, to £1,035.
Critics have said this effectively imposes a double charge on migrant workers, as employees also pay National Insurance charges, which go towards covering healthcare.
Do or die
Cleverly added that the government would reform the “shortage occupation list”, which details jobs for which employers are not able to find enough British workers.
The Conservatives won a landslide under the leadership of Boris Johnson at the last election in 2019, largely on a promise to bring net migration numbers down.
The party has repeatedly promised that leaving the European Union, which ended the free movement of people from member states, would allow the UK to “take back control” of its borders.
But regular migration has soared since Britain formally left the EU in January 2020. In 2021, net migration was 488,000.
The ONS data piled pressure on Sunak from his own MPs to take action, with some right-wingers arguing that the issue was “do or die” for the party.
In opinion polls, the Tories, in power since 2010, lag well behind centre-left Labour, which also claims regular migration is too high.
Labour’s home affairs spokesperson Yvette Cooper accused the Conservatives of being in a “chaotic panic” over immigration.
“Today’s statement is an admission of years of total failure by this Conservative government,” she told parliament.
Sunak is also struggling to cut the number of irregular arrivals crossing the Channel from northern France on small boats.
About 30,000 have undertaken the dangerous crossing this year.
The government has deemed such crossings illegal but its much-trumpeted plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda was struck down by the courts last month.
Cleverly is due to visit Kigali soon, possibly this week, to finalise a new treaty. The government has also said it is working on “emergency legislation” to get deportation flights going by spring.
A group of senior Gabonese military officers appeared on national television in the early hours of Wednesday and said they had taken power, minutes after the state election body announced President Ali Bongo had won a third term.
Appearing on television channel Gabon 24, the officers said they represented all security and defence forces in the Central African nation. They said the election results were cancelled, all borders closed until further notice and state institutions dissolved.
Loud sounds of gunfire could be heard in the capital Libreville, a Reuters reporter said, after the television appearance.
There was no immediate comment from the government of the OPEC-member nation. There were no immediate reports on the whereabouts of Bongo, who was last seen in public when he cast his vote in the election on Saturday.
"In the name of the Gabonese people ... we have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime," the officers said in a statement.
As one officer read the joint statement, around a dozen others stood silently behind him in military fatigues and berets.
The servicemen introduced themselves as members of The Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions. The state institutions they declared dissolved included the government, the senate, the national assembly, the constitutional court and the election body.
If successful, the coup would represent the eighth in West and Central Africa since 2020. Coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger have undermined democratic progress in recent years.
Last month, the military snatched power in Niger, sending shockwaves across the Sahel and sucking in global powers with strategic interests at stake.
Tensions were running high in Gabon amid fears of unrest after Saturday's presidential, parliamentary, and legislative vote, which saw Bongo seeking to extend his family's 56-year grip on power while the opposition pushed for change in the oil and cocoa-rich but poverty-stricken nation.
A lack of international observers, the suspension of some foreign broadcasts, and the authorities' decision to cut internet service and impose a night-time curfew nationwide after the poll had raised concerns about the transparency of the electoral process.
Gabon foiled an attempted military coup in January 2019 after soldiers briefly seized the state radio station and broadcast a message saying Bongo, who had suffered a stroke months earlier, was no longer fit for office.
The situation was restored hours later after two of the suspected coup plotters were killed and others arrested.
IN POWER SINCE 2009
The Gabonese Election Centre said earlier on Wednesday Bongo won the election with 64.27% of the vote and that his main challenger, Albert Ondo Ossa, had come in second place with 30.77%.
Bongo, 64, who succeeded his father Omar as president in 2009, had contested against 18 challengers, six of whom backed Ondo Ossa in an effort to narrow the race.
The government has said the web blackout and curfew are necessary to prevent the spread of fake news and to protect public safety. Bongo's disputed 2016 election win provoked violent protests that saw the parliament building torched.
His team have rejected allegations of fraud by Ondo Ossa and his opposition alliance after a vote marred by numerous polling stations opening several hours late.
The alliance Alternance 2023 also reported other alleged irregularities including that ballot slips for its candidates had not been deployed correctly in some areas. Reuters could not independently verify the claim.
The European Union was not invited to observe this election. EU monitors previously questioned the validity of Bongo's narrow victory in the 2016 presidential vote.
On Monday, media watchdog Reporters without Borders (RSF) voiced concern about the internet block and Gabon's temporary suspension of broadcasts by French international news outlets RFI, France 24, and TV5 Monde.
"RSF denounces a series of attacks on press freedom and information pluralism, facts likely to compromise (the) general election's transparency," it said in an online post.
The opposition has disputed both of Bongo's previous electoral victories, citing fraud. He first came to power in a 2009 vote following the death of his father Omar Bongo before being re-elected in 2016.
Supporters of Niger's junta were forced on Saturday to halt a census of people willing to volunteer for non-military roles in defence against a possible intervention by West African powers, saying they had been overwhelmed by the numbers who turned up.
Thousands of mostly young men had massed outside a stadium in the capital Niamey hours before the scheduled start-time of the event - a sign of the strong support for the junta, which has defied international pressure to stand down after the July 26 ouster of President Mohamed Bazoum.
"In all our calculations and our understandings, we never thought we could mobilize (this number of people)," said Younoussa Hima, co-organiser of the initiative dubbed "The Mobilisation of Young People for the Fatherland."
"So it is really difficult for us today to do this work. That is what made us halt this census," Hima said by the stadium after the crowds dispersed.
West Africa's main regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), on Friday said it had agreed an undisclosed "D-Day" for a possible military intervention if diplomatic efforts fail - an escalation that could further destabilise a conflict-torn and impoverished region.
Organisers of the Niamey recruitment drive said they did not intend to sign up volunteers for the army, but rather to gather a list of people willing to lend their civilian skills in case ECOWAS attacks.
But many of those around the stadium appeared keen to fight.
POSSIBLE ATTACK
"They called on the youth to respond to a possible attack on our soil. And we are ready for any attack," said blogger Tahirou Seydou Abdoul Nassirou.
"My life, I give my life to my country," he said, wiping a tear from his eye as other young men nodded and cheered his words.
An ECOWAS delegation flew into Niamey on Saturday to hold talks with the junta, showing that efforts to resolve the standoff peacefully are still underway.
The level of support for the junta across Niger has been hard to assess, but thousands attended a previous rally at the stadium on Aug. 11 and applauded coup leaders' vow to stand up to the bloc.
At the stadium on Saturday, 35-year-old Kader Haliou said patriotism was not the only motivation for those wanting to help the junta.
"Most of the young people who have come are unemployed. Getting registered is a blessing for us given the idleness and lack of work," he said.
The coup and subsequent international sanctions have piled extra pressure on Niger's struggling economy. It is one of the world's least developed countries with more than 40% of the population living in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank.
Niger’s self-declared military leader on Saturday proposed a return to democracy within three years and warned the regional bloc against using military force.
Abdourahamane Tiani, an army general and leader of last month’s coup, said he had given the government 30 days to develop a framework for a return to democracy after a transition period that “cannot exceed three years.”
He stressed that foreign military intervention to restore constitutional order would have “repercussions on the entire region.”
“It’s largely thanks to the professionalism and courage of our force that Niger has remained the lock that prevents hordes of terrorists from destabilizing our entire region,” Tiani said in an address on state TV Tele Sahel. “Let’s be clear, if we’re attacked, it wont be a walk in the park.”
The developments come after the West African regional bloc, while still hoping to solve the crisis in Niger by diplomatic means, said it stands ready to apply force to overturn the July 26 coup if talks fail.
A delegation from the Economic Community of West African States arrived in Niger on Saturday to meet with the country’s military leaders and ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.
Kathleen FitzGibbon has arrived in Niamey to lead the US mission in Niger, the US State Department said on Saturday. FitzGibbon, a career diplomat with extensive experience in Africa, will “bolster efforts to help resolve the political crisis at this critical time.”
Soldiers led by Tiani, chief of the presidential guard, seized power in July and took Bazoum hostage. He remains in detention along with his family and government members. Ecowas has taken a hard line against the soldiers by closing borders, issuing harsh sanctions and activating a standby force.
Top military officers representing the bloc’s member-states had completed a plan to enter Niger, Abdel-Fatau Musah, the economic group’s commissioner for political affairs, peace and security, said after meetings in Accra, Ghana’s capital, on Friday.
The junta and its allies, neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso — both of which are under military rule — are preparing to counter a possible military intervention.
“In the event of an attack, our leaders have said that we’re ready. We’re prepared to support Niger,” Burkina Faso’s Defense Minister Kassoum Coulibaly told Russia’s state-owned news agency, RIA, after the military chiefs’ meeting in Accra.
Western Ally
Coup leaders had no intention of collaborating with the Kremlin-backed Wagner mercenary group or harming the deposed president, junta-installed Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine told the New York Times.
Niger has been a key Western ally and a relative bastion of stability in one of the world’s most volatile regions. The US has a military drone base in the country, and France has about 1,500 troops stationed there, targeting insurgents affiliated with al-Qaeda and Islamic State in cooperation with Nigerien forces.
The landlocked nation, more than twice the size of France, ranks among the least-developed countries. It has a population of over 25 million and one of the highest birth rates in the world.
The UK government says the state-funded national health service (NHS) will increase from £624 per year to £1,035 per year.
According to the government, the cost of study visas is to also go up by 15 percent (from £363 to £417) and work visas by 20 percent (from £1,235 to £1,482 for a period of more than three years).
John Glen, chief secretary to the UK treasury, said the prices of visit and work visas, post-study work (PSW) visas will rise.
Similarly, he said the cost of study visas, certificate of sponsorship (COS), indefinite leave to remain (ILR), settlement status, and others will be more expensive.
Glen added that priority visa applications will also increase significantly.
“We plan to increase the rates of the immigration health surcharge, which have been frozen for the last three years,” he said.
“Despite high inflation and wider pressures facing the economy and the system, in general, to ensure that it covers the full healthcare costs of those who actually pay.
“Under our plans, the main rate will increase to £1,035, and the discounted rate for students and underage teens will increase to £776.
“This increase in the surcharge will help fund the pay rise for doctors. At the same time, we will increase fees across a range of immigration and nationality routes, including for people coming here to live, work and study at a time of record high immigration numbers.
“Specifically, this means increasing the cost of work visas and visit visas by 15 percent and increasing the cost of study visas, COS, settlement, citizenship, wider entry clearance and ILR visas and priority visas by at least 20 percent.
“We’re also equalising cost for students and for those using a priority service so people pay the same whether they apply from within the UK or from outside the UK.
“This will help cover more of the costs of migration and border system allowing the home secretary to divert more funding to police forces to help fund the pay rise for the police.
“We will cut back on civil service recruitment in the ministry of defence until March 2025 to help fund the pay rise for all forces.”
The development is coming a day after Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, announced plans to significantly increase visa application fees.
The prime minister had said the government intended to raise over £1 billion to pay teachers, police, junior doctors and other public sector workers.
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CNN World reports that the Spanish Coast guard has rescued three people who were stowed on top of the rudder of a ship that arrived in the Canary Islands from Nigeria.
In a photograph distributed by the coastguard on Monday, the migrants are shown perched on the rudder of the oil and chemical tanker Althini II.
The Althini II arrived in Las Palmas in Gran Canaria on Monday after an 11-day voyage from Lagos in Nigeria, according to Marine Traffic, a ship-tracking website.
The migrants were taken into the port and attended to by health services, the coastguard said on Twitter.
The Spanish-owned Canary Islands are a popular gateway for African migrants attempting to reach Europe. Spanish data shows migration by sea to the archipelago jumped 51% in the first five months of the year compared to a year earlier.
Last year, more than 20,000 migrants crossed from the West African coastline to the Canary Islands, according to the Red Cross. More than 1,100 of those people died at sea, the organization said.
In 2020, four Nigerian stowaways survived 10 days at sea before they were found hidden in a compartment above the rudder of a Norwegian oil tanker that had traveled from Lagos to Las Palmas, according to Norwegian media.
In the same year, a 14-year-old Nigerian told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that he hid for 15 days in a room atop the rudder of a cargo ship carrying fuel, as it journeyed from Lagos to the Canary Islands.
Poverty, violent conflict, and the quest for job opportunities continue to fuel migration out of West Africa, the Red Cross says.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted Saturday night that former President Donald Trump will be reinstated to Twitter after a poll he posted on his social media platform resulted in the majority of users supporting the idea.
"The people have spoken," Musk tweeted on Saturday night. "Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei."
Musk's tweet came 24 hours after he posted a poll asking Twitter users if Trump, who was booted off the platform by previous ownership following the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot in 2021, should be allowed back on the platform.
More than 15 million people responded to the poll with 51.8% of users saying that they wanted Trump back on Twitter.
Tweets at Trump's old Twitter handle @realdonaldTrump were available shortly after Musk's announcement.
On the other side, 48.2% of respondents said they did not want to see Trump back on Twitter.
At one point as results were rolling in, Musk said the poll was getting 1 million votes per hour.
Musk tweeted that 134 million people had seen the poll.
It is unclear whether Trump will accept the opportunity to return to the platform after creating his own social media company, Truth Social, and saying earlier this year that he won't return to Twitter.
"I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH," Trump told Fox News in April. "I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH."
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Musk has faced near-constant criticism since taking over the platform last month as he has fired most of its senior leadership and staff, overhauled the platform’s subscription and verification system and announced a number of changes to its moderation.
The daughter of an elder fraud victim is sharing her story, warning other families of online scammers after her father lost everything to what he believed to be an online romance.
Angie Kennard joined "Fox & Friends First" Wednesday to share her story after her late father, Donald Griffith, lost $750,000 to a ring of Nigerian scammers.
"Stay as involved as possible, seek an accountant, financial advisors early on as possible so that you understand what they're going through and what their situation is," Kennard told co-host Carley Shimkus.
"Keep them away from dangerous Internet sites and just do as much as you can. Early on, I wish I had been a little more forceful in the situation."
Kennard said her father thought he was involved in a romantic online relationship that eventually drained his entire savings account over the course of three to four years.
But even after an FBI investigation, Griffith never got his money back.
"They would tell them how much they loved him and that they were abroad working on a project and needed some funds before they could come over to the United States," Kennard said.
"He would just keep giving increments of money up until $40,000 at a time, and then eventually his entire life savings."
Kennard's tragic story comes after the FBI unveiled more than 90,000 elderly Americans were scammed out of $1.7 billion in the United States just last year.
Romance scams, tech support, and identity theft are some of the most common types of online scams, according to the agency.
"He actually just stopped taking care of himself," Kennard said. "He was 83 when he passed away… He just deteriorated. He wasn't eating well. He ran out of money, and by the time I really learned the magnitude of this, it takes time for the FBI to do the investigation."
"Apparently we uncovered this whole group of Nigerian scammers that also scammed other elderly people," she continued.
Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of Tesla and the world's richest person, said on Friday he was terminating his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter because the social media company had breached multiple provisions of the merger agreement.
Twitter's chairman, Bret Taylor, said on the micro-blogging platform that the board planned to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement.
"The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk...," he wrote.
In a filing, Musk's lawyers said Twitter had failed or refused to respond to multiple requests for information on fake or spam accounts on the platform, which is fundamental to the company's business performance.
"Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement," the filing said.
Musk also said he was walking away because Twitter fired high-ranking executives and one-third of the talent acquisition team, breaching Twitter's obligation to "preserve substantially intact the material components of its current business organization."
LEGAL BATTLE
Musk's decision is likely to result in a protracted legal tussle between the billionaire and the 16-year-old San Francisco-based company.
Disputed mergers and acquisitions that land in Delaware courts more often than not end up with the companies re-negotiating deals or the acquirer paying the target a settlement to walk away, rather than a judge ordering that a transaction be completed. That is because target companies are often keen to resolve the uncertainty around their future and move on.
Twitter, however, is hoping that court proceedings will start in a few weeks and be resolved in a few months, according to a person familiar with the matter.
There is plenty of precedent for a deal renegotiation. Several companies repriced agreed acquisitions when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in 2020 and delivered a global economic shock.
In one instance, French retailer LVMH threatened to walk away from a deal with Tiffany & Co. The U.S. jewelry retailer agreed to lower the acquisition price by $425 million to $15.8 billion.
"I'd say Twitter is well-positioned legally to argue that it provided him with all the necessary information and this is a pretext to looking for any excuse to get out of the deal," said Ann Lipton, associate dean for faculty research at Tulane Law School.
Shares of Twitter were down 6% at $34.58 in extended trading. That is 36% below the $54.20 per share Musk agreed to buy Twitter for in April.
Twitter's shares surged after Musk took a stake in the company in early April, shielding it from a deep stock market sell-off that slammed other social media platforms.
But after he agreed on April 25 to buy Twitter, the stock within a matter of days began to fall as investors speculated Musk might walk away from the deal. With its tumble after the bell on Friday, Twitter was trading at its lowest since March.
The announcement is another twist in a will-he-won't-he saga after Musk clinched the deal to purchase Twitter in April but then put the buyout on hold until the social media company proved that spam bots account for less than 5% of its total users.
The contract calls for Musk to pay Twitter a $1 billion break-up if he cannot complete the deal for reasons such as the acquisition financing falling through or regulators blocking the deal. The break-up fee would not be applicable, however, if Musk terminates the deal on his own.
Some employees expressed disbelief and exhaustion on Friday, publicly posting memes on Twitter, such as of a rollercoaster ride and a baby screaming into a phone, in apparent commentary on the breakup. Employees have worried about the deal will mean for their jobs, pay and ability to work remotely, and many have expressed skepticism about Musk's plans to loosen content moderation.
DIGITAL AD WOES
Musk's abandonment of the deal and Twitter's promise to vigorously fight to complete it casts a pall of uncertainty over the company's future and its stock price during a time when worries about rising interest rates and a potential recession have hammered Wall Street.
Shares of online advertising rivals Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Snap and Pinterest have seen their stocks tumble 45% on average in 2022, while Twitter's stock has declined just 15% in that time, buoyed in recent months by the Musk deal.
Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, said Musk's filing was bad news for Twitter.
"This is a disaster scenario for Twitter and its Board as now the company will battle Musk in an elongated court battle to recoup the deal and/or the breakup fee of $1 billion at a minimum," he wrote in a note to clients.