No Nigerian State Safe, Secure Again —Ex-President, Obasanjo

A former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, has said that no state in the country was safe and secure any longer as a result of the threat of bandits and terror organisations.

Speaking on Friday at the Sobo Sowemimo Annual Lecture organised by Abeokuta Club, Obasanjo said that all hands must be on deck to tackle rising insecurity in the country.

He said, “Let me lay more emphasis on the issue of security, which in itself is serious enough to make restructuring imperative. The South-West governors cried out and devised Amotekun as a solution or part-solution. We have yet to see how successfully that will be operated. Other zones are clamouring for a solution because in no state and in no geopolitical zone is life and property safe and secure. 

Sahara Reporters

'I'm just different': The family of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man killed by Colorado cops almost a year ago, is still waiting for justice

During his lunch breaks, Elijah McClain sometimes played the violin for animals at the local shelter. He thought they, too, deserved some music in their lives. He was not like other 23-year-olds. He craved space to be himself, and when officers of the Aurora, Colo., police department approached him on the evening of Aug. 24, 2019, that is what Elijah McClain tried to tell them.

“I am an introvert,” he explained to the officers who responded to a 911 call about a Black male walking down the street in a ski mask on a night when the temperature was about 66 degrees Fahrenheit. “Please respect my boundaries.”

Fifteen minutes later, McClain was on the cusp of death, having been choked by one of the original responding officers and then injected with the powerful anesthetic drug ketamine by a medic who arrived on the scene later.“I don’t even kill flies,” McClain said at one point as the officers continued to restrain him. It was a cry for help, an explanation of who he was. It went unheeded, not only by the three officers who first responded to the 911 call but by the many others who arrived later, and who chatted casually as McClain struggled for his final breaths. 

“Aurora, Colo., is corrupt,” says Mari Newman, a Denver attorney who is representing McClain’s family. “Aurora, Colo., is trying to cover up its wrongdoing.”

Only now, nearly a year after his death, is the case of Elijah McClain finally receiving the national attention his family has been seeking. That attention comes largely because 2020 has seen a number of Black men and women killed by police officers or vigilantes: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd. The outrage over those killings has intensified outrage over killings past. And it has made Elijah McClain the latest symbol of what many Americans see as a law enforcement culture informed by racial animosities.

Earlier this week, Bernice King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tweeted about McClain. So did Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who called the killing “absolutely crushing.” “Learning about this case broke my heart,” wrote Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor of California. “Elijah McClain deserves justice.” 

Alexander Nazaryan

National Correspondent

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Yahoo News•June 27, 2020

Outrage mounts over report Russia offered bounties to Afghanistan militants for killing US soldiers

Outrage has greeted a bombshell New York Times story that says American intelligence officials believe a Russian military intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, including targeting Americans.

The story, citing its sources as unnamed officials briefed on the matter, said that the US had come to the conclusion about the operation several months ago and and offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

The Times wrote: “The intelligence finding was briefed to Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March.” However, despite drawing up numerous options by way of a response, the White House has not taken any action.

As the news broke it triggered a fierce response from top Democrats, especially those who have long pointed to what they say is Trump’s overly close relationship to Russia’s autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin.

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, said: “Trump was cozying up to Putin and inviting him to the G7 all while his administration reportedly knew Russia was trying to kill US troops in Afghanistan and derail peace talks with the Taliban.”

Michael McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia and a professor of political science at Stanford University, said: “I hope the American people will be as outraged as I am over Trump’s complacency. After he knew about these Putin-ordered contracts to kill US soldiers, Trump invited Putin to the G7.”

John Weaver, a Republican political consultant who helped found the anti-Trump Lincoln Project group, also expressed outrage.

The Guardian

Russia reportedly paid Taliban-linked militants bounty money to kill American troops

• US intelligence officials assessed that Russia's military intelligence agency offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill NATO troops in Afghanistan — which include American forces, according to a New York Times report.

• Interrogations of Afghan militants and criminals reportedly yielded the information indicating that Taliban-linked militants were offered bounties from Russian agents, specifically Unit 29155, a branch of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.

• One theory floated by some of the officials is that Moscow may have been retaliating after an embarrassing defeat during a battle in Syria in 2018.

• President Donald Trump was briefed of the intelligence assessment, but the White House had yet to respond to it, The Times' sources said.

Business Insider, BI

Dear Ethiopia...

By Nervana Mahmoud

Dear Ethiopia, Thank you for your letter. The fate of our two countries has been linked since ancient times, as described in Herodotus’s book An Account of Egypt, Egypt is the “gift of the Nile,” “it has soil which is black and easily breaks up, seeing that it is in truth mud and silt brought down from Ethiopia by the river.” It is sad you question Egypt’s African identity. It may sound surprising to you, but the vast majority of Egyptians are proud Africans. In 1990, my entire family was glued to the television, showing our support for Cameroon against England, in the World Cup. Last year, Egypt hosted the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. Many Egyptians supported Senegal and Nigeria, who played Arab teams, in the final rounds because we see ourselves as Africans. Unfortunately, I do not believe that you — our African brothers — appreciate the potential disastrous impacts of your Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) on our livelihood in Egypt. Two factors, geography and climate, can neither can be disputed nor dismissed. The Nile basin in Egypt is mostly rainless, while its southern parts and the highlands of Ethiopia experience heavy rains. As Prof Khaled Abu Zeid wrote, there is a vast difference in natural climatic conditions between upstream and downstream in the Nile Basin. Egypt’s annual renewable water resources provide about 570 m3 per person per year, which is below the water scarcity limit of 1000 cubic meter per person per year. On the other hand, Ethiopia’s renewable water resources provide about 8100 m3 per person per year. Therefore, I find it astonishing that you compare your GERD project with our High Aswan Dam, missing the stark reality that our High Aswan Dam did not affect any other country. When we built it, we sought to optimise the use of its water without reducing the water share in any other country. Can you say the same about GERD? How can you celebrate your GERD project, knowing you are denying millions of innocent Egyptian children access to water and potentially exposing them to thirst and even death during severe droughts? You mentioned colonialism, asking, “How can we hold on to something whose origins — colonisation — you so despised?” The worst example of colonialism is when one power controls and denies others their basic water rights. It is striking that Ethiopia is expecting Egypt to “share carrying the burden that [Ethiopia believes] it has done for thousands of years.” Ethiopia, a home of 20 lakes, yet you have the nerve to dictate to Egypt how it should use its only source of water: the Nile River. Ethiopia’s economic grievances are mostly the legacy of decades of authoritarianism, not those of Egypt. The genocidal regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam was responsible for an estimated 1,200,000 to more than 2,000,000 Ethiopian deaths. Shifting the debate to Egypt’s military budget and our “informal economy” will not help build trust or good relations between our countries. Neither our informal economy nor our military budget can be converted to cubic meters of extra water supplies. Egypt adapted to our harsh water conditions for years. Furthermore, Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation established a National Water Resource Plan in 2017 with the aim of safeguarding and optimising our water resources. It is funny that you mentioned mosques. Perhaps you are not aware that, last year, our Ministry of Military Production collaborated with the Religious Endowment Ministry to fit all our mosques with water-saving tapes. The Egyptian government also has plans to increase desalinization and recycle sewage water and line canals. It has already started enforcing restrictions on planting water-intensive commodities, like rice, but all those efforts are not enough to offset the GERD reservoir’s filling period. It is cheap populism to dwell on past colonialism and ignore the course of the present negotiations. For years, Egypt negotiated with Ethiopia in good faith, with the hopes of reaching a fair deal on GERD that serves the interests of both countries. But as Ezzat Ibrahim wrote, the brazenness with which the Ethiopian proposal aimed to jettison all agreements and understandings that the three parties (i.e., Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia) had previously reached over the course of their negotiations, which have dragged on for almost a full decade, is surprising. This includes the understandings reached during the negotiating rounds brokered by Washington and attended by the World Bank. My dear Ethiopia, the Nile for Egypt is a matter of life and death. Is it too much for Egypt that hosts 20% of the Nile Basin countries’ population, with 97% of its land as desert, to benefit from only 3 % of the Nile Basin’s rainfall, as Prof Khaled Abu Zeid asked? The essence of “truth, balance, order, and justice” is on Egypt’s side in the dispute over your GERD. Water hegemony will not benefit Ethiopia. Ethiopia has other water sources besides the Nile; we Egyptians don’t. Egypt maintains that an agreement can be achieved, but that it “has to be negotiated in good faith." Our water security is neither a political game nor an economic one, but a basic human right that we cannot abandon. Your well-being cannot be built on the sufferings of our children. With love, An Egyptian

Malawi presidential election: State Broadcaster says opposition leading

Malawi's opposition is claiming victory in the re-run of last year's presidential election - which was held again after allegations of widespread rigging.

Official results for Tuesday's poll have not yet been declared by Malawi's electoral commission.

But state broadcaster MBC says opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera is leading with 59% of the vote.

President Peter Mutharika, who wants a second term, has 38%, it says.

A third candidate who was not regarded as a serious contender, Peter Kuwani, is said to have received less than 2% of votes.

Last year Malawi became the second African nation to annul a presidential election over irregularities, after Kenya 2017

BBC news

IMF predicts a deeper slow-down in Nigerian growth

Forecast by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April predicting a 3.4% contraction of the Nigerian economy how now been downgraded.

The economy is now expected to shrink by 5.4%, according to the international lender’s latest forecast.

The IMF says Covid-19 has had more negative impact on global economic activities in the first quarter of 2020 than anticipated. It’s latest forecast is contained in its June World Economic Outlook.

Commercial activities are still not fully open in Nigeria while the aviation industry is still on lockdown as the country’s Covid-19 cases rose to 22,020 on Wednesday.

The oil industry which has been the main sustenance of the Nigerian government lost $125bn (£100bn) of its projected revenue in the first quarter of 2020. The government says it feared at least 70% of its oil revenue would be lost by the end of 2020.

BBC