YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — The Central African Economic and Monetary Community, CEMAC, marks its 30th anniversary this week but by some measures has little to celebrate. The bloc says member countries conduct most of their trade with outside countries and have made little attempt to break down economic barriers between them, leaving CEMAC the least developed and poorest economic bloc in Africa.

Officials say the Central African Economic and Monetary Community remains the least integrated economic bloc in Africa, despite its very strong economic and social potential.

CEMAC officials say member countries conduct more than 80 percent of their foreign trade with Europe, China and Russia – and only 4 percent with each other.

The CEMAC countries — Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, Gabon and the Central African Republic — created the bloc in 1994 to promote the free movement of goods and persons across borders and promote regional integration. 

Sylvestre Michel Nkou is an economic adviser to the Congo government and CEMAC. He spoke during celebrations marking the economic bloc’s 30th anniversary in Yaounde Thursday.  

Nkou says CEMAC member states should emulate the Economic Community of West African States, in which civilians and merchants move from one country to the other without fear of police harassment, brutality or the confiscation of their goods. He says poverty will be reduced in central Africa and the economic bloc will cease to become the poorest on the continent when integration becomes a reality, not a political slogan.  

Nkou said CEMAC countries continue to erroneously believe that each state can develop on its own. He said CEMACs close to 70 million population constitute a large market which remains underused. 

Achingale Queen Anyifuet, an international relations scholar at Cameroon’s International Relations Institute, says insecurity, Boko Haram conflicts affecting Chad and Cameroon, political tensions and armed attacks in the CAR and the military juntas in Chad and Gabon have diverted the CEMAC leaders’ attention from economic development.  

“If you look at the rankings of ‘Ease to do Business’ countries in the world, the CEMAC region is far below,” saod Achingale. “Out of the 197 countries, Cameroon which is the first [among CEMAC states], is ranked 167, so there is a lot to do. We have to put in place programs that address the key roots of conflicts, we have to look at security, ensuring a stable environment which is very key to economic development. We need to promote peace, which is one of the objectives of CEMAC.”

Achingale said the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report quantitatively measures the ease of doing business in countries around the world, focusing on business regulations and property rights protections. 

Thierry Ndong, an expert in regional integration and analyst working with CEMAC, says the regional economic bloc has also failed to create a regional airline, build roads linking capitals of CEMAC member states and create a regional stock exchange.

Ndong says a program to develop an economic zone in the border towns of Kye-Ossi, in Cameroon, Bitam in Gabon and Ebebiyin in Equatorial Guinea is among failed projects initiated by CEMAC officials. He says he is surprised that CEMAC keeps money to organize seminars to evaluate nonexistent projects that were initiated 15 years ago as a sign of economic integration without consulting the people who are the main beneficiaries.

CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera, who is also the CEMAC president, is expected to address issues concerning the underdevelopment of the economic bloc in a March 16 message. 

 
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JOHANNESBURG    — South Africa’s president has slammed a request by the country’s main opposition party that the U.S. help monitor upcoming elections. The governing party says the request is misguided given issues with “the West’s” own polls.

A letter by South Africa’s leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance or DA, to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other Western governments asking for help monitoring South Africa’s May 29 election, caused a political furor this week.

South Africa is well-regarded as having held free and fair polls in the past, but the DA’s letter asks for foreign help to “safeguard the integrity” of what it notes will be “the most crucial election” in 30 years of democracy.

A new poll this week showed the governing African National Congress getting just 39% of the vote, which would mean losing its majority for the first time, since 1994 in the first post-apartheid elections.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said the DA’s letter was “’disingenuous” as the country has always employed international election observers and accused the opposition of trying to “mortgage” the country’s sovereignty to foreign powers.

South African International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor said, “To write such a letter, particularly to countries that don’t have observation and very low participation rates in their elections, is rather surprising and a demeaning attitude about South Africa.”

Meanwhile, Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri, an ANC spokesperson, said “the West’s” own elections have not always been without controversy.

“Despite our impeccable track record of running free and fair elections in South Africa, we’ve never sought to comment on the elections in the West, even when their own citizens question the credibility of their electoral processes,” she said.

While she did not mention the U.S. directly, some South Africans have pointed to disputes over American elections; for example in 2000 when George W. Bush beat Al Gore, and in 2020 when Donald Trump falsely declared the election had been stolen.

Asanda Ngoasheng, a political analyst, said the U.S. had its own political troubles.

“I think it’s ironic that the DA has sent the letter that it sent because in the United States former President Trump is still to this day challenging their last election,” she said.

Asked to respond to the backlash, DA shadow minister for international relations Emma Powell doubled down.

“It is clear however that the ANC’s ferocious response to the request made by opposition parties for observer support is because the ANC themselves have something to hide,” she said.

The U.S. has distanced itself from the controversy.

David S. Feldmann, mission spokesperson at U.S. Embassy Pretoria told VOA, “South Africa is a sovereign democracy that runs its own electoral processes. The Independent Electoral Commission has a longstanding and excellent reputation for conducting free and fair elections.”
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Harare, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe police on Wednesday said they have arrested a man claiming to be a prophet of an apostolic sect at a shrine where believers stay in a compound, and authorities found 16 unregistered graves, including those of infants, and more than 250 children used as cheap labor.

In a statement, police spokesman Paul Nyathi said Ishmael Chokurongerwa, 56, a “self-styled” prophet, led a sect with more than 1,000 members at a farm about 34 kilometers [21 miles] northwest of the capital, Harare, where the children were staying alongside other believers.

The children “were being used to perform various physical activities for the benefit of the sect’s leadership,” he said. Of the 251 children, 246 had no birth certificates.

“Police established that all children of school-going age did not attend formal education and were subjected to abuse as cheap labor, doing manual work in the name of being taught life skills,” said Nyathi.

Police said among the graves they found were those of seven infants whose burials were not registered with authorities.

He said police officers raided the shrine on Tuesday. Chokurongerwa, who called himself the Prophet Ishmael, was arrested together with seven of his aides “for criminal activities which include abuse of minors.”

Nyathi said more details will be released “in due course as investigations unfold.”

A state-run tabloid, H-Metro, which accompanied police during the raid, showed police in riot gear arguing with female believers in white garments and head cloths who demanded the return of children who were put into a waiting police bus. It is not clear where police took the children and some women who accompanied then.

“Why are they taking our children? We are comfortable here. We don’t have a problem here,” shouted one of the women in a video posted on the newspaper’s account on X.

According to the newspaper, police officers armed with guns, tear smoke and trained dogs “staged a spectacular raid” on the shrine. Believers described the compound as “their promised land.”

One of Chokurongerwa’s aides gave an interview to the newspaper.

“Our belief is not from scriptures. We got it directly from God, who gave us rules on how we can enter heaven. God forbids formal education, because the lessons learned at such schools go against his dictates,” he said, adding that “God told us that it won’t rain if we send our children to school. Look at the drought out there, yet we are receiving rains here. We have the gift of a spiritual ear to hear God’s voice,” he said.

Apostolic groups that infuse traditional beliefs into a Pentecostal doctrine are popular in the deeply religious southern African country.

There has been little detailed research on Apostolic churches in Zimbabwe, but UNICEF studies estimate it is the largest religious denomination with around 2.5 million followers in a country of 15 million. Some of the groups adhere to a doctrine demanding that followers avoid formal education for their children, as well as medicines and medical care for members who must instead seek healing through their faith in prayer, holy water and anointed stones.

However, others have in recent years begun allowing their members to visit hospitals and enroll children in school following intense campaigns by the government and nongovernmental organizations.

In Kenya, police in April 2003 arrested a pastor, Paul Mackenzie, based in coastal Kenya who allegedly ordered congregants to starve to death in order to meet Jesus.

The country’s top prosecutor in January ordered that the pastor and over 90 people from the doomsday cult be charged with murder, cruelty, child torture and other crimes in the deaths of 429 people believed to be members of the church.
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Officials in Zimbabwe — Africa’s largest tobacco producer — hope this year’s crop will boost the country’s ailing economy. However, demand is not as high as it used to be, and calls are growing for Zimbabwe to move away from tobacco due to health concerns. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare.
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CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A suspect has been arrested in the fatal stabbing attack on three Coptic Orthodox Church monks at a monastery in South Africa, police said Wednesday. 

The monks were killed Tuesday at the Saint Mark the Apostle and Saint Samuel the Confessor Monastery in Cullinan, a town east of the capital, Pretoria. A fourth person was beaten with an iron rod before escaping and hiding in the monastery, police said. 

The suspect arrested was a 35-year-old man. Police did not provide his name or other details. He is to appear in court on Thursday. 

The motive for the attack was unclear. It appeared that nothing was stolen from the monastery, police spokesperson Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said in a statement. 

Police had said Tuesday that they were seeking multiple suspects. 

Deadly attacks on churches and other places of worship in South Africa are rare. 

The Coptic Orthodox Church has its headquarters in Egypt and dioceses in several countries. It is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world and has been the target of deadly attacks by Islamic militants in Egypt and elsewhere. 

The attacks in Egypt have subsided recently amid tighter security around Christian places of worship in the Muslim-majority country. 

The Coptic Orthodox Church named the monks killed in South Africa as Hegumen Takla el-Samuely, Yostos ava Markos and Mina ava Markos. All three were Egyptian nationals. 

The Coptic Orthodox Church of South Africa said that el-Samuely was the deputy of the local diocese. 

The Coptic church has its own pope, currently Pope Tawadros II. The South African diocese said he was aware of the attack and was “waiting to be informed of its causes.” 

The Egyptian ambassador to South Africa visited the monastery following the attack, the Coptic Orthodox Church of South Africa said. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said it was in communication with the embassy in South Africa. 
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abuja, nigeria — Police in Nigeria have ordered the creation of a new base for officers and the deployment of special forces in a remote village in northwest Kaduna state, where nearly 300 students were abducted by armed bandits on March 7.

Nigerian police chief Kayode Egbetokun announced plans for the new base and the deployment during a visit with Kaduna Governor Uba Sani on Tuesday.

He said the steps will help restore residents’ confidence in their safety while security forces continue the search for the missing students.

Last Thursday, armed bandits on motorbikes invaded an elementary school in the village of Kuriga in Kaduna state and abducted 287 school students — the highest single abduction of students in years.

Days later in a separate attack, bandits kidnapped 61 people from Kajuru district, about 150 kilometers miles away. 

The new police base will be in Kuriga and deployment of extra officers to the area has begun.

Egbetokun says authorities are working to secure the abductees’ release.

“We’re launching the special intervention squad for Kaduna state,” Egbetokun said. “If only to give confidence to the people, the men will be deployed and with the support that you have pledged to give, I’m sure that the community will start to feel safe again.”

Sani said he is hopeful the police operations will succeed.

“We are extremely confident that the school children by the grace of God will return back home safely,” he said, “and I’m happy by the decision of the inspector general of police to quickly deploy mobile base in Kuriga community.”

Last week, local media reported more than 300 women and children who were gathering firewood were kidnapped in northeastern Borno state by Islamic militants.

Insecurity is a major challenge for President Bola Tinubu, who launched an initiative called “Renewed Hope” after assuming office last May.

The recent kidnappings are blamed, in part, on the absence of security forces in those remote areas.

Last month, the president met with all 36 state governors to discuss decentralizing Nigeria’s police force and creating a police arm for each state.

Analyst Kabiru Adamu of Beacon Security said, if organized properly, this could be a step in the right direction.

“There are gaps within the security architecture,” Adamu said. “I am supportive of the decentralization of policing but I think what we need more than anything is accountability. So that by the time we create state police, the accountability elements that have been created in the federal level will trickle down to the state level.”

Years of fighting Islamist militants and crime gangs have stretched Nigerian security forces thin.

Many are hoping the creation of new bases and state police arms will help keep the kidnappers away.
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YAOUNDE — Cameroon officials have declared a humanitarian emergency after encroaching waters from the Atlantic Ocean destroyed several hundred homes, buildings and plantations along Cameroon’s coast. 

Waves pound walls and houses constructed on the shores of Bekumu, a southern Cameroon village located in Ndian,  an administrative unit along parts of Cameroon’s 400-kilometer coast on the Atlantic Ocean. 

The images broadcast on Cameroon state TV this week show civilians crying out for help.

“If the government does not help immediately, if the government does not do something urgently, I don’t believe Bekumu will exist again. The water level is so high. What is this, oh God.”

The civilian is not identified in the video, but the Bekumu Village Development Committee, in a release, said it shared images of the civilian crying out for help to raise awareness of the fate that has befallen them.

Bekumu villagers say encroaching seawater this week has destroyed homes, public buildings and plantations, and rendered several hundred people homeless.

The Cameroon government says high waves swept through Bekumu destroying coastal villages, plantations, schools, churches and markets.

Civilians say they lack potable water after seawater swept and emptied waste water in streams that are considered a source of drinkable water. 

Sangi John is the traditional ruler of Bekumu village. Speaking to VOA on Wednesday via a messaging app, he said it is the first time encroaching waters from the Atlantic Ocean have caused so much havoc in Bekumu. He said strong sea waves early Wednesday pulled down parts of school buildings and churches where homeless civilians rushed for shelter.

“The disaster is so serious, the water has washed from the schools to people’s houses, right to all churches. The water is everywhere. I am appealing for the government to help us,” he said.

Sangi said scores of civilians have relocated to safer villages while three dozen others are trapped in creeks waiting for help to relocate. He said hunger looms as several hundred hectares of farmland are currently being destroyed by water.

Fishermen, farmers and merchants constitute 75 percent of the population of affected villages.  They say economic activity has nosedived because of the encroaching ocean waters that also killed goats and washed away poultry farms.

In August of last year when seawater swept through the coastal town of Kribi, swallowing homes and plantations, CEMAC, a six member state economic bloc that groups Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo, said the ongoing rise in sea levels was potentially catastrophic for an economic bloc for whom 30 percent of civilians live along the coastline.

The Cameroon government has always blamed global warming and rising sea levels for the encroaching of ocean water into its coastal lands. 

Cameroon’s ministry of agriculture says the ongoing floods in Ndian add to the humanitarian emergency it declared following food shortages because of floods in several parts of the central African state. The government says it has dispatched humanitarian workers and specialized services of its military to rescue civilians but gave no further details.   
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The Nigerian film industry, often referred to as Nollywood, is the second largest moviemaker in the world in terms of volume, and is making strides both in terms of art and in popularity at the box office. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
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UNITED NATIONS — The number of children worldwide who died before age 5 reached a record low in 2022, the United Nations said in a report published Tuesday, as for the first time fewer than 5 million died.

According to the estimate, 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2022, a 51% decrease since 2000 and a 62% drop since 1990, according to the report, which still warned such progress is “precarious” and unequal.

“There is a lot of good news, and the major one is that we have come to a historic level of under-five mortality, which … reached under 5 million for the first time, so it is 4.9 million per year,” Helga Fogstad, director of health at the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, told AFP.

According to the report, prepared by UNICEF in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, progress was particularly notable in developing countries such as Malawi, Rwanda and Mongolia, where early childhood mortality has fallen by more than 75% since 2000.

“Behind these numbers lie the stories of midwives and skilled health personnel helping mothers safely deliver their newborns … vaccinating … children against deadly diseases, and [making] home visits to support families,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

But “this is a precarious achievement,” the report warned. “Progress is at risk of stagnation or reversal unless efforts are taken to neutralize the numerous threats to newborn and child health and survival.”

Researchers pointed to already worrying signs, saying that reduction in under-5 deaths has slowed at the global level and notably in the sub-Saharan Africa region.

In total, 162 million children under the age of 5 have died since 2000, 72 million of whom perished in the first month of life, as complications related to birth are among the main causes of early childhood mortality.

Between the ages of 1 month and 5 years, respiratory infections, malaria and diarrhea become the main killers — ailments that are all preventable, the report points out.

To reach the U.N.’s goal of reducing under-5 deaths to 25 per 1,000 births by 2030, 59 countries will need urgent investment in children’s health, researchers warned. And without adequate funding, 64 countries will miss the goal of limiting first-month deaths to 12 per 1,000 births.

“These are not just numbers on a page; they represent real lives cut short,” the report said.

The numbers also reveal glaring inequalities across the world, as the sub-Saharan Africa region accounted for half of all deaths of children under age 5 in 2022.

Babies born in countries with high early childhood mortality, such as Chad, Nigeria or Somalia, are 80 times more likely to die before their 5th birthday than babies born in countries with low childhood mortality rates, such as Finland, Japan and Singapore.

“Where a child is born should not dictate whether they live or die,” WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
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abuja, nigeria — Economic analysts and crypto enthusiasts are raising concerns following Nigeria’s ban on end-to-end transactions — a type of payment processing — involving its currency, the naira, on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platform, Binance.

Binance disabled all its naira services on Friday after Nigerian authorities accused the company of exploitation, devaluation of the naira and money laundering.

The restriction on naira services on Binance exchange held firm as of Monday. But critics said the measure might increase youth unemployment in a country already struggling with soaring inflation.

The latest measure by authorities followed recent moves to try to save Nigeria’s currency from collapse and address economic problems.

Authorities said Binance manipulated exchange rates through speculation and rate-fixing, leading to the devaluation of the naira.

The government also accused the company of terrorism financing and money laundering, saying $26 billion worth of transactions on the platform were untraceable.

Binance denied any wrongdoing in a statement posted on its website last month.

Central Bank blamed

Public finance expert Isaac Botti said transactions on Binance were not the source of Nigeria’s economic problems.

“It is something that was caused as a result of our reckless demand and utilization of hard currency in Nigeria,” Botti said. “The major challenge is not in the amount of fictitious assets or dollars that people kept in their crypto accounts. It is in the volume of dollars that was released physically by the Central Bank of Nigeria.”

Nigeria has 13 million cryptocurrency holders, more than any other African country. Kenya is next with 4.4 million.

In a statement last week, Binance said any remaining naira on the platform would be automatically converted to Tether — a cryptocurrency stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.

Last year, Nigeria introduced currency controls and ended petrol subsidies with the aim of reviving the economy.

But afterward, the naira plummeted to record lows. Analysts said the government ban on Binance could lead to job losses.

Blockchain expert Jahdiel Chidi agreed but said Nigerians would turn to new crypto exchanges to possibly fill the gap created by Binance’s exit.

“The implication is that people are going to go to other exchanges,” Chidi said, “I mean, there are other options and platforms that you can do the same thing that was obtainable on Binance.”

In February, Nigerian authorities cracked down on local currency exchange operators and revoked more than 4,000 licenses after the exchange rate dropped to 1,900 naira to one dollar.

Chidi said the Nigerian government must look for better measures in addressing the country’s current foreign exchange challenges.

“I think it was a decision made from the point of hurry without critical investigation into the accusation of Binance’s involvement in certain naira-dollar exchange rates,” Chidi said. “The main issue that I think they should look at is to focus on the import duty. That’s one of the things that has devalued the naira. Binance just happens to be a victim of wrong decisions by the government.”

Last year, the Central Bank reversed its stance on crypto companies, allowing them to operate — a move that was then viewed as a positive posture toward digital currency assets.
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NEBAR HADNET, Ethiopia — The cruel realities of war and drought seem to have merged for Tinseu Hiluf, a widow living in the arid depths of Ethiopia’s Tigray region who is raising four children left behind by her sister’s recent death in childbirth.

A two-year war between federal troops and regional forces killed one of her own sons, the rest of whom are already adults. And now, a lack of food stemming from the region’s drought has left the youngest of the children she is raising malnourished.

She tries to forage seeds among the scarce greenery of the desert’s yellow, rocky landscape. But she recently resorted to traveling to the nearby Finarwa health center in southeastern Tigray to try to keep the 1-year-old baby alive.

“When hungry, we eat anything from the desert,” she said. “Otherwise, nothing.”

She joined several other mothers seeking help at the center in the remote administrative area of Nebar Hadnet. A mother of five complained that she had no breastmilk for her eight-month-old baby. Another with 1-year-old twins said she needed sachets of baby food to keep “my babies alive.”

Tigray is now peaceful, but war’s effects linger, compounded by drought and a level of aid mismanagement that caused the U.N. and the U.S. to temporarily suspend deliveries last year.

Once-lush fields lie barren. Mothers, faces etched with worry, watch helplessly as their children weaken from malnutrition. Nearly 400 people died of starvation in Tigray and the neighboring Amhara region in the six months leading to January, the national ombudsman revealed in January, a rare admission of hunger-related deaths by a federal government.

Most of those deaths were recorded in Tigray, home to 5.5 million people.

Until the signing of a peace agreement in November 2022, the region was the scene of a deadly war between federal troops and forces loyal to the region’s now-ousted ruling party. But months after the end of the conflict, the U.N. and the U.S. halted food aid for Tigray because of a massive scheme by Ethiopian officials to steal humanitarian grain.

An inadequate growing season followed.

Persistent insecurity meant only 49% of Tigray’s farmland was planted during the main planting season last year, according to an assessment by U.N. agencies, NGOs and the regional authorities, and seen by the AP. Crop production in these areas was only 37% of the expected total because of drought. In some areas the proportion was as low as 2%, that assessment said.

The poor harvest prompted Tigray’s authorities to warn of an “unfolding famine” that could match the famine of 1984-5, which killed hundreds of thousands of people across northern Ethiopia, unless the aid response was scaled up. Food deliveries to Tigray in the second half of last year, but only a small fraction of needy people in Tigray are receiving food aid, humanitarian workers say.

Finarwa, a farming community of about 13,000 people, is among the worst-hit places.

The town’s health center still has war-damaged equipment and some of its rooms appear abandoned. Tadesse Mehari, the officer in charge of the clinic, said the lack of food at homes in the community has forced children to flee and beg in nearby towns.

“Nothing here to eat. So, for the sake of getting food and to save their lives, they are displaced anywhere, far from here,” he said. “So, in this area, a lot of people are suffering. They are starved. They are dying due to the absence of food.”

Some local leaders, feeling helpless, have been turning their own people away

Hayale Gebrekedian, a Nebar Hadnet district leader for five years, listened to the pleas of villagers who streamed into his office one recent afternoon. A widow named Serawit Wolde with 10 children was in tears as she recounted that five of them were falling ill from hunger.

“Please, any help,” she told Hayale.

Hayale told the woman he had nothing to give. “There simply isn’t any (food),” he said.

Hayale later told the AP, “This place used to be a source of hope, even for those displaced by the war. We had enough for everyone, but now we can’t even feed ourselves.”

“The war took everything,” he said. There’s nothing left.”

Havale said access to water was an additional challenge. Of the 25 wells that once sustained the community and its animals, only five remained functional. People now trek for over an hour and a half to access water, he said.

The region’s drought has meant that some areas that usually get about 60 days of rain during the rainy season have seen only a few.

Some farmers aren’t giving up.

Haile Gebre Kirstos, 70, continued to plough his parched land and plant sorghum in a village in Messebo, although rain fell “only two days during the last rainy season,” he said.

Once lush and teeming with livestock, the land is now a barren expanse, yet he remained hopeful even after the failure of the previous harvest.

Although the plowing usually doesn’t begin until the rainy season in May or June, this year he started the work early, driven by extreme need. He spoke of farmers who have sold their oxen and farming tools to feed their families.

For him, the memory of the 1980s famine is haunting. “It affected the entire region then,” he said. “Now, in some districts, it’s either as bad as the 1980s, or even worse.”
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In Malawi, 35,000 backstreet abortions were carried out in 2022 and 2023, according to its Ministry of Health. These unsafe procedures are just one reason support for abortion rights has increased in recent years. Chimwemwe Padatha has more from Lilongwe.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Officials saw the crescent moon Sunday night in Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest sites in Islam, marking the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan for many of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims.

The sacred month, which sees those observing abstain from food and water from sunrise to sunset, marks a period of religious reflection, family get-togethers and giving across the Muslim world. Seeing the moon Sunday night means Monday is the first day of the fast.

Saudi state television reported authorities there saw the crescent moon. Soon after, multiple Gulf Arab nations, as well as Iraq and Syria, followed the announcement to confirm they as well would start fasting on Monday. Leaders also shared messages of congratulations that the month had begun.

However, there are some Asia-Pacific countries like Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, that will begin Ramadan on Tuesday after failing to see the crescent moon. Oman, on the easternmost edge of the Arabian Peninsula, similarly announced Ramadan would begin Tuesday. Jordan will also begin Ramadan on Tuesday.

This year’s Ramadan comes as the Middle East remains inflamed by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. That’s raised fears that the conflict may spark unrest far beyond the current borders of the war.

Saudi King Salman specifically pointed to the Israel-Hamas war in remarks released to the public after the Ramadan announcement.

“As it pains us that the month of Ramadan falls this year, in light of the attacks our brothers in Palestine are suffering from, we stress the need for the international community to assume its responsibilities, to stop these brutal crimes, and provide safe humanitarian and relief corridors,” the king said.

Meanwhile, inflation and high prices of food around the world since the pandemic began continues to pinch.

In Saudi Arabia, the kingdom had been urging the public to watch the skies from Sunday night in preparation for the sighting of the crescent moon. Ramadan works on a lunar calendar and moon-sighting methodologies often vary between countries, meaning some nations declare the start of the month earlier or later.

However, many Sunni-dominated nations in the Middle East follow the lead of Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and its cube-shaped Kaaba that Muslims pray toward five times a day.

In Iran, which views itself as the worldwide leader of Islam’s minority Shiites, authorities typically begin Ramadan a day after Sunnis start. Already, the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced Ramadan will start on Tuesday, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

During Ramadan, those observing typically break their fast with a date and water, following the tradition set by the Prophet Muhammad. Then they’ll enjoy an “iftar,” or a large meal. They’ll have a pre-dawn meal, or “suhoor,” to sustain themselves during the daylight hours.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar; the month cycles through the seasons and the months in the Gregorian calendar.

Muslims try to avoid conflict and focus on acts of charity during the holy month. However, the war in the Gaza Strip is looming large over this year’s Ramadan for many Muslims.

The war began on Oct. 7 with Hamas’ attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. Israel responded with a grinding war targeting the Gaza Strip that so far has seen more than 30,000 Palestinians killed and an intense siege of the seaside enclave cutting off electricity, food and water.

Scenes of Palestinians praying before bombed-out mosques and chasing after food airdropped by foreign nations continue to anger those across the Middle East and the wider world. The U.S. has been pressuring Israel, which relies on American military hardware and support, to allow more food in as Ramadan begins. It also plans a sea corridor with other partners.

The war, as well as Israeli restrictions on Muslims praying at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, may further inflame militant anger. The site is also known as the Temple Mount, which Jews consider their most sacred site.

The Islamic State group, which once held a self-described caliphate across territory in Iraq and Syria, has launched attacks around Ramadan as well. Though now splintered, the group has tried to capitalize on the Israel-Hamas war to raise its profile.

War also continues to rage across Sudan despite efforts to try and reach a Ramadan cease-fire.
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KURIGA, Nigeria — Rashidat Hamza is in despair. All but one of her six children are among the nearly 300 students abducted from their school in Nigeria’s conflict-battered northwest.

More than two days after her children — ages 7 to 18 — went to school in remote Kuriga town only to be herded away by a band of gunmen, she was still in shock Saturday.

“We have never seen this kind of thing where our children were abducted from their school,” she told an Associated Press team that arrived in the Kaduna state town to report on Thursday’s attack. “We don’t know what to do, but we believe in God.”

The kidnapping in Kuriga was only one of three mass kidnappings in northern Nigeria since late last week, a reminder of the security crisis plaguing Africa’s most populous country. A group of gunmen abducted 15 children from a school in another northwestern state, Sokoto, before dawn Saturday, and a few days earlier 200 people were kidnapped in northeastern Borno state.

It was in Borno’s Chibok town a decade ago that school kidnappings in Nigeria burst into the headlines with the 2014 abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by Islamic extremists, shocking the world.

No group claimed responsibility for any of the recent abductions. But Islamic extremists waging an insurgency in the northeast are suspected of carrying out the kidnapping in Borno. Locals blame the school kidnappings on herders who are in conflict with the settled communities.

Among the students abducted Thursday were at least 100 children aged 12 or younger. They were just settling into their classrooms at the government primary and secondary school when gunmen “came in dozens, riding on bikes and shooting sporadically,” said Nura Ahmad, a teacher.

The school sits by the road just at the entrance of Kuriga town, which is tucked in the middle of forests and savannah.

“They surrounded the school and blocked all passages … and roads” to prevent help from coming before marching the children away in an operation that lasted less than five minutes, Ahmad said.

Fourteen-year-old Abdullahi Usman braved gunshots in making his escape from the captors.

“Those who refused to move fast were either forced on the motorcycles or threatened by gunshots fired into the air,” Abdullahi said.

“The bandits were shouting, ‘Go! Go! Go!'” he said.

By the next day, Nigerian police and soldiers headed into the forests in search of the kids but combing the wooded expanses of northwestern Nigeria could take weeks, observers have said.

“Since this happened, my brain has been scattering,” said Shehu Lawal, the father of a 13-year-old boy who is among those abducted.

“My child didn’t even eat breakfast before leaving. Even his mother fainted. … We were worried, thinking she would die,” Lawal said.

Some villagers like Lawan Yaro, whose five grandchildren are among the abducted, say their hopes are already fading into fear.

People are used to the region’s insecurity, “but it has never been in this manner,” he said.

“We are crying, looking for help from the government and God, but it is the gunmen that will decide to bring the children back,” Yaro said.

“God will help us,” he said.

Since the 2014 abduction in Chibok of 276 schoolgirls, which sparked the global #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign, at least 1,400 Nigerian students have been seized from their schools in similar circumstances. Some are still in captivity including nearly 100 of the Chibok girls.

But schools are not the only targets.

Thousands of people have been abducted across Nigeria in the last year alone, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. The crisis has even hit homes in the capital of Abuja, where President Bola Tinubu took office after being elected last year following a campaign in which he promised to resolve kidnappings.

A major factor that conflict analysts say has fueled the abductions is how easy it is to smuggle in arms over Nigeria’s poorly policed borders. More than half of its 1,500-kilometer border with Niger, for instance, stretches across the northwest. Though mostly savannah, the region also has vast forests that are ungoverned and unoccupied, providing havens for organized gangs and their kidnap victims.

In 2022, Nigerian lawmakers passed a bill to bar ransom payments, but Nigeria’s kidnappers are known for brutality, prodding many families to scramble to pay a ransom.

Fatigued by the 14-year Islamic insurgency in Nigeria’s northeast, the military continues to conduct air raids and special military operations in the region. But the armed gangs continue to grow in numbers and often work with the extremists who are seeking to expand their operations beyond the northeast.

The armed gangs are “adapting their strategies and further entrenching themselves in the northwest through extortion,” said James Barnett, a researcher specializing in West Africa at the U.S.-based Hudson Institute.

“Their mentality is that they should be allowed free rein to do what they please in the northwest and that if the state challenges them, directly or indirectly, they will have to respond and show their strength,” Barnett said.

More than a dozen checkpoints and military trucks now dot the 89-kilometer road that runs from Kuriga town to the city of Kaduna. But the soldiers are likely to soon be deployed elsewhere, whenever a new security incident requires that troops provide a presence.

People in Kuriga can only hope that the schoolchildren return unhurt and that the security they feel now with the military trucks around endures.

“We hope for help from the government so that they will arrest the attackers,” said Hamza, the mother fearful for her five kidnapped children. “The gunmen don’t allow us to farm, they don’t allow us to have peace outside … we don’t have security — no soldier, no police.”
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ABUJA, Nigeria — Armed men broke into a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria early Saturday and seized 15 children as they slept, police told The Associated Press, about 48 hours after nearly 300 students were taken hostage in the conflict-hit region.

School abductions are common in Nigeria’s northern region, especially since the 2014 kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls by Islamic extremists in Borno state’s Chibok village shocked the world. Armed gangs have since targeted schools for kidnap ransoms, resulting in at least 1,400 abducted since then.

The gunmen in the latest attack invaded the Gidan Bakuso village of the Gada council area in Sokoto state about 1 a.m. local time, police said. They headed to the Islamic school where they seized the children from their hostel before security forces could arrive, Sokoto police spokesman Ahmad Rufa’i told the AP.

One woman was also abducted from the village, Rufa’i said, adding that a police tactical squad was deployed to search for the students.

The inaccessible roads in the area, however, challenged the rescue operation, he said.

“It is a remote village (and) vehicles cannot go there; they (the police squad) had to use motorcycles to the village,” he said.

Saturday’s attack was the third mass kidnapping in northern Nigeria since late last week, when more than 200 people, mostly women and children, were abducted by suspected extremists in Borno state. On Thursday, 287 students were also taken hostage from a government primary and secondary school in Kaduna state.

The attacks highlight once again a security crisis that has plagued Africa’s most populous country. Kidnappings for ransom have become lucrative across Nigeria’s northern region, where dozens of armed gangs operate.

No group claimed responsibility for any of the abductions. While Islamic extremists who are waging an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria are suspected of carrying out the kidnapping in Borno state, locals blamed the school kidnappings on herders who had been in conflict with their host communities before taking up arms.

Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima, meanwhile, met with authorities and some parents of the abducted students in Kaduna state Saturday and assured them of efforts by security forces to find the children and rescue them.
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CAIRO — U.S., French and British forces downed dozens of drones in the Red Sea area overnight and Saturday after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis targeted bulk carrier Propel Fortune and U.S. destroyers in the region, the U.S. military said in a statement. 

The Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November in what they say is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.  

The group’s military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech Saturday they had targeted the cargo vessel and “a number of U.S. war destroyers at the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with 37 drones.”  

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said the U.S. military and coalition forces had downed at least 28 uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the Red Sea in the early hours of Saturday. 

“No U.S. or Coalition Navy vessels were damaged in the attack and there were also no reports by commercial ships of damage,” CENTCOM said in a statement. 

Earlier on Saturday, CENTCOM said the military was responding to a large-scale attack on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden between 4 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. (0100-0330 GMT).  

The UAVs were intended to present “an imminent threat to merchant vessels, U.S. Navy, and coalition ships in the region,” it said in a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.  

A French warship and fighter jets also shot down four combat drones that were advancing toward naval vessels belonging to the European Aspides mission in the region, a French army statement said. 

“This defensive action directly contributed to the protection of the cargo ship True Confidence, under the Barbados flag, which was struck on March 6 and is being towed, as well as other commercial vessels transiting in the area,” it said. 

France has a warship in the area as well as warplanes at its bases in Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates. 

Drone attack  

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said its warship HMS Richmond had joined international allies in repelling a Houthi drone attack overnight, saying no injuries or damage were sustained. 

“Last night, HMS Richmond used its Sea Ceptor missiles to shoot down two attack drones — successfully repelling yet another illegal attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis,” defense minister Grant Shapps said on X. 

“The U.K. and our allies will continue to take the action necessary to save lives and protect freedom of navigation.” 

On Wednesday, three seafarers were killed in a missile strike by the Houthis on the Greek-operated True Confidence, the first civilian casualties since the group started its attacks on the key shipping route.  

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) also confirmed there had been an attempted attack on the Singapore-flagged Propel Fortune. 

It said the shipping company reported two explosions in close vicinity of the bulk carrier, but all crew on board were safe and the vessel was proceeding to its next port of call.  

“Based on sources, Propel Fortune was likely targeted due to outdated U.S. ownership data,” UKMTO said in a statement. 

Sarea said the Houthis would continue their attacks “until the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.” 
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DAKAR, Senegal — Presidential candidates in Senegal kicked off their election campaigns Saturday, following weeks of violent protests across the African country after the vote was delayed. 

The 19 approved candidates vying for the top job now have a shorter period to rally supporters ahead of the March 24 election, expected to be the most tightly contested race since Senegal gained independence more than six decades ago. 

The recent violent protests also have raised concerns for a country that used to be seen as a beacon of democratic stability in West Africa, a region plagued by coups and insecurity. 

President Macky Sall, who is prevented from running because of term limits, postponed the election last month, just weeks before it was to take place on February 25. His announcement that the vote would instead be held 10 months from now plunged Senegal into chaos as opposition protests filled the streets. 

Senegal’s highest election authority, the Constitutional Council, rejected Sall’s postponement and ordered the government to set a new date as soon as possible. Government spokesperson Abdou Karim Fofana earlier this week announced the new date. 

Alioune Tine, the founder of the Senegalese think tank Afrikajom Center, said that because of the delay, the candidates with the most financial resources will likely benefit from this shorter window. 

“It’s going to be a hard-fought battle,” said Tine, adding that there is no clear favorite. 

Most of the campaign ahead and the vote itself will take place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when the pious fast from dawn until dusk. Ramadan is expected to begin at sundown Sunday, depending on the sighting of the moon. 

Senegal has a majority Muslim population. 

The front-runners will likely be former Prime Minister Amadou Ba as the ruling party’s choice, and imprisoned Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a lesser-known candidate who gained popularity as the chief of the dissolved PASTEF party. 

Diomaye Faye has been behind bars for nearly a year but is due to be released in time for elections after the president passed a decree to exonerate political prisoners. 

He has stepped in for opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, also in prison and who has been barred from running. In June, Sonko was charged with corrupting youth and sentenced to two years in prison. 

Among the other candidates is a former mayor of Dakar, Khalifa Sall, who is running for the fourth time and another former prime minister, Idrissa Seck. 

The only woman candidate is Anta Babacar Ngom, the head of Sedima, one of the country’s biggest food companies. 
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cairo — A Sudanese paramilitary group battling the country’s military in a nearly yearlong ruinous conflict endorsed Saturday a resolution by the U.N. Security Council calling for a cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. 

The group, known as the Rapid Support Forces, said in a statement that it hopes the resolution, adopted by the U.N. Security Council on Friday, would help deliver humanitarian assistance to millions of Sudanese trapped in the fighting across the Northeastern African country. 

Ramadan, during which adult Muslims are required to fast from dawn to sunset, is expected to start on or around Monday, depending on the sighting of the crescent moon. 

The RSF said it views the initiative as a “crucial opportunity” for the warring parties to embark on negotiations to find a political settlement to the conflict. 

“We view this as a crucial opportunity to initiate earnest discussions that could catalyze a political pathway. This pathway must culminate in a durable cease-fire, foster security and stability, and result in a substantive resolution that addresses the foundational issues of the historical crisis in Sudan,” it said. 

Sudan’s military has already supported a call by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for a Ramadan cease-fire. In his Thursday appeal, Guterres warned that the conflict threatens Sudan’s unity and “could ignite regional instability of dramatic proportions.” 

Sudan plunged into chaos in April last year, when long-simmering tensions between its military, led by General Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo broke into street battles in the capital, Khartoum. The fighting broke out during Ramadan last year. 

Fighting spread to other parts of the country, especially urban areas, but in Sudan’s western Darfur region it took on a different form, with brutal attacks by the Arab-dominated Rapid Support Forces on ethnic African civilians. Thousands of people have been killed. 

The 15-member Security Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of the British-drafted cease-fire resolution, with 14 countries in support and only Russia abstaining. The resolution expressed “grave concern over the spreading violence and the catastrophic and deteriorating humanitarian situation, including crisis levels, or worse, of acute food insecurity, particularly in Darfur.” 

The head of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, said this week that the conflict risks creating the world’s largest hunger crisis, with some 18 million people across Sudan facing acute hunger, including 5 million who face starvation. 

The conflict has uprooted more than 10 million people either to safer areas inside Sudan or to neighboring countries, according to U.N. agencies. South Sudan received 600,000 people who fled the fighting in Sudan. 
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RABAT, Morocco — For years, Fatima Mhattar has welcomed shopkeepers, students, bankers and retirees to Hammam El Majd, a public bath on the outskirts of Morocco’s capital, Rabat. For a handful of change, they relax in a haze of steam then are scrubbed down and rinsed off alongside their friends and neighbors.

The public baths — hammams in Arabic — for centuries have been fixtures of Moroccan life. Inside their domed chambers, men and women, regardless of social class, commune together and unwind. Bathers sit on stone slabs under mosaic tiles, lather with traditional black soap and wash with scalding water from plastic buckets.

But they’ve become the latest casualty as Morocco faces unprecedented threats from climate change and a six-year drought that officials have called disastrous. Cities throughout the North African nation have mandated that hammams close three days a week this year to save water.

Mhattar smiled as she greeted families lugging 10-liter buckets full of towels, sandals and other bath supplies to the hammam where she works as a receptionist on a recent Sunday. But she worried about how restrictions would limit customer volume and cut into her pay.

“Even when it’s open Thursday to Sunday, most of the clients avoid coming because they are afraid it’s full of people,” Mhattar said.

Little rainfall and hotter temperatures have shrunk Morocco’s largest reservoirs, frightening farmers and municipalities that rely on their water. The country is making painful choices while reckoning with climate change and drought.

The decision to place restrictions on businesses including hammams and car washes has angered some. A chorus of hammam-goers and politicians are suggesting the government is picking winners and losers by choosing not to ration water at more upmarket hotels, pools, spas or in the country’s agricultural sector, which consumes the majority of Morocco’s water.

“This measure does not seem to be of great benefit, especially since the (hammam) sector is not considered one of the sectors that consumes the most water,” Fatima Zahra Bata, a member of Morocco’s House of Representatives, asked Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit in written questions last month.

Bata asked why officials in many municipalities had carved out exceptions for spas, which are typically used by wealthier people and tourists. She warned that hammam closures would “increase the fragility and suffering of this class, whose monthly income does not exceed 2,000 or 3,000 dirhams at best.” Hammam workers make an amount equivalent to $200 to $300.

Laftit has not yet responded, and his office did not respond to questions from The Associated Press.

The closures affect the roughly 200,000 people directly or indirectly employed in the hammam sector, which accounts for roughly 2% of the country’s total water consumption, according to Morocco’s national statistics agency.

Hammams have been closed in cities including Casablanca, Tangier and Beni Mellal since the interior minister, asked local officials to enact water-saving measures earlier this year. With the price of heating gas high and temperatures dropping, the closures have raised particular concern in towns high in the Atlas Mountains where people go to hammams to warm up.

Mustapha Baradine, a carpenter in Rabat, likes to enjoy hammams with his family weekly and doesn’t understand how the modest amount of water he uses is consequential in a drought. For him, the closures have fostered resentment and raised questions about wealth, poverty and political power.

“I use only two buckets of water for me and my children,” he said. “I did not like this decision at all. It would be better if they would empty their pools,” he said of local officials.

Morocco has reduced the prevalence of poverty in recent years, but income inequality continues to plague both rural and urban areas. Despite rapid economic development in certain sectors, protests have historically arisen among working class people over disparities and rising costs of living.

Morocco’s neighbors have chosen to ration water in varying ways. In Tunisia, entire neighborhoods had their taps shut off for several hours each day last year. In part of Spain, communities were prohibited last summer from washing cars, filling swimming pools and watering gardens.

Fatima Fedouachi, the president of a hammam owners’ association in Casablanca, said the closures had changed the economics of operating a hammam. Though hammam associations have yet to publish statistics on layoffs or lost revenue, they have warned about the effect on owners, chimney technicians and receptionists.

“Owners are obligated to perform their duties for their workers,” Fedouachi said.

Even on days when they’re closed, Fedouachi said, most hammams continue burning wood to keep the baths warm rather than let them cool off and heat them again. Owners would prefer rationing for certain hours each day instead of being forced to close, she added.

Some hammam-goers say the closures appear to be raising awareness of drought, regardless of how much they save. Regulars like 37-year-old housekeeper Hanane El Moussaid support that nationwide push.

“If there’s less water, I prefer drinking over going to the hammam,” El Moussaid said.
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united nations — The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution Friday calling for a Ramadan cease-fire in Sudan, where the U.N. secretary-general warned this week that the humanitarian crisis has reached “colossal proportions.”  

“With the adoption of this resolution, the council has sent a strong and clear message to Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces to agree an immediate cessation of hostilities during the month of Ramadan,” said British Deputy Ambassador James Kariuki, whose delegation drafted the text.  

The Muslim holy month starts early next week and lasts about 30 days. 

“This follows the call of the secretary-general and the African Union,” Kariuki said. “We urge the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to act on this united international call for peace and to silence the guns.” 

The U.S. envoy Robert Wood condemned atrocities committed by both sides in the nearly year-old war. 

“This tragedy has gone on too long,” he said. “We must unite to prevent and stop the flow of weapons that is fueling this conflict.”   

The resolution, adopted by a vote of 14 council members in favor, none against and Russia abstaining, calls for “an immediate cessation of hostilities during the month of Ramadan, and for all parties to the conflict to seek a sustainable resolution to the conflict through dialogue.” It also calls on them to remove any obstructions to the distribution of humanitarian aid. 

It was not immediately clear whether the parties to the conflict would heed the cease-fire call. 

A day earlier, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for a Ramadan cease-fire, saying it is time for rival generals there to lay down their weapons. 

“This cessation of hostilities must lead to a definitive silencing of the guns across the country and set out a firm path towards lasting peace for the Sudanese people,” Guterres said.  

Fighting erupted in April of last year between the forces of Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The two generals were once allies in Sudan’s transitional government after a 2021 coup but became rivals for power.  

The ensuing power struggle has led to thousands of deaths, a massive displacement crisis and large-scale atrocities, particularly against non-Arab communities in the country’s Darfur region. Hunger is also reaching catastrophic levels, and the U.N. has received reports of children dying from malnutrition.   

Humanitarian catastrophe   

Humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told reporters Friday that a pause in fighting would be welcome. 

“If that goes through and if it is observed by both sides, I can assure you we will be piling in the aid — pre-positioning [aid], repairing institutions, getting children out to safety, and so forth.”   

The humanitarian operation is woefully underfunded. The U.N. has appealed for $2.7 billion for Sudan this year, and Griffiths said it is only 4% funded. 

The U.N. says about 25 million people — half of Sudan’s population — need some form of humanitarian assistance. Of them, 18 million face acute food insecurity — 10 million more than a year ago.    

“Ten million Sudanese have become food insecure because of this conflict that should never have started,” Griffiths said. 

Sudan is now home to the world’s largest internal displacement crisis, with 6.3 million people forced from their homes in search of safety. Another 1.7 million have fled to neighboring countries. More than 70% of health facilities in areas where there is fighting have stopped functioning.   
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Abuja, Nigeria — Nigeria’s constitution is getting a revamp, and this time a committee tasked with the responsibility says women’s inclusion in political offices is a priority.

Women hold a tiny fraction of the seats in Nigeria’s National Assembly. Three of the 109 senators and 15 of the 360 members in the House of Representatives are female.

The chair of the House constitution review committee, Benjamin Kalu, spoke this week during a dialogue with women-centered and pro-democracy groups ahead of International Women’s Day on Friday.

Kalu said the ongoing review of the constitution will address gender imbalance in Nigeria’s politics. He also said the 10th National Assembly will revisit gender bills that failed to progress during the previous administration.

In 2022, Nigerian women advocated for five bills to promote inclusion and women’s representation in parliament — including one bill that would reserve 35% of political seats for women.

None of bills received enough support to win passage in the male-dominated parliament, leading to protests.

Cynthia Mbamalu, a program director at YIAGA Africa, one of the groups advocating for gender bills, said structural challenges, patriarchal norms and biased systems put limits on women who want to run for office.

“The numbers are still poor,” she said. “We still have 11 or so state assemblies where there are no women, and some of those states have not had a female legislator since 1999, when we [transitioned] to democracy. As long as we don’t have [a] constitutional mandate that opens up the space to increase women representation, we’ll constantly struggle with a male dominated National Assembly.”

Despite Africa recording an increase in female political participation in recent years, women’s representation in Nigerian politics is among the lowest in the world, at about 4%.

In last year’s general elections, fewer women won seats in office despite an increased number of candidates from various political parties.

Mbamalu said lawmakers need to take the new constitutional review seriously for equity and democracy to succeed.

“One of the indicators to assess our development and the presence of democracy is about how inclusive your government is,” she said. “I want to believe that the 10th Assembly will act differently — will put its name in history.”

The recommendations of the constitution review committee will be subject to votes in parliament.
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