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Ghanaians voted in an election seen as a close fight between President Nana Akufo-Addo and his longtime rival John Mahama, in a country long viewed a beacon of stability in a troubled region.
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
Ghanaians poured praise on their former leader Jerry Rawlings who died on Thursday. Many eulogized him as a patriot and a democrat.
President Nana Akufo-Addo ordered flags around the country to fly at half-mast, to mark seven days of national mourning from Friday.
It is with great sadness that I learnt of the passing of former president Jerry Rawlings of Ghana. Africa has lost a stalwart of Pan-Africanism and a charismatic continental statesman. My sincere condolences to his family, the people and the government of #Ghana
— Moussa Faki Mahamat (@AUC_MoussaFaki) November 12, 2020
Announcement of the death of former President Rawlings pic.twitter.com/7ext0fp4sd
— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) November 12, 2020
Watch our report:
Elections generally have become a key fixture on the African news calendar and the year 2020 was no different.
West Africa has undertaken a number of key presidential votes that seen incumbents being retained – some under very tense circumstances. Two other polls are awaited in the region – Ghana and Niger; December 7 and 27 respectively.
As part of our 2020 review, we look back at some of the major elections that took place in the region. The review metrics shall be the significance of the vote, the main candidates, major issues, the final outcome and the poll aftermath.
The piece is the concluding part of our election review and focuses on polls in Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Togo.
Togo re-elects Faure
Togo held Africa’s first presidential vote in February, just in time before the disruption of COVID-19 which forced other countries to postpone or consider postponing their elections.
The February 22 poll was the first since constitutional reforms capped the presidential term limits. The new legislation means that incumbent Faure Gnassingbe could run for two more terms (2020 – 2030).
Two days after the vote, he was declared winner of the vote at a time opposition said it was contesting the process and outcome. The elections body announced that the president had won 72 percent of the vote in the first round.
The body added that main contender and former Prime Minister, Agbeyome Kodjo, came in second with just 18 percent of votes. The president was subsequently sworn into office at a social distanced event in the capital Lome.
Guinea’s busy, bustling election year
Guinea conducted three different votes this year. A referendum on extending presidential term limits, a partial legislative poll and a presidential poll. The referendum was passed amid tension and widespread opposition protest. That set the tone for the equally bloody presidential poll as opposition protesters clashed with security forces.
At the end of the vote, President Alpha Conde was declared winner with 59.49% of the vote, defeating his main rival Cellou Diallo. Diallo received 33.50% of the vote, the electoral commission said. Voter turnout was almost 80%.
Political tensions in the West African nation turned violent after Diallo claimed victory ahead of the official results. Celebrations by his supporters were suppressed when security forces fired tear gas to disperse them.
Ouattara pushes ahead with third term
Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara was on his way out of the presidency until his Prime Minister and candidate of the ruling party Amadou Gon Coulibaly died.
Then the president reversed his quit promise. The consequence of which was an opposition mobilization against his candidature. Clashes with security forces did little to deter Ouattara who had been cleared with three others to run in the October 31 poll.
Days to the vote, main opposition candidates ex-president Henri Konan Bedie and ex-prime minister Pascal Affi N’guessan announced a boycott of the vote. Ouattara press
During the lean season in June and August, more than 21 million people across West Africa \"will struggle to feed themselves\", she explained, adding Gambia and Benin to the list of countries in need.
\"An additional 20 million people could struggle to feed themselves due to the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 in the next six months, doubling the number of food-insecure to 43 million in this region\", the WFP official added.
Highest forced displacement in Africa
Highlighting people's vulnerabilities, Babar Baloch from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), described West and central Africa as \"one of largest displacement situations in Africa…we are talking about 5.6 million internally displaced people, more than 1.3 million refugees and 1.6 million stateless.\"
The UN refugee agency has repeatedly called for greater support for increasing numbers of people forced to flee for their lives amid renewed conflict in West Africa's turbulent Sahel and Lake Chad region.
On Monday, the agency condemned attacks on 2 May on Malian refugees in Burkina Faso – \"reportedly by the country's security forces\", in Mentao refugee camp in which at least 32 people were injured.
Officials from the UN, West Africa and the African Union (AU) have met an influential Muslim cleric behind demonstrations against Mali's beleaguered president, the coalition behind the protests said on Monday.
Tens of thousands of people joined a rally in Bamako last Friday to demand the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was re-elected in 2018 for a second five-year term.
The alliance which organised the protests said \"a delegation from the international community met Imam (Mahmoud) Dicko\" on Sunday.
Its members came from the UN's peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA; the AU; and the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), a 15-nation bloc that includes Mali, it said in a statement.
MINUSMA spokesperson Olivier Salgado said the head of the peacekeeping mission, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, \"along with representatives from regional organisations, met certain organisers (of Friday's rally) but also with representatives of national authorities... to find ways of renewing dialogue.\"
Confirmed cases = 11,964
\t\tNumber of deaths = 54
\t\tRecoveries = 4,258
\t\tActive cases = 7,652
\t
\tJohn Hopkins Uni stats valid as of June 14, 2020
June 13: 11,118 cases, NDC advocates mass testing
\tGhana’s case load as of this morning stood at 11,118 cases with the disclosure of 262 new cases.
June 10: Cases pass 10,000 mark as rapid test kit makers advance
\tGhana reached 10,000 mark in terms of confirmed cases on Tuesday (June 9); the case load reached 10,201 with deaths still at 48, 3,755 recoveries and 6,398 active cases.
“The app will basically work well with the rapid test kit because once classified as high risk you need to test the person,” he said, stressing the need for mass testing given that Ghana had entered community transmission stage of virus spread.
Total confirmed cases = 9,910
Total recoveries = 3,645
Total deaths = 48
Active cases = 6,217
June 8: 9,638 cases, govt evacuation plans
\tGovernment has confirmed that it was preparing to evacuate some Ghanaians stranded overseas due to the COVID-19 disruption.
Total confirmed cases = 9,638
Total recoveries = 3,636
Total deaths = 44
Active cases = 5,958
\tFigures valid as of close of day June 7, 2020
June 7: 9,462 cases, deaths hit 44
\tThe Managing Director of a major private health care facility in the capital Accra reported testing positive for the virus.
This West African nation on the Gulf of Guinea, between Togo on the west and Nigeria on the east, is about the size of Tennessee. It is bounded by Burkina Faso and Niger on the north. The land consists of a narrow coastal strip that rises to a swampy, forested plateau and then to highlands in the north. A hot and humid climate blankets the entire country.
Republic under a multiparty democratic rule.
The Abomey kingdom of the Dahomey, or Fon, peoples was established in 1625. A rich cultural life flourished, and Dahomeys wooden masks, bronze statues, tapestries, and pottery are world renowned. One of the smallest and most densely populated regions in Africa, Dahomey was annexed by the French in 1893 and incorporated into French West Africa in 1904. It became an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958, and on Aug. 1, 1960, Dahomey was granted its independence within the Community.
Gen. Christophe Soglo deposed the first president, Hubert Maga, in an army coup in 1963. He dismissed the civilian government in 1965, proclaiming himself chief of state. A group of young army officers seized power in Dec. 1967, deposing Soglo. In Dec. 1969, Benin had its fifth coup of the decade, with the army again taking power. In May 1970, a three-man presidential commission with a six-year term was created to take over the government. In May 1972, yet another army coup ousted the triumvirate and installed Lt. Col. Mathieu Kérékou as president. Between 1974 and 1989 Dahomey embraced socialism, and changed its name to the Peoples Republic of Benin. The name Benin commemorates an African kingdom that flourished from the 15th to the 17th century in what is now southwest Nigeria. In 1990, Benin abandoned Marxist ideology, began moving toward multiparty democracy, and changed its name again, to the Republic of Benin.
By the end of the 1980s, Benins economy was near collapse. As its oil boom ended, Nigeria expelled 100,000 Beninese migrant workers and closed the border with Benin. Kérékous socialist collectivization of
Voting has started in Ghana's tense presidential and parliamentary elections, in which more than 17 million people are eligible to vote.
The race is expected to be a close fight between incumbent Nana Akufo-Addo, 76, of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and longtime opponent John Mahama, 62, of the National Democratic Congress party (NDC).
It is their third-time running against each other.
They signed a symbolic peace pact on Friday but Ghana has long been a beacon of stability in West Africa and has ensured peaceful transfers of power on seven occasions since it returned to democracy nearly 30 years ago.
There are a total of 12 candidates running, including three women.
In view of the happenings on the continent, and, indeed in West Africa, the entire world is looking up to us to maintain our status as a beacon of democracy, peace and stability,\" Akufo-Addo said in a televised address on Sunday evening.
Voters will cast their ballots for a new president and members of parliament for 275 constituencies between 7:00 am and 5:00 pm at 38,000 polling stations across the nation.
Key issues include unemployment, infrastructure, education and health.
The incumbent has been given high marks for his handling of the pandemic and his record on free education and improving access to electricity.
But he has disappointed some in his performance on tackling graft -- the key issue on which he was elected four years ago.
Despite this, corruption is a difficult issue for Mahama to latch onto, as he himself left office under a cloud of graft allegations.
Mahama has also been criticised for poor economic decisions and racking up unsustainable debts.
Ghana has made giant strides over the past two decades, becoming the world's second-largest cocoa-producing country, but many still live in extreme poverty with scarce access to clean water or electricity.
Hit hard by the pandemic, growth in the nation of 30 million people is expected to fall this year to its lowest in three decades, to 0.9 percent according to the International Monetary Fund, a steep decline from 6.5 percent growth in 2019.
Mali on Saturday pledged to investigate claims that the army killed dozens of civilians in its conflict-riven centre, as complaints about the military's conduct in the West African nation escalate.
Some 30 people were killed and a village burnt in the region, officials said, but it was unclear who was behind the latest violence.
Friday's attack targeted a Fulani village named Binedama in the volatile Mopti region, said Aly Barry, an official from Tabital Pulaaku, a Fulani association.
Two other local officials confirmed the attack to AFP, but gave a lower death toll of 26, adding that the village was torched and its chief killed.
Tabital Pulaaku, however, accused Malian soldiers of being responsible but AFP was unable to independently confirm this claim.
Slightly larger than Colorado, Burkina Faso, formerly known as Upper Volta, is a landlocked country in West Africa. Its neighbors are Côte dIvoire, Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, and Ghana. The country consists of extensive plains, low hills, high savannas, and a desert area in the north.
Parliamentary.
Burkina Faso was originally inhabited by the Bobo, Lobi, and Gurunsi peoples, with the Mossi and Gurma peoples immigrating to the region in the 14th century. The lands of the Mossi empire became a French protectorate in 1897, and by 1903 France had subjugated the other ethnic groups. Called Upper Volta by the French, it became a separate colony in 1919, was partitioned among Niger, the Sudan, and Côte dIvoire in 1932, and was reconstituted in 1947. An autonomous republic within the French Community, Upper Volta became independent on Aug. 5, 1960.
President Maurice Yameogo was deposed on Jan. 3, 1966, by a military coup led by Col. Sangoulé Lamizana, who dissolved the national assembly and suspended the constitution. Constitutional rule returned in 1978 with the election of an assembly and a presidential vote in June in which Gen. Lamizana won by a narrow margin over three other candidates.
On Nov. 25, 1980, Col. Sayé Zerbo led a bloodless coup that toppled Lamizana. In turn, Maj. Jean-Baptist Ouedraogo ousted Zerbo on Nov. 7, 1982. But the real revolutionary change occurred the following year when a 33-year-old flight commander, Thomas Sankara, took control. A Marxist-Leninist, he challenged the traditional Mossi chiefs, advocated womens liberation, and allied the country with North Korea, Libya, and Cuba. To sever ties to the colonial past, Sankara changed the name of the country in 1984 to Burkina Faso, which combines two of the nations languages and means “the land of upright men.”
While Sankaras investments in schools, food production, and clinics brought some improvement in living standards, foreign investment declined, many businesses left the country, and unhappy labor unions began strikes. On Oct. 15,
More than a million African soldiers served in colonial armies in World War II.
May 8, 1945, marks the 75th anniversary of the surrender of the German armed forces and the end of the Second World War in Europe.
More than a million Africans served as combatants as well as war workers and carriers in World War II for the colonial powers - more than half enlisted by Britain with the rest serving France and Belgium.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Allied landing in Provence in southern France, President Emmanuel Macron expressed gratitude for the contribution of African soldiers in defeating the German forces occupying France.
Senegalese writer and filmmaker Ousmane Sembene, himself a former colonial soldier, put it like this in a 2015 interview with DW: \"In war, we saw the white men naked and we have not forgotten that picture.\"
[UN News] It will take a variety of different actors to confront and deal with the \"daunting challenges\" in the Sahel region, the head of UN peacekeeping told the Security Council on Monday.
Following the introduction of cattle into the Caribbean in 1493, during Christopher Columbus’s second voyage, cattle ranching proliferated along a series of frontiers across the grasslands of North and South America. While historians have recognized that Africans and their descendants were involved in the establishment of those ranching frontiers, the emphasis has been on their labor rather than their creative participation. In his recent book, Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500-1900, historian Andrew Sluyter explores their creative contributions. In the article below he describes one such contribution, the balde sin fondo (bottomless bucket) and its role in cattle ranching on the Pampas of Argentina.
Africans did not play a creative role in establishing cattle ranching on the Pampas during colonial times. Yet by the early 1800s the presence of enslaved and free people from Senegambia (present-day Senegal and Gambia) on ranches resulted in the introduction of an African water-lifting device: the bottomless bucket, or balde sin fondo. With victory over Spain in 1818, Argentinean independence, and the opening of new export markets for livestock products, ranching expanded across the vast Pampas grasslands, and new practices dramatically changed the colonial herding ecology. Africans played a particularly creative role in a key aspect of that transformation, the supplying of drinking water to the herds as they expanded into pastures distant from major perennial streams. That challenge was familiar to Senegambian herders who had to supply water during the long drive southward from the fringes of the Sahara to the banks of the Senegal and Gambia rivers as the rains ended and the vegetation of the Sahel turned from green to brown.
The bottomless bucket provided the solution before windmills rendered it obsolete in the early twentieth century. The bottomless bucket lifted water from wells with the labor of a single person, even a child, on a horse. Observers at the time
The country with the continent’s most developed economy also has its highest number of confirmed infections — more than 21,000, representing 20% of Africa’s total.
The lockdown that began March 27 in South Africa is increasing tensions in Soweto, said Dlamini, who closed her tourism business.
Five weeks into the lockdown, South Africa began a gradual easing on May 1, allowing selected mines, factories and businesses to reopen with up to 30% of employees.
South Africa is still a long way from full economic activity, and further easing will be determined by the spread of the disease and hospitalizations.
South Africa is rated as one of the world’s most unequal countries, and the president has said in his evening addresses to the nation that his response to the pandemic aims to build a more equitable country.
Africa breached the 200,000 mark on June 10 according to the AU’s Africa Centers for Disease Control, which at the time reported that there were 203,899 cases along with 5,530 deaths and 91,398 recoveries.
VIDEO
May 22: Cases pass 100,000 mark
\tConfirmed cases of coronavirus across Africa passed the 100,000 mark barely 24-hours after the deaths hit 3,000.
The five most impacted nations were as follows:
\t\tSouth Africa: 19,137 confirmed cases
\t\tEgypt: 15,003
\t\tAlgeria: 7,728
\t\tMorocco: 7,300
\t\tNigeria: 7,016
\tSouth Africa is the most impact across the continent and in the southern African region.
April 18: Cases across Africa pass 20,000 mark
\tConfirmed cases of coronavirus passed the 20,000 mark barely 24-hours after the deaths topped 1,000.
Additional files on UNECA report from AP
April 17: Africa’s coronavirus deaths pass 1,000 mark as cases approach 20,000
\tAfrica’s coronavirus deaths have surpassed the 1,000 mark according to tallies by the john Hopkins University.
The Faith Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut began in 1819 as a place for African Americans to worship on their own since they were previously only able to worship in the backs of churches and in church galleries in that city. A group of African Americans began worshipping in the conference room of the First Church of Christ in Hartford, Connecticut, which is now known as Center Church. This congregation moved to a building on State Street in 1820 and formed the first black Congregational Church in Connecticut and the third oldest in the nation. The church initially called itself the African American Religious Society of Hartford and vowed to create a place of worship where there would be no assigned seating and where anyone was welcome to worship. The congregation purchased property in 1826 where it built a stone-and-brick church on the corner of Talcott and Market Streets.
By the 1830s with the rise of the New England abolitionist movement, the church building became an anti-slavery meetinghouse. Popular lecturers spoke at the church in support of abolition, including Rev. Henry Highland Garnet and Arnold Buffman, former president of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. James Pennington, an early church minister and abolitionist, was himself a fugitive slave from Maryland. Rev. Pennington and his congregation became supporters of the Amistad slave case in neighboring New Haven in 1839-1840 and fought for the release of the captured men, women, and children and their return to West Africa. The church also raised funds for the captives’ legal defense.
The church established a school in 1840, which served as the only place in Hartford where black children could obtain an education at that time. That same year, the congregation changed its name to First Hartford Colored Congregational Church. In 1860, another name change took place; the church became the Talcott Street Congregational Church and had several pastors until Rev. Robert F. Wheeler aided in the church’s stability and growing membership
Afro-Latin Americans or Black Latin Americans refers to Latin American people of significant African ancestry. The term may also refer to historical or cultural elements in Latin America thought to have emanated from this community.[20]
The term Afro-Latin American refers specifically to people of African ancestry and not to European ancestry, such as Sub-Alpine European white.[21] [22] The term is not widely used in Latin America outside academic circles. Normally Afro-Latin Americans are called black (Spanish: negro; Portuguese: negro or preto; French: nègre or noir). More commonly, when referring to cultural aspects of African origin within specific countries of Latin America, terms carry an Afro- prefix followed by the relevant nationality. Notable examples include Afro-Cuban,[23] Afro-Brazilian,[24] and Afro-Haitian.[25]
The accuracy of statistics reporting on Afro-Latin Americans has been questioned, especially where they are derived from census reports in which the subjects choose their own designation, because in various countries the concept of African ancestry is viewed with differing attitudes.[24] [26]
In the 15th and 16 centuries, many people of African origin arrived in the Americas with the Spanish and Portuguesese. Pedro Alonso Niño, traditionally considered the first of many New World explorers of African descent[27] was a navigator in the 1492 Columbus expedition. Those who were directly from West Africa mostly arrived in Latin America as part of the Atlantic slave trade, as agricultural, domestic, and menial laborers and as mineworkers. They were also employed in mapping and exploration (for example, Estevanico) and were even involved in conquest (for example, Juan Valiente.) The Caribbean and Latin America received 95 percent of the Africans arriving in the Americas with only 5 percent going to Northern America.[28] [29] [30] [31]
Countries with significant African, Mulatto, or Zambo populations today include Brazil (57 million, if including the pardo Brazilian population with Mulatto
Total confirmed cases = 7,768
Total recoveries = 2,540
Total deaths = 35
Active cases = 5,193
May 28: 7,303 cases, voter register brouhaha continues
\tCompilation of a new voters register will proceed according to the Electoral Commission, EC; despite a fightback from the main opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC.
Total confirmed cases = 7,303 (new cases = 186)
Total recoveries = 2,414
Total deaths = 34
Active cases = 4,857
\tFigures valid as of close of day May 27, 2020
May 27: Accra case count pass 5,000; MP infection controversy
\tThe case count passed 7,000 when an additional 309 cases were reported.
Total confirmed cases = 7,117 (new cases = 309)
Total recoveries = 2,317
Active cases = 4,766
\tFigures valid as of close of day May 26, 2020
May 26: 6,808 cases, further easing of restrictions expected
\tA major religious group is advocating a phased lifting of remaining restrictions in the country.
Total confirmed cases = 6,617 (new cases = 131)
Total recoveries = 1,978 (new = 27)
Total deaths = 31
\tFigures valid as of May 21, 2020
May 22: 6,486 cases, NDC jabs EC
\tMain opposition NDC continued their collision with the elections body over the compilation of a new voters register ahead of December 2020 polls.
Total confirmed cases = 6,269 (new cases = 173)
Total recoveries = 1,898 (new = 125)
Active cases = 4,340
May 20: Cases pass 6,000 mark, govt eyes COVID-Organics
\tGhana’s case count passed 6,000 mark reaching 6,096 on Tuesday according to tallies released by the Ghana Health Service.
THE ruling Zanu PF has failed to deal with Zimbabwe’s multifaceted crisis as the socio-economic situation continues to deteriorate since 2018 elections, a survey has shown.
According to a report on citizens’ perceptions and expectations titled Dancing on the Same Spot by SIVIO Institute, an independent organisation focused on ensuring that citizens are at the centre of processes of economic-political-social and policy change, the socio-economic crisis has worsened with no prospects of a turnaround in the immediate future.
It noted that the opposition MDC Alliance has also failed to deliver on its promises in local authorities they run, but added that the opposition party has continuously shifted the blame on Zanu PF, accusing the governing party of interference.
We have been tracking how the promises made by Zanu PF during the elections have been converted into policy programmes,” the report read.
This government still has a lot of work to convince its own citizens and also the international community that they are actually about reforms and turning around the fortunes of the countries,” the report read.
The first term of Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina as the president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) came to an end in May 2020, he is also due for re-election for a second term.
While the cost to income ratio of the bank is 41 per cent, the comparable figure for the World Bank is 113 per cent, meaning the African Development Bank(AfDB) is three times more efficient on its administrative costs compared to the World Bank.
The African Development Bank(AfDB), launched the Africa Investment Forum in 2018, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The bank's High 5 strategic priorities: Light up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialise Africa; Integrate Africa; and Improve the quality of life of the people of Africa, have been acclaimed globally as the key for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa and the Agenda 2063 of the African Union.
Following the approval of GCI-7, bank expects to help African countries to achieve the following development results in the next 8 years:105 million people would get access to electricity, 204 million people would benefit from improved access to agricultural technologies to achieve food security,23 million people would benefit from investee private sector companies,252 million people would gain access to improved transportservices, and
128 million people would benefit from improved water and sanitation.
