Yemen: Saudis put al-Huthi on list of terrorist organisations

Saudi Arabia issued a list of terrorist organisations on 6 March which includes the obvious suspects such as Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula but also al-Huthi and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The Saudis have made clear that the banning of the MB is not directed at Islah, even though it is well known that the MB is part of that party. The naming of al-Huthi follows the approval of a new law on terrorism under which a special committee was set up to designate terrorist groups.

Riyadh has long regarded al-Huthi as hostile and fought al-Huthi fighters in 2009 and 2010. However, in the past three years the border has been quiet and both sides have avoided provocations. The Saudis have little doubt that al-Huthi is supported by Iran and the Lebanese Hizbollah and thus regarded as hostile. Riyadh will have been disturbed by the rapid rise in al- Huthi power in Yemen and the challenge this poses to some of Saudi Arabia’s traditional friends in the non-MB part of Islah. It is not clear if the al-Huthi political party, Ansar Allah, is affected.

Abd al-Malik al-Huthi blames the US, as usual, for the Saudi action, which he presented as taken precipitately and suggested that the Saudis might want to reconsider the situation. 

Saudi Arabia suspended its economic support to Yemen in late 2013, claiming that it wanted to encourage the politicians to agree on a way forward. The Saudi expulsion of Yemeni illegal migrants (within a general crackdown on illegals) has inflamed anti-Saudi opinion in Yemen.

Whether the Saudis have the will and capacity to turn the banning of al-Huthi into action against the movement in Yemen is moot.

Some Yemeni politicians are concerned about the rift within the GCC between Saudi Arabia and the UAE on one hand and Qatar on the other, mostly over Qatar’s backing for the MB. Qatar played a leading role in attempts in the late 2000s to mediate between the government and al-Huthi leaders and is the main financier, so far, of the fund to address southern grievances.

For more news and expert analysis about Yemen, please see Yemen Focus.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Ghana: Ecobank CEO sacked

Ghana's Albert Essien has been appointed as the new CEO of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, after a special 11 March meeting of the executive board in Cameroon sacked Thierry Tanoh. This follows nine months of turmoil, with mounting criticism of the governance standards under Tanoh's management.

The board also reinstated the Finance Director Laurence do Rego, who had alerted regional regulators about the abuses at the bank. Tanoh sacked Do Rego in January but was ordered to reinstate her immediately by Nigeria's Security and Exchange Commission; he chose to ignore the directive.

Tanoh survived Ecobank shareholders’ extraordinary general meeting in Lome on 3 March. But opposition to his continuing leadership of the bank was growing, with calls from both senior Ecobank officials and major shareholders, including South Africa’s state-owned Public Investment Corporation, for Tanoh to step down. South Africa’s Nedbank said that Tanoh’s tenure has made it question whether to convert Ecobank indebtedness into Ecobank stock later this year.

Details of the high-tension board meeting aside - other than noting that Ecobank will keep a 12-member board rather than institute a seven-member interim board, and amend its articles of association to limit certain transactions exceeding a specified portion of the bank’s “book” value - the Ecobank saga is also notable because of the significant pan-African or South African influence in affairs.

The Ecobank matter illustrates how African investors can pressure major operators such as the pan-African Ecobank. As well as South African pressure, Nigeria's SEC investigated governance matters in the bank with the help of KPMG auditors and played a key role in easing out both Tanoh and his ally, the former chairman Kolapo Lawson, who resigned late last year. 

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

US human rights report criticises both Boko Haram and Nigerian military

Neither the Boko Haram insurgency nor the government itself escaped lightly in the new Country Report on Human Rights practices for 2013 just published by the United States State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour. 

Boko Haram - "which conducted killings, bombings, abduction and rape of women, and other attacks throughout the country, resulting in numerous deaths, injuries, and widespread destruction of property" - came in for first criticism. But the report gave over plenty of column inches for the security services, "which perpetrated extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, beatings, arbitrary detention, mistreatment of detainees, and destruction of property." 

President Goodluck Jonathan's pardon of former Bayelsa State governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who was convicted of money laundering in 2007, did not escape the attention of the report's authors. Indeed, the report was harshly critical of the small number of prosecutions against police abuse and official corruption. "Impunity remained widespread at all levels of government." The report also condemned the practice of "parading" arrestees: "Bystanders often hurled taunts, food, and other objects. Police defended this practice with the argument that public humiliation helped deter crime." 

It is a common practice. In the past week, reports appeared in the media of the parading of 13 suspected members of the "Supreme Eiye Confraternity", arrested in Lagos. In Cross Rivers State the commander of the NNS Victory arrested and paraded a dozen people who were allegedly transporting contraband worth millions of naira. While the arrests might win plaudits for the authorities, it looks like a clear violation of due process for the arrested persons whose names and photos appear in the media before they have come to trial. 

On a more positive note, the State Department researchers found that there were few reports of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) being used to harass political opponents of the ruling party. "Existing allegations tended to rise and fall with election cycles," the report dryly noted, leaving open the possibility that new accusations will appear as the 2015 elections approach. 

Other events were too recent to appear in the report. It said that "on 17 December a harmonized version of the 'Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill' passed the Senate." That bill, signed into law by President Jonathan in January 2014, triggered fresh round-ups of gays and lesbians and provoked international condemnation. It will be sure to feature more prominently in the 2014 report.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Egypt: New government meets for first time to deal with strikes

Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb appealed to Egyptians’ sense of patriotism to go back to work and to call off their strikes which are crippling the national economy.

The labour unrest, however, is largely the making of government measures introduced over the past three years allied to the sense of people-power acquired since the protests started three years ago. Successive governments have sought to mollify public opinion by granting wage increases to public sector workers which are not sustainable, given the dire state of government finances. Furthermore, the increases have not been universally applied, with the police and army getting a higher increase and some workers, particularly in the transport sector, deemed ineligible for the minimum wage.

The prime minister promised to look into the demands of protesters, but it is unclear what he can propose to meet their grievances.

Those who have been on strike include bus drivers, postal workers, doctors, pharmacists and workers in the steel and textile industries. According to media reports, negotiations between the minister of communications and postal workers broke down when the minister said that there was not enough money to pay the workers what they were asking for.

The difficult economic conditions have been exacerbated by power cuts caused by a shortfall in the production and supply of natural gas to meet demand, rising at 8-10% a year.

Security challenges are also dampening economic activity. The tourism minister flew to Berlin for the major travel trade show and also to try to persuade the German authorities to reverse their advisory on citizens to avoid all of the Sinai Peninsula. The Egyptian authorities have sought to isolate Sharm el Sheikh and other resorts from the violence that has afflicted other parts of the peninsula, but the German government was unwilling to see the distinction.

For more news and expert analysis about Egypt, please see Egypt Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Saadi Qadhafi extradited to Libya

Saadi Qadhafi, the third son of Libya’s deposed dictator Muammar Qadhafi, was extradited early today from neighbouring Niger back to Libya. According to a statement posted on the government’s official Facebook page, Saadi is currently being held in the high-security Hadaba Prison in Tripoli.

"The Libyan Government thanks the President of the Republic of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, we also thank the Niger Government and the people of Niger for their cooperation with the Libyan Government in pledging its commitment to the treatment of the accused on the principles of justice and international norms in dealing with prisoners. God save Libya.”

Unofficial pictures were also released by the government-backed militia holding the businessman and former professional footballer, allegedly showing Saadi dressed in a blue prison uniform having his head shaved. There is a high likelihood that he will face the death penalty.

Libya has been seeking his extradition since he fled to Niger in the wake of the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted his father. Niamey had previously refused to hand over Saadi around the time of the first anniversary of the February uprising because they feared he would be executed if he returned to Libya. A government spokesperson for the Nigerien authorities, Marou Amadou, said that it would only extradite Saadi “to a government which has an independent and impartial justice system”.

Following this request from Tripoli, Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou said any extradition requests would be viewed on strict legal merits alone, without referring specifically to the Saadi case. He had originally been granted asylum in November 2011 on humanitarian grounds, shortly after Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with allegations of forcefully misappropriated property and armed intimidation when he was head of the Libyan Football Federation. As a member of the ICC, Niger was obliged to extradite Qadhafi.

Saadi’s extradition is a real coup for the Libyan authorities. He was one of the most hated figures in the Qadhafi regime and arguably the most disliked of all Qadhafi’s sons. He had a reputation for being exceptionally brutal and is remembered in Benghazi particularly for his bulldozing of the Al-Ahli SC (Benghazi) stadium in an act of revenge after his football team, Al-Ahli SC (Tripoli), lost to the opposing side.

There is likely to be ongoing jubilation in Libya at the news. Congress is congratulating the families of the martyrs and the revolutionaries and is thanking Niger. This will serve as a reminder to a deeply troubled country of why they launched the uprising in the first place. 

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Ghana: NPP internal election chaos continues

The NPP’s election vetting committee has allowed businessman and founding member of the NPP, Paul Afoko, to continue campaigning to run for the party’s national chairmanship, but continues to suspend his vetting process.

The NPP internal election chaos is continuing because, according to party insiders, although the party’s national chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey and General Secretary Kwadwo “Sir John” Owusu Afriyie continue to be the frontrunners for their respective party offices, both men are facing significant opposition at next month’s expensive party congress at the Northern Region city of Tamale. 

On the plus side, the party’s vetting committee has softened one major controversy by allowing one of Obetsebi-Lamptey’s opponents, the businessman Paul Afoko, to continue campaigning after, as we have reported in previous issues, it had earlier suspended investigations into his fitness to run following receipt of a non-attributable allegation over his alleged past wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, according to NPP elections director Martin Adjei Mensah, the vetting committee is still investigating Afoko’s suspension but has allowed him to continue campaigning for the present until a decision is taken. This has led Afoko to again voice his disappointment while campaigning in Upper West Region that the committee will not reveal the name of the party member who suggested that he had served a prison sentence in the UK for fraud.

Given that the other three other candidates for the post of national chairman have all been cleared by the vetting committee, Afoko may indeed be campaigning at a disadvantage.

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Libya: Preliminary results of Constitution Committee elections

The preliminary results of the elections for the constitution committee, or Sixty Committee, which was established to draw up the country’s new constitution, were released this week. Although most of those elected are not well known, the initial results indicated that the liberal trend did well.

So far, only 47 out of the committee’s members have been declared because voting has yet to take place for the remaining 13 seats. Two of these seats remain empty because they were set aside for the country’s Amazigh (Berber) minority which boycotted the elections on the grounds that the Amazigh were under-represented in the committee and because they were given no guarantee that their rights would be protected in the new constitution. 

The other 11 seats remain unfilled because the elections to these posts could not go ahead on 20 February as a result of various security issues. Despite the fact that the Higher Election Commission announced that voting would take place for these seats six days later, similar disruptions and security violations occurred, meaning the re-runs did not go ahead.

In such circumstances it is difficult to see how this committee can start work. This means that the constitution writing process is likely to be delayed even further, suggesting that Congress’ Plan B for early elections will almost certainly have to be implemented, providing that the Congress itself lasts that long. 

Indeed, the head of the Higher Election Commission, Nouri Al-Abbar, who resigned this week (see below), informed the GNC that “in the best circumstances and even with the availability of logistical support, the earliest time that elections can be held is between 5 to 10 months”. Whether Libyans will agree to wait that long has yet to be seen.

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates