KeenWinBlog

IT IS TIME FOR US TO BUILD OUR GREAT NATION TOGETHER I welcome the verdict of the Justice John I. Okoro-led Panel of the Supreme Court on the Presidential Election petitions filed by the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party, challenging the ruling of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.  The court has done justice to all issues put up for consideration in the petitions on the merits of the law, without fear or favour.  There is no doubt, with the profound judgment of today, that our electoral jurisprudence and constitutional democracy are further consolidated and embedded more indelibly in our national identity because of the diligence and undaunted professionalism of the Honourable Justices who presided over the matter.  While the verdict of today has laid to rest the agitating discourse over who truly won the 2023 Presidential election and met the constitutional requirements as laid out by law, I want to reiterate that my faith in our nation's j

Uganda opposition presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, and his campaign team have been arrested in Kalangala in the country’s central region, he said in a post on Twitter. The arrests on Wednesday spurred protests at a field in Kalangala Island in Lake Victoria where a helicopter was parked and which Wine’s supporters said they believed would be used to fly him back to the capital Kampala. Police fired tear gas at the crowd who were protesting. “They are firing even now to disperse people gathering on roads,” a witness, who did not want to give his name for security reasons, told Reuters news agency. Wine has emerged as the strongest challenger to President Yoweri Museveni, 76, in the presidential election on January 14. Joel Senyonyi, spokesman for Wine’s National Unity Platform party, said: “Yes police has arrested him together with his whole campaign team. They (police) put them in police trucks and started driving but we don’t know where they are

Ethiopia will hold a parliamentary election on June 5, 2021, its National Electoral Board has said on Friday, after postponing the vote from August this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The chairman of the winning party becomes prime minister. News of the vote comes as Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation, wrestles with outbreaks of deadly violence. On Thursday, the military killed 42 armed men accused of taking part in a massacre in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said he was sending forces to Benishangul-Gumuz, which borders Sudan, the day after unidentified attackers torched homes and killed more than 100 people in a village there. The region is home to several ethnic groups. In recent years, people from the neighbouring Amhara region have started moving into the area, prompting some ethnic Gumuz to complain that fertile land is being taken away from them, experts say. Ethiopia has a federal system comprising 10 regions with the freedo

Nepal’s president has dissolved Parliament at the request of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s cabinet and announced that general elections would be held in April and May, more than a year ahead of schedule. Sunday’s move plunges the Himalayan country, which has seen revolving door governance since street protests restored multi-party democracy in 1990, into political turmoil as it battles the coronavirus pandemic. President Bidhya Devi Bhandari’s office said in a statement the next vote will be held on April 30 and May 10, as recommended by the cabinet following an emergency meeting. Oli, 68, pushed for a fresh mandate after the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) accused him of sidelining his party in government decisions and appointments. He had led an alliance with former Maoist rebels to a landslide victory in 2017. “The prime minister has lost the majority in the parliamentary party, central committee and the secretariat of the party,” said Bishnu Rijal, an NCP central committee memb

  Ghana will head to the polls on Monday to pick the country’s next president, in what is expected to be a tight race between incumbent Nana Akufo-Addo and his predecessor, John Mahama. The two longtime rivals, who are squaring off for the third straight time as they seek a second and final term, are widely seen as the two frontrunners in a crowded field of 12 candidates. Campaigning has largely focused on the economy, infrastructure development and the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fight against corruption has also featured prominently in the lead-up to the election during which the political rivalry that has for the last decade defined the campaigns of both Akufo-Addo, of the centrist New Patriotic Party (NPP), and Mahama, of the left-leaning National Democratic Congress (NDC), was largely on display. “The candidates have spent more time exchanging words rather than focusing on the challenges facing the people,” said Michael Opoku, a 54-year-old trader in Kumasi, Ghana’s sec

AFTER two postponements, occasioned by the COVID-19  pandemic and the EndSARS protests, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, will conduct 15 pending bye-elections – six senatorial and nine state houses of assembly seats in 11 states, today. No fewer than 143 candidates made up of 127 men and 16 women (11.19 per cent of contestants) are taking part in the elections. The 11 affected states are Bayelsa, Borno, Cross River, Enugu, Imo, Kogi, Katsina, Lagos, Nasarawa, Plateau and Zamfara. Among the states, Bayelsa tops the chart with two senatorial contests in Bayelsa Central and Bayelsa West. In Bayelsa Central, 418,109 voters will decide the fate of 11 candidates that include two women. For Bayelsa West, 13 male and one female candidate will seek the verdict of 234,469 voters on their senatorial aspiration. Four other senatorial bye-elections will be held in Imo North (14 candidates), Lagos East (eight candidates), Cross River North (nine candidates) and Plateau South (10

  Bobi Wine, the Ugandan singer and presidential candidate, suspended his campaign on Tuesday after members of his campaign team were injured and his car shot at during clashes between security personnel and his supporters. The developments were the latest in escalating violence in Uganda as authorities crack down on supporters of 38-year-old Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi. Bobi Wine is seeking to end the decades-long rule of 76-year-old President Yoweri Museveni in an election scheduled for January 14. Earlier on Tuesday, Daniel Oyerwot, a music producer for Bobi Wine, was wounded in the mouth by a rubber bullet during the clashes, according to a spokesman for his party. The singer said on Twitter that several members other of his staff were wounded and some were in critical condition. He added that he and his supporters attempted to move to another campaign venue, located in Jinja in eastern Uganda, but security personnel blocked him and shot and blew out his car’s t

  US Attorney General William Barr said on Tuesday the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. His comments come despite President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the election was stolen, and his refusal to concede his loss to President-Elect Joe Biden. In an interview with The Associated Press news agency, Barr said US attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they have received, but they have uncovered no evidence that would change the outcome of the election. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told the AP news agency. The comments are especially direct coming from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in votes could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavir