Africans League

The first former child soldier to appear at the International Criminal Court has pleaded not guilty and told judges he was a victim too. Lords Resistance Army (LRA) commander Dominic Ongwen said the LRA was responsible and he had also suffered from the atrocities. Ongwen, now in his early 40s, was a boy when he was abducted by the notoriously ruthless rebel cult. He faces 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Uganda Dominic Ongwen and the quest for justice Mr Ongwen is accused of leading attacks on four camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Uganda, murdering and torturing civilians, and forcing women into marriage and children to take part in the fighting. But he told the court the charges should be brought against the LRA and its leader Joseph Kony, not him. "It is the LRA who abducted people in northern Uganda, killed people in northern Uganda and committed atrocities in northern Uganda. I'm one of the people against whom the LRA committ...

"The bells of freedoms are ringing in the four corners of the Gambia. We are free at last and the thousands of Gambians who were forced into exile can now return home and help rebuild their country. We shall no longer be afraid to hold political discussions in the open. We can now sleep peacefully at night without the men in black breaking in our homes and take us away in front of our children. We are indeed really free. ... Alhamdulillah, change has happened in the Gambia." - Jollof News editorial, December 2, 2016 This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a round-up of short articles following the surprise election victory of opposition candidate Adama Barrow and the even more surprising concession speech by strongman Yahya Jammeh, who has been in power for 22 years. The first is the editorial from JollofNews quoted above. Others are from the Guardian (UK), African Leadership Magazine (UK), Daily Maverick (South Africa, and Foreign Policy (USA) Also of particular interest are th...

About the project The Bakwena Road consists of a 95km section of the N1 highway running from Pretoria northwards, and a 290km section of the N4 highway running from Pretoria westwards, to the Botswana border. The route was designed to form part of the Maputo development corridor and in turn, stimulate agriculture, manufacturing, mining and tourism by connecting South Africa’s industrial and commercial heartland, the Witwatersrand, with its nearest deep water port in Maputo, Mozambique. The toll road has been fully operational since December 2004, and the blended annual average growth rate from 2004 to 2009 was more than 9%. Financing AFC was approached by African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) to co-invest in an equity investment to part-fund the acquisition of Infrastructure Concession South Africa (Pty) Ltd, a special purpose vehicle established to hold 50% of Bakwena Platinum Corridor Concession (Pty) Limited, a toll road concession company that operates t...

The Henri Konan Bedie Bridge is a US$365 million public private partnership (PPP) project in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire and consists of a 6.4km highway and 1.9km bridge with three lanes in each direction across the Ebrié lagoon, connecting Abidjan’s residential Riviera district directly with the commercial district of Marcory. The new bridge eliminates the need to use the heavily congested 9km route via existing bridges and includes a toll station on the north side of the lagoon and footbridges for pedestrians. The project involves the design, construction, financing, commissioning and operation of the bridge. Bouygues Group is the main project sponsor and has a 30 year concession with the Ivorian Government to design, construct, develop and operate the new bridge. The bridge was opened to the public in December 2014. Financing AFC was the mandated lead arranger of the mezzanine tranche of the financing and provided an aggregate commitment of US$55 million comprising commitments to...

About the project Ethiopian Airlines is the flag carrier of Ethiopia. The company was founded in December 1945 and started operations in April 1946. During the past sixty plus years, Ethiopian Airlines has become one of the continent’s leading carriers. Ethiopian Airlines aims to ensure that its fleet continues to reflect latest developments in passenger aircraft technology and the airline decided to acquire five Boeing 777-200 LR, for a total cost of US$668 million. Financing The overall financing comprises of senior debt capital of US$568 million, subordinated debt of US$85 million and an equity investment of US$15 million. AFC(Africa Financial Corporation)invested US$23 million alongside Citibank Limited, African Development Bank and PTA Bank.

Copied from Babarere Omotola's Article I've seen this write-up before but its worth reading again. it is definitely thought-provoking. I wish you will forward it to every youth known to you, so they can have a piece of it and let the sleeping giants rise. "My Dear Nigerian Youths", by Prof. Isa. I am very angry and that is why I am addressing you. You are the source of my anger and I want to vent my spleen - maybe not at you directly - but at the arrogance of your ignorance. You sit in front of a computer and rant all day through social media but with every click, you make money - not for yourself - but for Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). With every megabyte of data you spend complaining and maligning, you make stupendous bucks for Etisalat, Glo, MTN and Airtel. Over the next two years, the number of Nigerian millionaires will jump by 47% but most likely you will not be among because you are too busy whining and complaining, yet about 60% of Nigeria’s 170m population...