GUINEA’S ANTI-DRUG BOSS SAYS HIS OFFICERS ARE DRUG BARONS

The new head of Guinea’s anti-drugs unit has told the BBC that some of his agents are corrupt. Police Commissioner Moussa Sackho Camara said that some suspected drugs traffickers had been freed from detention without his knowledge.

He also said that when he took over in August, some junior agents had parked their limousines outside the office. West Africa is increasingly being used by smugglers to transport cocaine from Latin America to Europe.

Last month, the governor, mayor and other top police officials were arrested in the town of Boke in northern Guinea, after an aircraft allegedly carrying a large quantity of cocaine mysteriously landed and took off. Mr Camara said that the fight against drug trafficking was a tough one, given the highly placed people involved in the business on the one hand, and the lack of equipment on the other.

“This is a war and our enemies are well armed and well placed, coming from the air, land and sea,” he told the BBC’s Alhassan Sillah in Conakry.

“Some of my own agents are collaborators of the drug pushers.” Mr Camara said that when he saw the limousines in the car-park: “I gave orders that I never again wanted to see these cars in my work place. Since then, I haven’t seen these cars or some of these agents.”

Large seizures of cocaine have been made recently in neighbouring countries, such as Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Law enforcements agents say Latin American drug traffickers have switched to using West Africa, as traditional routes such as through the Caribbean have become better policed.

CHARITY DENIES HUNGER FORGERY

Medical charityMedicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has rebutted claims that i exaggerated the number of malmourished children in Niger. The charity has appealed to be allowed to resume work in the region of Maradi, where Niger’s government ordered it to stop operating in July.

MSF said some 8,000 children had since been deprived of treatment. The BBC’s Iddy Barou reports from Niger that there are fears of a malnutrition epidemic in coming months.

Human rights groups report that government hospitals are not adequately equipped to deal with the challenge, he says. But Niger’s Health Minister Issa Lamine told state radio at the weekend that the situation in Maradi was “not dramatic” and that the local health authorities could handle it.

Niger’s government has accused MSF of working illegally, inventing numbers for malnourished children, and conducting propaganda about famine in order to raise money. However, MSF President Marie-Pierre Allie said her organisation had been using figures provided by Niger’s health ministry.

“Saying that MSF is forging numbers to collect money is unacceptable,” she told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme. “MSF is communicating to report on the situation, what’s happening to the population we’re serving, and not to collect money.”

 SOURCED FROM BBC

NIGERIAN WITH 86 WIVES GETS BAIL

No retreat, no surrender is the message prosecutors of Nigeria’s Solomon, Alhaji Bello Masaba want broadcast far and wide. A legal battle apparently doesn’t suffice for Masaba’s protagonists who say his marriage to 86 women contravenes Islamic creeds; everything within their line of sight is suddenly up for decimation. Shehu Sanni, counsel to Masaba compares his job to cartoon robot-hero; VOLTRON, where his infamous role as Masaba’s defender as earned him quite a reputation.
Just mentioning the name Shehu Sani in a Niger state mosque or praying ground evokes much animosity and bad will. Fortunately Sanni has only suffered verbal attacks, nonetheless he appears apprehensive. When asked by local reporters if the threats could make him withdraw his legal services for Masaba. The adamant Shehu Sani who is also the President of Civil Rights Congress [CRC], compared the threats, insults and attacks to pouring water on a rock. What you will hear are different kinds of curses and threats.
According to Sani the threats are coming from the Ulamas; Islamic clerics, whom Sanni accuses of fuelling Muslims’ hatred toward him. Sarcastically Sanni wondered why they weren’t addressing issues eating deep into the lives of the average northerner; ‘illiteracy, disease, poverty oh no what we are after is the man who has married more than the required women according to Islamic laws, an act which they themselves are guilty of, a case of kettle calling pot black’, he berated the Islamic clerics
On the hand Masaba who was in the eye of the storm a few weeks back has enjoyed relative sobriety from the media. Perhaps that is about to be threatened following the granting of protective bail by the Chief Magistrate Court in Minna on Monday. The presiding Chief Magistrate, Mr Ahmed Bima said in his ruling that 2 sureties, an accommodation in the state capital and a sum of 1 million naira should be provided by the state government for Alhaji Masaba but ordered him to stay in Minna and will have access to 4 of wives at a time.
His counsel, Miss Eno Akpan expressed dissatisfaction over the conditions attached to the protective bail describing the conditions as harsh, arguing a bail is to presume innocent until proved otherwise. The case is bound to prove as a litmus test to the Nigerian judiciary having all the trappings of a legal time-bomb; Masaba had argued that he received a revelation from God asking him to wed 86 wives leading to a furore among Nigeria’s Islamist upper-class calling him a heretic.

yemi, CONNECTAFRICA