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IRIN-WA Update 559 of events in West Africa (Monday
27 September 1999)
COTE d'IVOIRE: Thousands of opposition party supporters
demonstrate
Thousands of supporters of Ivorian opposition leader Alassane Ouattara marched across Abidjan and two of its suburbs on Monday in support of their leader's bid for official recognition of his Ivorian nationality and his right to run in the presidential elections next year.
No violence was reported in the six-kilometre route that took the estimated 10,000 supporters through the nearby neighbourhood of Macory and finally the high density suburb of Treichville. Protesters sat across roads snarling traffic in parts of this sprawling city.
"Their aim was to hold up traffic and paralyse activities," one witness told IRIN.
Police were out in full force to ensure there was no vandalism but otherwise took no action in the government authorised march.
Ouattara, leader of the Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR), is being investigated by the state for providing false documents proving his Ivorian nationality. The government claims he is a national of Burkina Faso, therefore is ineligible to run for the presidency. Ouattara, who resigned a position form the World Bank recently to return to politics, was a one-time prime minister of Cote d'Ivoire under the late president Felix Houphouet-Boigny.
NIGER: Presidential electoral campaign started
Niger's military ruler, Major Daouda Mallam Wanke, has officially launched the presidential electoral campaign with seven candidates at the starting line-up for polls due on 17 October, news reports said at the weekend.
Among the candidates is Niger's first democratically elected leader, Mahamane Ousmane. He was overthrown in January 1996 by Ibrahim Bare Mainassara. Wanke came to power after soldiers under his command assassinated Mainassara on 9 April.
In a nation-wide broadcast on Saturday, Wanke called on all political activists to behave responsibly and urged the Commission electorale nationale independante (CENI) to ensure a transparent electoral process. Campaigning ends on 15 October.
Parliamentary elections are due on 24 November. A second round presidential election will also be held the same day if none of the candidates wins an outright majority in the first round.
WEST AFRICA: Six states sign Volta basin management deal
An agreement for the joint management of the Volta River Basin was signed on Friday by six countries which share the river's resources, A Ghanaian official at the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology told IRIN.
"The Volta River is very important to us," Edwin Barnes, chief director of the ministry, told IRIN on Monday. "We are happy to have cooperation with our neighbours on the management of this resource."
This agreement is the result of four days of talks in Accra on the efficient management and protection of the resources of the Volta basin.
The agreement was signed in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, by Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Togo. The talks were facilitated by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Barnes said.
"Each country has its own concern but this concern will have to be integrated into the programme so that whatever decision each country would like [to take], there should be consultations on all sides," Lee Ocran, Ghana's Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, said on local radio.
SIERRA LEONE: Food distributed in Masiaka
A total of 115 mt of food has been distributed to 6,400 vulnerable people in the Masiaka area, some 60 km east of Freetown, by WFP, Action Contre la Faim and ADRA, WFP said in its most recent emergency report of 24 September.
Distributions were delayed three times due to insecurity in the Occra Hills, some 10 km west of Masiaka, WFP reported. Former members of Sierra Leone's ousted military junta in the Occra Hills have been responsible for a spate of kidnappings in recent weeks.
New shipments of WFP food aid are expected at the end of September. In the meantime WFP is borrowing lentils and oil from Catholic Relief Services, CARE and World Vision International, WFP reported.
Three cabinet ministries created
The government will create three new cabinet ministries as envisaged in the Lome Peace Accord, signed by the government and the RUF on 7 July.
These are a ministry for local government and rural development, another for public safety (which places emphasis on "security", not just "defence") and a ministry of labour and social security, Presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai told IRIN.
In the Lome agreement the government agreed to give four cabinet positions (including one senior post) to the RUF.
GUINEA: Guinea's development hindered by refugee burden
The large number of refugees in Guinea has placed an enormous burden and severely slowed down the country's development, President Lansana Conte told the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.
"The presence of hundreds of thousands of refugees has had serious consequences for Guinea's economy, its environment and its national security," he said.
Guinea hosts some 500,000 refugees, 400,000 from Sierra Leone and about 100,000 from Liberia, which amounts to 10 percent of the country's population.
"This makes Guinea the country hosting the largest number of refugees in Africa," a UNHCR spokesman in Abidjan told IRIN.
NIGERIA: France agrees to help Abuja trace stolen funds
France has joined Britain and the United States in promising to help Nigeria's democratic government recover billions of dollars of public money stolen under past military regimes, the French news agency, AFP, reported on Friday.
French Ambassador Phillppe Peltier told reporters in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, on Friday that Paris would help trace money that may have been transferred illegally into accounts in France, AFP said.
"We are open and we will do our best to help," he said, after a meeting with Nigerian Deputy Foreign Minister Dubem Oniya.
Obasanjo alerts community to threat to the economy
Less than 24 hours after arriving in Nigeria form the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Obasanjo met restive youths and their elders in Bonny, Rivers State, and warned that their continued disruption to the Liquefied Natural Gas plant would seriously affect foreign investment to the country.
A Lagos newspaper, `The Guardian', reported that Obasanjo - who has only been in office since 29 May - also asked for time to implement development plans in the area. Communities in Nigeria's oil and rich southeast have been clamouring for a much fairer distribution of their region's mineral resource wealth and for modern social services.
A Siege by the youth of Bonny forced the $3.8 billion LNG plant to shut down last Thursday, less than two weeks after beginning operations.
Obasanjo has promised them his government would try to improve technical skills training in the Delta, a measure which he said would improve the employment opportunities for the youth of the area when the economy regained its buoyancy.
"I believe from what I have seen, the economy will soon be on the move again," he said, according to the newspaper.
Meanwhile, Officials from the company said repairs were being conducted to the plant after the Bonny community agreed to lift their blockade of the road to the facility.
"Our engineers are carrying out repair works on damaged off-site equipment in order to re-start the plant as soon as possible," Andrew Jameison, company managing director, said.
Before its shut down the plant was producing 6,000 mt of LNG daily to meet its 1 October shipment date to five European buyers.
AFRICA: Albright to visit Africa
US Secretary of State Maleleine Albright is due to begin a 10-day visit of six African nations on 17 October that will focus on ending conflicts, promoting democracy and supporting economic reforms, the State Department announced on Friday.
In West Africa, she is to visit Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali and Nigeria. State Department spokesman James Rubin described Mali as "one of Africa's most promising democracies". Nigeria, he added, was "one of Africa's most import nations", whose transition from military rule to democracy "has the potential to make it an anchor for democracy and economic growth across the continent".
This will be Albright's third visit to Africa since becoming secretary of state. On this visit, she will meet with young people, women's organisations and civil society groups involved in promoting peace, democracy and economic reforms. Outside West Africa, she will visit Kenya and Tanzania.
Abidjan, 27 September 1999; 19:58 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1675
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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