This edition of Network Africa is all about defection, crisis, steps towards political solution and paying respects to victims of the holocaust.
In Nigeria, the leader of the opposition, All Progressives Congress and former Governor Of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau, has defected to the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.
The former presidential candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party, ANPP, in the 2011 elections was also a founding member of the APC.
We also look at what’s happening in South Sudan where former vice president, who is also the rebel leader, Riek Machar, says the treason charges laid up against him and his allies are simply baseless.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is of the opinion that if the least bit of calm is to be restored to the Central African Republic, that would come at the price of 10 000 troops. About a million people have fled their homes during months of religious violence, after rebels seized power last March.
In Egypt, 20 journalists are facing charges. 16 are Egyptians accused of belonging to a “terrorist organisation” and 4 are foreigners accused of assisting it – 2 Britons, a Dutch national and an Australian. We seek what journalists have to say about press freedom being in jeopardy in Egypt.
We go to Libya, where the Acting Interior Minister, Al-Sidik Abdul-Karim, has escaped an assassination attempt in the capital, Tripoli. We also stopped by at Malawi where the first two out of 70 defendants are appearing in court over the up to 100 million dollars which was allegedly stolen from government funds in the biggest corruption scandal in Malawian history.
Finally, we bring news from Yemen, where the French authorities have charged Yemenia Airways with manslaughter over a 2009 crash, off the Comoros Islands that killed 152 people.
Despite all the challenges crisis facing Africa, there’s still hope, as 25 year-old Mandla Maseko, has won a competition organised by US-based space academy and he has won a return ticket to outer space, making him the first black African to make the trip.
Network Africa attended an event in Lagos; to mark January 27, a highly symbolic day which the United Nations sets aside annually to remember the 6 million Jewish lives which were lost in the space of a decade during the holocaust.
Enjoy this edition of Network Africa.