France speaks on alleged plot with Nigeria to destabilise Niger – Newstrends
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France speaks on alleged plot with Nigeria to destabilise Niger

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11 hours ago

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President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, General Abdourahamane Tchiani

France speaks on alleged plot with Nigeria to destabilise Niger

France has dismissed allegation that Nigeria has offered space in its territory to it in order to destabilise the former French colony, Niger Republic.

Abdourahamane Tchiani, Nigerien military leader, had accused France of plotting to destabilise the country by using neighbouring Benin and Nigeria as a base for attacks.

In a Christmas Day interview, Gen. Tchiani accused France of allying with militant groups in the Lake Chad region to undermine his country’s security, allegedly with Nigeria’s knowledge.

He said: “Nigerian authorities are not unaware of this underhanded move.”

Gen Tchiani said France made a “substantial payment to President Bola Tinubu” to establish a military base in Nigeria.

“They (France) met and negotiated with Boko Haram/Lakurawa,” Tchiani said.

But reacting yesterday, Mr. Bertrand de Seissan, Political Counsellor to the Embassy of France in Nigeria, said the allegation was groundless. “This allegation is groundless. This has never been discussed, nor even suggested by either France or Nigeria,” he said.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, had also described the allegations as insulting to Nigeria and dismissed calls for Nigeria to cut ties with France.

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According to him, Nigeria has always maintained a relationship with France. He dismissed reports suggesting that the ties were driven by ulterior motives.

The minister said: “We have always had a relationship with France, it did not start today and there is nothing different about our relationship with France today but it does not mean that other countries or other people have to dictate to Nigeria who it should have a relationship with.”

Tuggarr noted combating terrorism as one of Nigeria’s key interests with France.

“We cannot tackle the issue of insecurity in our region simply by a partnership or by being friends with the Sahelian countries. Even if you do that you still have Libya to contend with,” he said.

“I just finished describing to you the weaponry that is being churned out of Libya; training, fighters, terrorists, the criminal gangs and so on and so forth.

“To solve Libya we need a relationship with France, we need a relationship with the United States of America, we need a relationship with Russia, we need a relationship with all of these major powers.

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“You cannot say that ‘Oh no, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali have decided after all these years they no longer want to have anything to do with France therefore Nigeria must be compelled’ and meanwhile Nigeria is the senior partner in the relationship, to begin with. It is shortsighted, myopic, and not in Nigeria’s national interest.”

The National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, had earlier said the Nigerien leader’s allegations were baseless and false.

Mr. Ribadu said Nigeria would never “sabotage Niger or allow any disaster to befall it.”

Similarly, the Information Minister, Mohammed Idris, said the allegations were unfounded and a diversionary tactic aimed at covering his administration’s failures.

Reports alleging hidden motives from France started to swirl after President Bola Tinubu travelled to the country for a three-day state visit.

Gen Tchiani’s allegations have worsened diplomatic tensions with Nigeria, already strained since the 2023 military coup that ousted ex-president Mohamed Bazoum.

 

France speaks on alleged plot with Nigeria to destabilise Niger

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19 killed in attempted assault on Chad’s presidential complex

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10 hours ago

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January 9, 2025

By

Chadian President Mahamat Deby

19 killed in attempted assault on Chad’s presidential complex

Gunmen attempted to storm the presidential complex in Chad’s capital N’Djamena on Wednesday, sparking a battle that left 18 attackers and one security personnel member dead, the government said.

AFP reporters heard gunfire near the site and saw tanks on the street, while security sources reported that armed men had tried to overrun the complex.

The government later said 19 people were killed in the fighting, of which 18 were members of the 24-strong commando unit that launched the assault.

“There were 18 dead and six injured” among the attackers “and we suffered one death and three injured, one of them seriously”, government spokesman and Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah told AFP.

Hours after the shooting, Koulamallah appeared in a video posted to Facebook, surrounded by soldiers and with a gun on his belt, saying “the situation is completely under control… the destabilisation attempt was put down”.

A security source said the attackers were members of the Boko Haram jihadist group, but Koulamallah later said they were “probably not” terrorists, describing them as drunken “Pieds Nickeles” — a reference to a French comic featuring hapless crooks.

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He said they attacked four guards before entering the presidential complex, where they were “easily overpowered”, adding the surviving assailants were “completely drugged”.

Landlocked Chad is under military rule and faces regular attacks by Boko Haram, especially in the western Lake Chad region that borders Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger.

It recently ended a military accord with former colonial power France and has been accused of interfering in the conflict ravaging neighbouring Sudan.

Several security sources said that an armed commando unit opened fire inside the presidency on Wednesday evening around 7:45 pm (1845 GMT), before being overrun by the presidential guard.

All roads leading to the presidency were blocked and tanks could be seen on the streets, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.

As civilians rushed out of the city centre in cars and motorcycles, armed police were seen at several points in the district.

Hours before the shootout, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno and other senior officials.

Deby was in the complex at the time of the attack, according to Koulamallah.

 

19 killed in attempted assault on Chad’s presidential complex

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30 million people need aid in war-torn Sudan, says UN

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2 days ago

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January 7, 2025

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For much of the conflict, the UN has struggled to raise even a quarter of the funds it has targeted for its humanitarian response in the impoverished northeast African country. (AFP)

30 million people need aid in war-torn Sudan, says UN

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: More than 30 million people, over half of them children, are in need of aid in Sudan after twenty months of war, the United Nations said on Monday.

The UN has launched a $4.2 billion call for funds, targeting 20.9 million people across Sudan from a total of 30.4 million people it said are in need in what it called “an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”

Sudan has been torn apart and pushed to the brink of famine by the war that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced, which, in addition to 2.7 million displaced before the war, has made Sudan the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.

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A further 3.3 million people have fled across Sudan’s borders to escape the war, which means over a quarter of the country’s pre-war population, estimated at around 50 million, are now uprooted.

Famine has already been declared in five areas in Sudan and is expected to take hold of five more areas by May, with 8.1 million people currently on the brink of mass starvation.

Sudan’s army-aligned government has denied there is famine, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.

Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.

For much of the conflict, the UN has struggled to raise even a quarter of the funds it has targeted for its humanitarian response in the impoverished northeast African country.

Sudan has often been called the world’s “forgotten” war, overshadowed by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine despite the scale of the horrors inflicted upon civilians.

30 million people need aid in war-torn Sudan, says UN

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Chinese nationals arrested with gold bars, $800,000 cash in DR Congo

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3 days ago

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January 6, 2025

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The three arrested Chinese nationals

Chinese nationals arrested with gold bars, $800,000 cash in DR Congo

Three Chinese nationals have been apprehended with gold bars and $800,000 in cash in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to the BBC, the trio were nabbed with 12 gold bars and the stash of cash hidden under the seat of a vehicle they were travelling in.

Jacques Purusi, the governor of South Kivu province, confirmed the arrest of the suspects, saying that the operation was kept secret after the recent release of another group of Chinese nationals accused of running an illegal gold mine in the area.

Mr Purusi explained that some of the dealers in the ‘previous metals’ had been enjoying good relations with the influential people in the capital, Kinshasa, adding that it was the reason why the latest arrests had to be kept quiet.

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Although he did not give exactly how much gold had been seized so far, Mr Purusi said they had been acting on a tip-off.

According to him, the gold bars and money were only found after a meticulous search of the vehicle in the Walungu area near Rwanda’s border.

Last year, Mr Purusi told journalists that he was shocked to hear that 17 Chinese nationals, who had been arrested on allegations they had been running an illegal gold mine, were freed and allowed to return to China.

He said the development undermined the efforts to clean up DR Congo’s notoriously murky mineral sector.

“They owed $10 million in taxes and fines to the government,” Mr Purusi was quoted to have said by Reuters.

Chinese nationals arrested with gold bars, $800,000 cash in DR Congo

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