The countries of West Africa’s Sahel region are requesting 50 million euros (56 million dollars) from the European Union to help set up a multinational force to take on Islamist militant groups, Mali’s military chief said Saturday.

The South African government again, on Friday, deported 90 Nigerians for allegedly committing immigration-related offences.

Former Chairman of the Association of African Maritime Administrations, AAMA, Sobantu Tilayi has called on African nations to work at growing their economies and increasing their seafarers’ base in order to grow its global trade participation beyond 2.5 percent.

Nigerian nationals have topped the list of foreigners arrested for drug smuggling in Navi Mumbai over the past five years. According to the sources from the anti-narcotic cell of Navi Mumbai police, a total of 66 narcotic related cases were registered between 2012 and April, this year in the city. Nigerian nationals were involved in 14 of these cases, the police said.

Germany’s Siemens will invest 1.1 billion dollars to build electricity networks in Africa over the coming years, the company’s boss said on Thursday.

THERE are heated debates in Africa and in diplomatic circles across the globe over the January 31, African Union, AU, Assembly’s decision that African countries carry out a collective withdrawal from the Hague-based International Criminal Court, ICC. Although the decision is technically non- binding but it carries a lot of weight and may sound the death knell for an international body that is essentially, a neo-colonial institution with 34 African countries as members.

IT had been a hard choice; Africa electing a new chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) to run the continental body. The option had been forced on her after the chairperson, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the former liberation fighter from South Africa resisted pressures to stand for a second term; opting to contest the Presidential elections in her country.

It was always going to be hard for outgoing US President Barack Obama to live up to expectations in Africa.

WHEN we were young (many moons ago!), I shared a flat in London with a clever, vivacious and beautiful fellow journalist called Aminatta Forna. Her mother was Scottish. Her father, Mohammed Forna, a highly principled native of Sierra Leone, had started his career as a medical doctor, then branched into politics.

French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve on Thursday warned troops stationed in Africa’s Sahel region that they should “prepare for a long war” against jihadists.

Worried by the rising cases of Vaccine-preventable diseases, African immunisation experts under the aegis of the African Regional Immunisation Technical Advisory Group (RITAG), have called for concrete action to stem the tide of vaccine-preventable diseases in the WHO African Region.

President Muhammadu Buhari has, at the U.S.-Africa business forum, said that his administration would ensure that “Nigeria does not slip back into a lazy and dangerous dependence on the price of crude oil” again.

Japan is interested in the future of Africa, especially Nigeria. This was the summary of the just concluded sixth Tokyo International Conference on Africa’s Development, TICAD IV, held in Nairobi, Kenya between 27 and 28 August 2016 under the theme, “Advancing Africa’s Sustainable Development Agenda-TICAD Partnership for Prosperity”.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told African leaders on Saturday that his country will commit 30 billion dollars in public and private support for infrastructure development on the continent.

Bayelsa State at the weekend began the enforcement of its new strategy to end the menaces of militancy, pipeline vandalism, pirate attacks, kidnapping and other criminal activities along the waterways and creeks of the state.