Landslide kills at least 55
At least 55 people were killed in a landslide in a remote area of southern Ethiopia on Monday, local authorities said, warning that the death toll could rise. “More than 55 bodies have been found from the landslide,” a statement from the Gofa zone Communications Affairs Department said, quoting local chief Dagmawi Zerihun, who warned “the death toll could yet increase”.
The landslide occurred following heavy rains in the mountainous area of South Ethiopia regional state, Dagmawi said. Women and children were among the casualties, he said, adding the search for survivors was “continuing vigorously”. Images shared on Facebook by the state-affiliated media outlet Fana Broadcasting Corporate showed hundreds of people near a devastating scene of tumbled red soil.
The photographs showed people using their bare hands to dig through the dirt in search of survivors. Gofa zone is roughly 450 kilometres (270 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa, a drive of about 10 hours, and located north of the Maze National Park. The South Ethiopia regional state has been battered by the short seasonal rains between April and early May that have caused flooding and mass displacement, according to the UN’s humanitarian response agency OCHA.
It said in May that “floods impacted over 19,000 people in several zones, displacing over a thousand and causing damage to livelihoods and infrastructure”. The southern region area has experienced tragic landslides previously, with at least 32 people killed in 2018 after two separate landslides within a week of each other.
SOURCE: Punch
Southeast won’t participate in protest, says Ohanaeze
Apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, has reiterated the position of Ndigbo, particularly the people of the southeast that they would not participate in the planned nationwide protest against President Bola Tinubu’s government.
Ohanaeze stated this in a statement on Monday, July 22, lamenting that the planned nationwide protest is an outcome of the current economic situation in the country. In the statement issued by its national publicity secretary, Dr. Alex Ogbonnia, Ohanaeze requested the Igbo not to join the nationwide protest, as according to the group, “Tough times never last but tough people do.”
The statement read: “Ohanaeze Ndigbo seizes this opportunity to reiterate our position with respect to the widely publicized nationwide protest scheduled for the days of August 2024.
“On February 20, 2024, the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Chief Engr. Dr. Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, MFR; OFR; CFR; FNICE; FNSE; FNIST; and KSG (Ahaejiagamba Ndigbo) directed the Igbo not to join in the protest against President Bola Tinubu. The Igbo leader explained that “Igbo youths and youths from other ethnic groups at various times expressed their dissatisfaction with events in the country. It is clear to us that when youths from other tribes of the country are involved, they are reprimanded and forgiven; but when the Igbo youths are involved they are arrested, incarcerated, and even charged with serious offences. For example, the arrest and detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu generated a lot of problems for the Igbos” amongst others.
“Emphatically, the current hardship in Nigeria is the comeuppance of Igbophobia. It is an unavoidable outcome of an orchestrated injustice, marginalization, callous conspiracies, corporate shenanigans, and ethnic bigotry against the Igbo. “Ohanaeze Ndigbo stands on a firm wicket based on reason, history, and experience, to state that “there can never be peace, progress, and national development when there is a deliberate government policy of injustice, tantrums, and brimstones against a vibrant, capacious, resourceful, resilient and populous ethnic group such as the Igbo.
“On Saturday, March 25, 2023, during the occasion of one year in the office of Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the Governor of Anambra State, the former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo condemned the persistent aversion to the people of southeastern extraction, which he described as Igbophobia. Obasanjo added that unless Nigeria throws its doors open to merit and full inclusion of the Igbo in national affairs, the country will continue to flounder and grope in the dark.”
Don’t join proposed protest, Lagos Arewa community tells members
The Lagos State Arewa Community in the All Progressives Congress (APC) has called on northern leaders and other prominent elder statesmen in Nigeria to urge President Bola Tinubu to prioritize good representation and significantly increase food production to prevent the anticipated protest and its potential negative consequences.
Chairman of the Arewa Community APC Lagos, Alhaji Sa’adu Yusuf Dandare Gulma, made the statement while addressing the press on Monday.
He also instructed the Arewa youths and members not to participate in any protest scheduled for August 1, 2024.
He said: “The attention of the Arewa community in Lagos state has been drawn to the call for a proposed strike action come August 1, 2024, in Lagos and some other states across Nigeria, we are hereby calling on our very hardworking youths and members to distance themselves from the protest because it will further impoverish and worsen our predicament.
“The last time a protest was held in Lagos and Nigeria most of our public infrastructures: buses, poor people’s shops and even families suffered great losses, so we are saying No protest and we will not be an instrument for protest.”
Sa’adu highlighted the economic hardships that past protests have brought to Lagos and other parts of the country.
He advised that, instead of the proposed protest, the voices of reason, especially those of former leaders, should be prominently echoed and heeded to find a way forward to address the situation.
SOURCE: The Nation
