Kenya Insights

Category: Africa

  • Ethiopia Experiments With ‘Smart’ Police Stations That Have No Officers

    Ethiopia Experiments With ‘Smart’ Police Stations That Have No Officers

    Computer tablet screens glow inside a row of partitioned booths at a new-style Ethiopian police station.

    There is no commotion. There is no front desk, no bench of anxiously waiting civilians, no officer calling out names.

    It is a pilot project of what is being called a “smart” – or unmanned – police station in the Bole district of the capital, Addis Ababa, is the latest chapter in Ethiopia’s bid to catch up with the digital revolution.

    A large monitor on the wall cycles through welcome messages as well as images of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

    But at the moment there are uniformed officers standing by to demonstrate how the system works, which makes it feel more like a tech showroom.

    Recently opened, the staff “are here to help people get used to it”, the police’s head of technology expansion department Cdr Demissie Yilma tells the BBC.

    Inside a booth, he taps a screen and goes through the steps to make a report.

    Demissie selects the type of incident – a crime, a traffic report or a general concern – enters the details and presses a button to submit the comment.

    Then, an officer – who is a real person in a remote location rather than a chatbot – pops up on the screen and begins to ask questions and take down information.

    “If there is a problem, officers respond immediately and patrol the area mentioned by the reporter,” Demissie says.

    In its first week last month, the smart police station (SPS) received just three reports – a lost passport, a financial fraud case and a routine complaint.

    But Demissie believes the number of reports will grow as locals become more aware of it.

    “The future police service should be near the citizens,” he says.

    The use of a computer tablet to communicate with officials may mean less human-to-human contact but the authorities believe that the SPS could increase access to the police in places where there may not be enough personnel to man a fully fledged station.

    At the project’s launch on 9 February, the prime minister was quoted in state media as saying that it was aimed at making “law enforcement institutions competent and competitive” and he framed it as part of a wider digital reform drive.

    The vision is for Ethiopia’s smart police stations to be unmanned – but giving more people access to police services

    The smart police station is part of a broader move to change how citizens interact with the state.

    The national strategy launched last year – known as Digital Ethiopia 2030 – is the government’s blueprint for digitising public services, from identity systems and payments to courts and public administration.

    The proportion of Ethiopians who have access to the internet remains quite low, meaning that the country has lagged behind others on the continent in terms of digital transformation.

    Also, conflict and political upheavals in recent years have led to internet blackouts.

    But as the telecoms sector has opened up, the country is embracing mobile phone digital payments in birr, the local currency.

    The government has also introduced a national digital ID system and put several government services online.

    Supporters of the moves argue that these changes are long overdue in a country with rapid urban growth and a young population.

    Birhan Nega Cheru, a senior software engineer in Addis Ababa, is pleased with the shift.

    “When they work well, they reduce paperwork and visits to offices,” he tells the BBC.

    But he also recognises security and privacy issues and the dangers that those “who are not digitally literate can easily be scammed”.

    “Urban users, younger people, businesses, those with smartphones and skills, benefit most,” the software engineer says.

    “Older people, rural communities and low-income groups are at risk of being left out.”

    And the numbers support his assertions.

    In a report last year, the UN’s educational organisation, Unesco, found that 79% of its citizens were not connected to the internet.

    But Zelalem Gizachew, a technology policy analyst, argues that the government’s strategy has been chipping away at the digital divide.

    “Digital literacy remains a challenge,” he says. “That is why the Digital Ethiopia 2030 strategy puts emphasis on training and skills, not just technology.”

    He points to measurable changes over the past five years.

    “Digital payments have boomed with trillions of birr now moving through electronic transactions. Broadband access has expanded sharply, and more than 130 government services have been digitised.

    “These are foundational investments,” Zelalem says. “You cannot modernise public services without infrastructure, policy and skills.”

    For now, the smart police station remains a pilot.

    It is in a controlled environment where officers guide users through a system which is still finding its footing. Traditional stations continue to operate, and most citizens still rely on in-person reporting.

    Whether the model expands will depend less on how sleek the technology looks, and more on whether people choose to use it when no-one is there to explain the screens.

    In that sense, the quiet room in Bole is not a finished product. It is an experiment, and a small window into how Ethiopia’s broader digital ambitions may play out in everyday life.

    –BBC

  • US Slaps Sanctions On Rwanda Military Over DR Congo ‘Violation’

    US Slaps Sanctions On Rwanda Military Over DR Congo ‘Violation’

    The United States said Monday it was imposing sanctions on Rwanda’s military, taking action against a longtime partner which it accused of violating a peace agreement in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    The mineral-rich east of DRC has seen decades of conflict, but violence dramatically flared last year when the Rwandan-backed M23 group made huge gains, capturing strategic mines and towns and displacing thousands.

    President Donald Trump in December brought together the leaders of Rwanda and the DRC to sign a peace deal, predicting a “great miracle”.

    But just days afterwards, the State Department noted, the M23 captured the key Congolese city of Uvira.

    The United States said it was imposing sanctions against the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and four officers including the army chief of staff, Vincent Nyakarundi, saying they were critical to M23 gains.

    “M23, a US- and UN-sanctioned entity, is responsible for horrific human rights abuses, including summary executions and violence against civilians, including women and children,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.

    “The continued backing from the RDF and its senior leadership has enabled M23 to capture DRC sovereign territory and continue these grave abuses,” he said in a statement.

    “As President Trump has made clear, the United States is prepared to use all available tools to ensure the DRC and Rwanda deliver on the promises of this historic agreement.”

    Trump had earlier sounded positive about working with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a veteran leader who has also been willing to take in migrants deported from the United States, a top political goal for Trump.

    The December peace deal had been hailed by Trump as a way to secure critical minerals from the DRC.

    The sanctions will block any assets that the RDF or the four officers hold in the United States and criminalise any financial transactions with them.

    In a separate statement, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said the US expected “the immediate withdrawal of Rwanda Defence Force troops, weapons, and equipment”.

    It noted that the RDF had “provided direct operational support to M23 and its affiliates”, including advanced weaponry such as GPS jamming systems, air defence equipment and drones.

    “Thousands of RDF troops are deployed across eastern DRC, where they actively engage in combat operations and facilitate M23’s control of territory,” the statement added.

    – ‘Misrepresent reality’ –

    Rwanda said the US sanctions were “unjustly targeting only one party”, and insisted in a statement late Monday that such a move “misrepresent the reality and distort the facts of the conflict”.

    It said that “consistent and indiscriminate drone attacks and ground offensives constitute clear violations of ceasefire agreements by the DRC”.

    Rwanda has insisted it is only involved in the eastern DRC to help protect against an enemy militia formed from the remnants of those who committed the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis, denying direct military involvement despite considerable evidence from United Nations observers and others.

    In turn, it has demanded that the Kinshasa government clamp down on Hutu militants from the genocide, who targeted ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

    Outmatched on the ground by the better-equipped M23 and Rwandan troops, Kinshasa’s forces have relied in part on US pressure on Kigali to stabilise the front line, regional specialists and security sources told AFP.

    Full text of the U.S. accusations against Rwanda and its military, RDF:

    “The RDF is actively supporting, training, and fighting alongside the March 23 Movement (M23), a U.S.- and United Nations (UN)-sanctioned armed group responsible for human rights abuses and a mass displacement crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 

    The RDF has supported M23 as it seized territory in eastern DRC, including provincial capitals Goma and Bukavu, along with strategic mining sites in eastern DRC. M23’s offensives would not have been possible without the active support and complicity of the RDF and key senior officials.

    The Rwanda Defence Force has provided direct operational support to M23 and its affiliates. 

    The RDF has introduced advanced military equipment to the battlefield in eastern DRC, including GPS jamming systems, air defense equipment, drones, and additional materiel.  Thousands of RDF troops are deployed across eastern DRC, where they actively engage in combat operations and facilitate M23’s control of territory. 

    The RDF also provides training to M23 fighters at RDF military centers and supports its recruitment efforts, including the recruitment of refugees.

    With support from the RDF, M23 has engaged in extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and torture. In January 2025, the RDF carried out attacks against Congolese armed forces, the Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC, and defensive positions of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC. In exchange for its support for M23, Rwanda has gained access to mineral-rich areas of eastern DRC that contribute to the financing of M23’s armed rebellion.”

  • Turkey’s Strategic Roots Take Hold in Africa

    Turkey’s Strategic Roots Take Hold in Africa

    Through trade, defence, and infrastructure, Turkey is building an enduring influence across Africa. From ports to schools, Ankara is embedding systems that could shape Africa’s economic and geopolitical future.

    Turkey is courting African countries with a strategy aimed at expanding its footprint on a continent long contested by the United States, China, and Russia. Unlike these powers, Ankara is converting a network of trade deals, energy projects, drone deployments, infrastructure and port investments, social institutions, and construction contracts into durable, operational influence across Africa.

    According to Jamie Akol, an Africa policy expert at the Africa Policy Institute in Nairobi, “Turkey combines hard and soft power in ways few external actors have attempted, linking military deployments, infrastructure, and institutional initiatives to create influence that can survive political shifts and the natural cycle of contracts.”

    Turkey’s engagement across the continent has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, with trade between Ankara and African countries exceeding US$37 billion in 2024 and targeting US$40 billion in 2025, according to Turkey’s Trade Ministry.

    To date, Turkish contractors have completed more than 2,000 infrastructure projects across Africa, valued at about US$100 billion, covering airports, roads, hospitals, and housing.

    Turkey Set to Deepen Ties with Africa. Credit: Daily Sabah.

    That commercial foundation now underpins a broader set of strategic levers. One of the most visible is Turkey’s growing energy partnership with Somalia. This month, on February 15, Turkey’s deep‑sea drilling vessel Cagri Bey left Taşucu Port bound for Somali waters, marking the first time Turkey deployed such a vessel abroad for energy exploration.

    Taşucu, a port on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast in Mersin province, serves as a logistics base for the ship’s voyage toward the Indian Ocean. Drilling operations are expected to begin in April or May, after transit and security arrangements are put in place, according to statements from the Turkish energy ministry.

    The drilling mission builds on a hydrocarbon cooperation agreement signed in March 2024, which granted the Turkish Petroleum Corporation rights to explore, develop, and produce oil and gas in Somalia’s onshore and designated offshore blocks, according to Reuters.

    Turkey’s Energy Minister has described the pact as “strengthening Turkey’s presence in the Horn of Africa” and committing Ankara to bringing Somalia’s energy resources into production.

    Somalia has long been believed to hold significant untapped oil and gas potential, and the agreement combines Turkish technical capacity with Somali sovereign rights to develop that sector.

    The Somalia engagement also links to other aspects of Turkey’s influence architecture. Ankara opened its largest overseas military base in Mogadishu in 2017 and regularly trains Somali security forces. Also, Turkish contractors manage Mogadishu’s port and airport under long-term concessions, and Turkey built a major national hospital in the country.

    In addition to drone and training programs, Turkey has recently expanded its air power in the Horn of Africa. Turkish officials disclosed that F‑16 fighter jets have been deployed to Mogadishu.

    The deployment followed Ankara’s condemnation of Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, emphasising the use of military presence to project influence and defend Somali sovereignty. Other regional powers are also boosting air capabilities: the United States is expanding Manda Bay airbase in Kenya with a US$70‑million runway project to support counter-terrorism operations, highlighting the Horn of Africa as a contested space for multipolar strategic engagement, according to US officials.

    Turkey Set to Deepen Ties with Africa. Credit: The Radar.

    Beyond Somalia, Turkey’s strategic engagement in Ethiopia reached a new peak during President Erdoğan’s visit to Addis Ababa on February 17, 2026, his first official trip to the country in over a decade. Turkish investments in Ethiopia exceeded US$2.5 billion in 2025, spanning textiles, railway infrastructure, and energy, while bilateral trade reached approximately US$253 million, making Türkiye the country’s second-largest foreign investor after China.

    During the visit, the two governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding on energy cooperation, establishing a framework for joint electricity generation, hydroelectric development, grid infrastructure, and renewable energy projects. The agreements provide Ethiopia with technology transfer and engineering expertise while giving Turkish construction and energy firms expanded access to one of East Africa’s fastest-growing markets.

    The 9th Türkiye-Ethiopia Joint Economic Commission also adopted a protocol that reinforces commitments on trade, investment, and technical cooperation, with both sides aiming to raise bilateral trade to US$1 billion.

    “Africa represents a strategic horizon for Ankara,” Akol said. “It offers both new markets and geopolitical leverage: access to ports, untapped energy resources, and regions where traditional powers are retreating gives Turkey a chance to set new norms in trade, security, and governance.”

    In Mozambique, Turkish contractor ENKA is building a 456‑megawatt power plant, followed by long-term operations and maintenance work, creating multi-year technical links, according to regional energy reporting. Ports form another strategic dimension.

    According to the Observer Research Foundation, Turkish firms operate long-term concessions at Mogadishu Port and have pursued redevelopment deals at historic Suakin Port in Sudan, aimed at reviving Ottoman-era infrastructure with civilian and dual-use potential.

    In Libya, Turkish companies and naval presence support access to key maritime infrastructure in Misrata and other ports, reinforcing Ankara’s Mediterranean links. Indirect engagement is also underway in Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya, Senegal, and Tanzania, including tugboat provision, Ro-Ro transit agreements, and private investment, creating a broad network of influence in East and North Africa.

    Turkey’s diplomatic outreach reinforces these commercial and security investments. Ankara has nearly quadrupled the number of its embassies in Africa since the early 2000s, creating a dense network of bilateral missions that facilitate contracts, projects, and political dialogue, according to diplomatic reporting.

    Turkish Airlines now connects Istanbul to dozens of African cities, expanding people-to-people links that support trade, tourism, and institutional cooperation, according to airline data.

    Yet Turkey’s expansion in Africa is not only contractual or military. It is increasingly institutional. Banking, logistics, health, and security infrastructure are concentrated under a single foreign umbrella. This concentration creates operational depth. It embeds Turkish systems, compliance practices, and financial channels directly into the continent.

    Turkey Set to Deepen Ties with Africa. Credit: ADF.

    “Unlike the United States, China, or Russia, Turkey is embedding itself institutionally,” Akol explained. “Schools, banking, media, and regulatory standards allow Turkish influence to be operational and persistent rather than transactional.”

    The model is now visible elsewhere. In Senegal, Turkish firm Summa constructed the Dakar Arena and the 50,000-seat Abdoulaye Wade Stadium, and manages Blaise Diagne International Airport under contract.

    Education is also an area of interest for Turkey on the continent. The Maarif Foundation operates schools in more than 20 African countries, teaching Turkish curricula and language, while state scholarship programmes have brought thousands of African students to Turkish universities over the past decade.

    In North Africa, Turkish companies have paired construction and finance with cultural institutions in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, embedding language centres and educational initiatives alongside commercial projects, according to regional reporting.

    Yet this layered approach also carries risks. Observers have raised concerns about governance and transparency in long-term port concessions and construction contracts, and the political implications of defence exports are debated in capitals where accountability and civilian oversight are contested.

    Frontier energy exploration, as in Somalia, carries operational and security challenges that could delay projects and impose high insurance and maritime safety costs. Critics also warn that a dense web of institutional ties can create dependencies that are difficult to unwind once embedded within national systems.

    “By systematically replacing older external dependencies with Turkish systems, technology, and networks, Ankara is quietly redefining the parameters of influence on the continent,” Akol noted.

    Banking links, educational networks, and media influence are long-term assets that shape perceptions and institutional behaviour beyond project timelines.

    Finally, Akol added, “Fragile states, emerging energy markets, and shifting post-colonial orders are spaces Turkey arrives early, builds trust, and links economic, military, and cultural influence, positioning itself to shape the region’s trajectory over the long term.”

    Credit: Bonface Orucho, Bird Story Agency.

  • Zambia Rejects Sh129 Billion US Health Deal Over Secret Mining Demands

    Zambia Rejects Sh129 Billion US Health Deal Over Secret Mining Demands

    What you need to know:

    • Zambia re-negotiating Sh129 billion US health aid deal
    • Advocates warn deal linked to mining access and has data sharing risks
    • Trump administration says aid should further the national interests of the US

    Zambia has pushed back on part of a deal worth more than $1 billion (Sh129 billion) in global health aid from the United States because it does not align with the country’s interests, the government said on Wednesday, as health advocates warned the deal links the money to mining access and has data-sharing risks.

    The deal governs more than $1 billion (Sh129 billion) of US funding to tackle conditions like HIV and malaria, as well as improve disease outbreak preparedness and maternal and child health, over the next five years. It also requires around $340 million (Sh44 billion) in co-financing from the Zambian government over the same period, according to a draft of the agreement reviewed by Reuters.

    The deal was due to be signed in November, but had been delayed after revised drafts included a problematic section, a Zambian Ministry of Health spokesperson told Reuters on Wednesday.

    That section “did not align with the position and interests of the government of Zambia… We have therefore requested further revisions to the content in question,” the spokesperson said, declining to elaborate on what the content covered.

    US support in exchange for mining collaboration

    In December, the US said that it had committed, with Zambia, to “a plan that aims to unlock a substantial grant package of U.S. support in exchange for collaboration in the mining sector and clear business sector reforms.”

    Zambia is Africa’s second-largest copper producer after Democratic Republic of Congo, and also has cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite, lithium and rare-earth elements.

    In response to questions, a US State Department spokesperson told Reuters by email earlier this month that the country would not disclose the details of ongoing diplomatic negotiations.

    “Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio has consistently been clear that foreign assistance is not charity; it is designed to further the national interests of the United States,” they added. The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the status of the deal on Wednesday.

    Zambia said the agreement was focused on health.

    “It has no relation whatsoever to minerals, mining, or any natural resources,” the spokesperson added, saying they remained open to constructive engagement, “but only within terms that are clear, mutually agreed upon, and fully aligned with Zambia’s national interests.”

     

    Draft agreement ties funding to compact

     

    However, the draft agreement reviewed by Reuters outlines how the deal will be terminated and funding discontinued if Zambia and the US fail to agree by April 1 on a “bilateral compact” proposed by Rubio to Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema on November 17, 2025. Three sources said that compact was tied to mining collaboration.

    Health advocates in both countries said the data-sharing agreement in the draft, which was due to last for 10 years, was also problematic, and raised concerns over the secrecy surrounding the negotiations.

    “The data sharing will be one way from Zambia to the US and the information will benefit the US,” said Owen Mulenga, an officer at the Treatment, Advocacy and Literacy Campaign, a local non-governmental organisation lobbying for equitable, affordable and sustainable access to treatment, care and support for people living with HIV and AIDS in Zambia.

    “We need support from the US but there should be transparency,” Mulenga told Reuters. He said there was a lot of speculation the deal was tied to mining but the government had declined to talk about this with activists.

    “This deal would slash US government funding to life-saving programs… while prioritising the interests of mining corporations over the needs of Zambians with HIV,” said Asia Russell, executive director of Health GAP, a global HIV advocacy organisation that has closely followed the deal.

    The deal is the latest in a series of bilateral agreements reshaping how President Trump’s administration delivers billions of dollars in global health funding, after dismantling its aid agency last year, cutting funding and contracts worldwide – including in Zambia – and pledging to put “America First” in its global health strategy.

    Earlier on Wednesday, Zimbabwe pulled out of a deal worth $367 million (Sh47.3 billion), citing data sharing and privacy concerns and describing it as unequal. Kenya’s more than $1.6 billion (Sh206 billion) deal with the US is also suspended, pending a legal case. However, several other countries – including Nigeria and Uganda – have signed.

    –Reuters

  • Epstein Files Reveal Links To Cash, Women, Power In Africa

    Epstein Files Reveal Links To Cash, Women, Power In Africa

    Jeffrey Epstein built close ties with powerful figures in Senegal and Ivory Coast, files released by the US government last month show, detailing the late sex offender’s influence network across Africa.

    Emails, scheduled meetings, investment projects, and loans reviewed by AFP attest to the disgraced New York financier’s close relationship with Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade.

    They also reveal his ties to Nina Keita, niece of Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara.

    Wade and Epstein met in 2010 through Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, who recently resigned as CEO of port giant DP World after mounting pressure over his close friendship with Epstein.

    The pair quickly struck up a rapport.

    “Thanks for coming. I think there are many things to consider… I feel confident that we will have fun,” Epstein wrote to Wade on November 15, 2010 after their first meeting in Paris.

    “Have a safe trip back to your paradise Island,” Wade replied.

    While Wade’s exchanges show no link to Epstein-related sex trafficking crimes, they do reveal conversations on potential business ventures in various sectors, such as finance and energy.

    Nicknamed the “Minister of Heaven and Earth” for the multiple portfolios he held including international cooperation, energy, and air transport, Wade was a powerful figure in Senegal until April 2012, when his father’s bid for a third term sparked deadly riots.

    Epstein saw him as “one of the most important players in africa” and invited him to meet close contacts such as Ehud Barak, then Israel’s defence minister.

    He also put him in touch with Chinese businessman Desmond Shum to discuss “offshore banking.”

    The US Department of Justice documents show Shum and Wade met in Beijing on May 9, 2011.

    That same month, Wade planned an African tour through Senegal, Mali, and Gabon for Epstein.

    – ‘You will not suffer’ –

    Epstein and Wade’s relationship became even more apparent after the latter’s fortunes reversed when his father left office in 2012.

    That autumn, Epstein proposed that his “friend” — under the Dakar authorities’ scrutiny over his assets — use his house in Florida.

    “You and your family are welcome to use my house in palm beach, staff is there, pool etc. you will not suffer,” Epstein wrote.

    “Txs a lot Brother for the advise,” Wade replied a few weeks later to another email, in which Epstein urged him to “stay mentally strong”.

    Numerous files suggest Epstein became financially involved on Karim Wade’s behalf after his arrest in 2013 and his 2015 sentencing to six years in prison for corruption.

    Karim Wade’s lawyer, Mohamed Seydou Diagne, sent two invoices in May 2014 and July 2015 of $500,000 to one of Epstein’s companies.

    Contacted by AFP on Monday, Diagne said he “did not consider it useful to comment”.

    Other archives suggest that Epstein covered at least $50,000 in fees for the US lobbying firm Nelson Mullins, hired by Wade’s entourage to secure his release.

    Epstein regularly exchanged emails with Robert Crowe, a partner at the firm who kept him informed of their efforts in the US and Senegal.

    In a June 16, 2016 email thread where Epstein and Crowe discussed whether then Senegalese president Macky Sall would pardon Wade, Crowe writes: “He has told my friends high up at State that he was going to do it. They have been putting pressure on him!”

    Karim Wade was released from prison eight days later, on June 24, and went into exile in Qatar, which he credited for efforts toward his release.

    Jeffrey Epstein was told by Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem and Nina Keita.

    – ‘A very interesting person!’-

    The DOJ documents show Nina Keita was close to both Epstein and Karim Wade and that she acted as a regular intermediary while Wade was in prison.

    Keita also helped put Epstein in contact with her uncle, president of Ivory Coast since May 2011, and his team.

    “He thought you were a very interesting person! … they were all very happy to have you here,” she wrote on January 20, 2012, after the financier’s visit to Abidjan.

    She had booked him the “ministerial suite” of the luxury Hotel Ivoire for that trip.

    Ahead of the visit, Epstein had said he hoped to see “very pretty girls there, as well as interesting places”.

    “You will!” Keita replied.

    Emails show Keita, a former model, at least once sent photos and the phone number of a young woman to Epstein.

    He then met this woman at the Ritz hotel in Paris on August 31, 2011.

    “ask sadia to send pictures of her sister. i prefer under 25,” Epstein wrote to Keita after the meeting.

    Now the deputy general director of Ivorian petroleum stocks company GESTOCI, Keita also appears in a February 2019 will in which Epstein requested that debts owed to him by a number of people be cancelled upon his death.

    AFP received no response to its requests for comment from both Keita and the Ivorian presidency, or from Karim Wade, who was contacted through his entourage.

    The mere mention of a person’s name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply wrongdoing.

  • Two Women Arrested for Kissing Publicly in Uganda

    Two Women Arrested for Kissing Publicly in Uganda

    Two women who are in their 20s have been detained by the Ugandan Police since February 18, 2026, for kissing in public.

    A police spokesperson, Josephine Angucia, said the two women were arrested after neighbours in the northwestern city of Arua, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of the capital, Kampala, filed a complaint against them.

    Neighbours contacted police, complaining that the two were practising homosexuality and were seen kissing each other in public.

    “They had seen many women going onto their one-roomed rented residence and spending nights there in what they suspected was same-sex orgies,” Angucia told AFP.

    She added that neighbours took pictures of the two women as evidence and that the case has been forwarded to the state prosecutor for a possible court appearance.

    Ugandan police officers. Credit: Anadolu Ajansı
    Ugandan police officers. Credit: Anadolu Ajansı

    A human rights advocate, Frank Mugashi, condemned the arrest of X on Monday. Mugashi described the arrest of the ladies as the grim reality faced by victims under the anti-gay law.

    “It has fueled a dangerous cycle of blackmail and extortion,” Mugisha said.

    “Criminals are now using this law as a weapon to prey on the LGBTQ+ community, knowing their victims are too terrified to seek protection,” his post read.

    The two women, if charged in court, could face penalties of up to life imprisonment for consensual same-sex relations as stipulated by Uganda’s 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act. The Act also imposes a death penalty on “aggravated homosexuality”.

    The anti-gay law in Uganda, a predominantly Christian and conservative African country, has been regarded as the harshest in the world.

  • M23 Rebel Spokesperson Killed In Congo Army Drone Strike, Officials Say

    M23 Rebel Spokesperson Killed In Congo Army Drone Strike, Officials Say

    DAKAR, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The military spokesperson for the M23 rebel group, Willy Ngoma, was killed in an army drone strike in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, a regional diplomat, a senior rebel official and a Western adviser to the government said.

    The killing comes as Qatar‑mediated ceasefire effortscontinue, with Kinshasa and M23 having signed agreements in Doha to establish a joint ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism involving Qatar, the United States and the African Union as observers.

    M23, which the United Nations says is backed by Rwanda, controls large swathes of North and South Kivu provinces after a rapid offensive last year in which the rebels seized the strategic cities of Goma and Bukavu.

    The attack happened near Rubaya, in North Kivu, at around 3 a.m. (0100 GMT), and came after several days of sustained drone attacks on the area by the Congolese army, the senior M23 official told Reuters.

    Rubaya is a strategic coltan-mining hub that produces around 15% of the world’s supply, making it a key financial stronghold for the M23 rebels.

    A spokesperson for the Congolese presidency declined to comment and a spokesperson for Congo’s army did not immediately respond.

  • ‪Somaliland Offers Minerals, Military Bases To US‬

    ‪Somaliland Offers Minerals, Military Bases To US‬

    Somaliland is willing to give the United States access to its minerals and military bases, a minister has told AFP, as the breakaway region of Somalia seeks international recognition.

    Israel became the only country in the world to recognise Somaliland’s independence in December — something the territory has been seeking since declaring its autonomy from Somalia in 1991.

    The government in Mogadishu still considers Somaliland an integral part of Somalia even though the territory has run its own affairs since 1991, with its own passport, currency, army and police force.

    “We are willing to give exclusive (access to our minerals) to the United States. Also, we are open to offer military bases to the United States,” Khadar Hussein Abdi, minister of the presidency, told AFP in an interview on Saturday.

    “We believe that we will agree on something with the United States.”

    Somaliland president Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi already suggested in recent weeks granting Israel privileged access to its mineral resources.

    And Khadar Hussein Abdi said he could not rule out the possibility of also allowing Israel to set up a military presence.

    Somaliland lies across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, where Houthi rebels have often attacked Israeli assets to show solidarity with Palestinians.

    Somaliland officials have said natural resources include lithium, coltan and other sought-after materials, though independent studies are lacking.

  • Tunisian MP Jailed For Eight Months Over Posts Mocking President

    Tunisian MP Jailed For Eight Months Over Posts Mocking President

    A Tunisian court has sentenced a lawmaker to eight months in prison over social media posts mocking President Kais Saied following recent deadly floods.

    Ahmed Saidani was arrested earlier this month after he posted on social media about Saied’s visits to flood-hit areas, calling him the “supreme commander of sanitation and rainwater drainage”.

    He was jailed on Thursday on charges of insulting others via communication networks, a judicial official said.

    Saidani’s lawyer, Houssem Eddine Ben Attia, told AFP news agency that his client was being prosecuted under a telecommunications law against “harming others via social media”, an offence punishable by up to two years in prison.

    Human rights groups have criticised what they describe as an escalation of Saied’s crackdown on dissent since he suspended Tunisia’s parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree.

    Saidani, once a supporter of Saied’s consolidation of power and the arrest of opposition figures, has recently turned into an outspoken critic of the president.

    In his Facebook post, the lawmaker mocked the president for “taking up the hobby of taking photos with the poor and destitute” while visiting flooded areas in the capital, Tunis and other parts of the country.

    At least five people died after unexpectedly heavy rainfall in Tunisia last month
    At least five people died after unexpectedly heavy rainfall in Tunisia last month

    Saidani, who was elected as a lawmaker in 2022, has also accused the president of monopolising decision-making while avoiding responsibility, leaving others to take the blame.

    “This is a violation of the law and an attack on institutions. How can parliament hold the executive authority to account if it carries out an unlawful arrest over critical views,” fellow MP Bilel Mechri told Reuters news agency.

    At least five people died and several remain missing after Tunisia experienced its heaviest rainfall in over 70 years last month.

    President Saied was elected in 2019 promising a return to stable government following years of political instability after long-time leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted by the “Arab Spring” street protests in 2011.

    His critics accuse him of reimposing aspects of authoritarian rule and curtailing political freedoms.

    The 67-year old leader rejects claims of dictatorship, insisting he is upholding the law and working to “cleanse” the country.

    Tunisian lawmakers have parliamentary immunity, protecting them from arrest while performing their official duties, though they can be detained for committing a criminal offence.

  • ‪Robert Mugabe’s Son Arrested At Johannesburg Home After Reported Shooting

    ‪Robert Mugabe’s Son Arrested At Johannesburg Home After Reported Shooting

    Police in South Africa have arrested the youngest son of Zimbabwe’s late former President Robert Mugabe, who is facing a charge of attempted murder after a reported shooting at a property in an upmarket suburb of Johannesburg.

    Bellarmine Mugabe, 28, was taken into custody after a 23-year-old man, believed to be a gardener, was shot and injured.

    Officers searching the house in Hyde Park, where Mugabe was staying, have found bullet cartridges but no firearm, police have said.

    Bellarmine Mugabe is the youngest son of Robert and his second wife Grace Mugabe. Robert Mugabe, who died in 2019, led Zimbabwe for 37 years before being forced out of power at the age of 93 in 2017.

    One other man has been arrested alongside Bellarmine Mugabe as investigators continue their work, police spokesperson Col Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said.

    The pair are expected to appear in court “soon”, according to a police statement.

    Police are not yet officially naming Bellarmine Mugabe as one of those arrested, but reporters at the scene saw him in handcuffs and he has been widely named by local media.

    The victim is in hospital and in a critical condition after being shot once, the spokesperson added.

    In a briefing outside the property, Nevhuhulwi said the two suspects have not “told us where the gun is, they are not saying anything about the gun”.

  • Ghana Publishes Face and Passport Of Russian Man Accused Of Secretly Filming Women

    Ghana Publishes Face and Passport Of Russian Man Accused Of Secretly Filming Women

    Ghana’s Minister for Communications, Samuel Nartey George, has released images of a Russian “pick-up artist” accused of filming and publishing intimate images of Ghanaian women.

    The government says it will pursue the matter to ensure the suspect faces justice.

    Ghana’s Foreign Minister has also summoned the Russian ambassador, Sergei Berdnikov, over the issue, with both countries agreeing to cooperate in tracking down the individual.

    The passport of the Russian citizen accused of secretly filming women in several countries.
    The passport of the Russian citizen accused of secretly filming women in several countries.

    At a press conference in Accra on Wednesday, February 18, Minister for Communications Samuel Nartey George released the suspect’s passport, identifying him as Vladislav Liukov. This comes after earlier reports that the Russian ambassador could not confirm whether the suspect was a Russian citizen.

    George said the Communications and Gender ministries have the suspect’s passport details and photographs and will share the information. He added that some victims have filed formal complaints with the cybersecurity authority, with the case now being handled by the police CID.

    He noted that the police, together with the cybersecurity authority, will escalate the matter to Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant. The authority is also preparing to prosecute the suspect in absentia.

    The case has sparked anger across the country, with many demanding justice, while others have controversially blamed the women involved.

    Ghana’s Gender Minister, Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, says not all the women involved had intimate or sexual relations with the suspect.

    She noted that some of the women are suicidal, especially those who had no sexual contact with him but are now being shamed.

    The minister called for empathy, saying her ministry is providing counselling and psychological support to the victims, many of whom are traumatised by the publications.

    She also stressed that Ghana will not allow anyone to violate its citizens and escape justice.

    Investigations by the cybersecurity authority show the suspect recorded intimate encounters with some of the women and monetised the content online. Authorities are now tracing the digital and financial evidence linked to the case.

    Under Ghana’s Cybersecurity Act of 2020, non-consensual recording and sharing of intimate images is illegal, with offenders facing up to 25 years in prison depending on the severity of the offence.

  • Questions Over The Secrecy Of Companies Buying South Sudan Oil

    Questions Over The Secrecy Of Companies Buying South Sudan Oil

    A London courtroom drama that briefly froze 600,000 barrels of South Sudan’s Dar Blend crude last November did far more than expose a broken financing deal.

    It ripped open a hidden world of opaque intermediaries, shell-layered trading structures and politically connected middlemen who, investigators now believe, have quietly captured the lifeblood of one of Africa’s most fragile and oil-dependent economies.

    When British commodity trader BB Energy obtained an emergency injunction from the High Court of England and Wales on November 18, 2025, the order specifically named Dubai-based EuroAmerican Energy and Singapore-registered Cathay Petroleum International Pte Ltd as the firms seeking to receive the disputed cargo.

    Neither had made any prepayment to Juba for the oil they intended to take, a barrister for BB Energy told Justice Christopher Butcher.

    Court documents showed the cargo was awarded by South Sudan to EuroAmerican, and that Meridian Energy Pte Ltd paid $30 million for it with the intention to resell to Cathay Petroleum International.

    A four-company chain had formed around a single shipment of crude oil belonging to one of the world’s poorest nations — and the government that owned that oil had no public explanation for why.

    Sudan’s Ministry of Energy and Oil, which processes and transports South Sudan’s crude through its territories before export at Port Sudan’s Bashayer terminal, has been explicit about the limits of what it knows.

    A ministry source told the Sudanese outlet Al-Mohagig that Khartoum issues shipping bills to both the government of South Sudan and to companies, but has no knowledge of who is actually purchasing the crude, because the sale “takes place directly between those companies and the government of South Sudan.” That admission, intended to deflect responsibility, instead crystallises precisely what investigators and creditors have been screaming about for months: nobody appears to know, or is willing to say, who is actually buying South Sudan’s oil.

    The answer, pieced together from court filings, leaked shipping records and investigative reports obtained by Africa Intelligence, is deeply troubling.

    A trading network built on bribery’s ruins

    The investigation traces how a high-risk oil trading continuum linking Arcadia Petroleum, Glencore and Cathay Petroleum converged with EuroAmerican Energy to quietly take control of South Sudan’s oil export system.

    The lineage of the players matters enormously. Arcadia Petroleum collapsed in 2018 amid allegations of massive fraud involving $349 million.

    Glencore, which had traded South Sudanese crude through the local firm Trinity Energy under an Afreximbank facility, later made a far more damning public admission: the UK Serious Fraud Office found that over $25 million in bribes were paid across multiple African states, including South Sudan, between 2011 and 2016 for preferential access to oil.

    Personnel from those networks did not disappear. According to investigators with access to internal shipping allocation records, several core traders from Arcadia migrated to Glencore, and from Glencore migrated again into Cathay Petroleum, a firm founded in March 2003 by a Chinese national operating between Hong Kong and Singapore, which had for years traded crude linked to Libya, Yemen and North Sudan before its abrupt expansion into South Sudan’s market in 2025.

    While Cathay provides the trading platform, the physical and commercial seizure of cargoes is executed by EuroAmerican Energy under the direction of Idris Taha, a Sudanese trader holding British nationality and frequently traveling on a German passport.

    Taha’s network allegedly captured more than 80 percent of South Sudan’s crude oil exports at the height of its dominance.

    That a single offshore trader, operating through layered intermediaries and with no disclosed prepayment obligation to Juba, could come to control the overwhelming majority of a sovereign nation’s primary revenue stream is a finding of staggering consequence.

    Oil service firms linked to former Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel, to Dutch national Cornelis Nicolaas Abraham Loos and to Idris Taha are alleged to have charged up to three times standard international rates for oilfield services, figures fully reimbursed under cost-oil rules, transferring the financial burden directly onto public revenue.

    Loos, described by sources as a close associate of Bol Mel, allegedly managed financial flows through Dubai and handled UAE real estate assets on behalf of senior officials.

    The cargo chain that nobody will explain

    The architecture of the trading structure revealed in court proceedings and shipping records is deliberately designed to obscure beneficial ownership and dilute accountability. Rather than flowing directly from a producing consortium to a refiner or end-user, South Sudanese crude now passes through first-level intermediaries before being resold to a second tier, which then delivers to a final buyer. At each layer, revenue is diluted, traceability is weakened and beneficial ownership becomes harder to identify. Large portions of proceeds now disappear outside the formal banking system altogether.

    The consequences for Juba’s treasury have been catastrophic. South Sudan’s Ministry of Finance has been cut off from export data and no longer receives official reports on output, prices or destinations of crude sales.

    The Central Bank, deprived of incoming foreign currency, reports severe shortages, triggering the collapse of the South Sudanese pound. The Ministry of Petroleum has not published an annual report since May 2021, leaving a complete blackout in public financial transparency.

    Into this institutional void stepped Benjamin Bol Mel and the network around him.

    As Vice President, and previously as a politically connected businessman with companies awarded contracts under the “Oil for Roads” programme, Bol Mel allegedly presided over the systematic redirection of oil revenues away from the Treasury.

    UN investigators found that the “Oil for Roads” infrastructure programme, budgeted at $2.2 billion since 2020, delivered less than five percent of promised works.

    The money instead flowed into political patronage networks. President Salva Kiir dismissed Bol Mel on November 12, 2025, stripping him of his general’s rank, demoting him to private and placing him under house arrest in Juba.

    Where did $25 billion go?

    The scale of what has been lost is almost incomprehensible for a country where, according to international aid agencies, 7.7 million people face hunger.

    The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan concluded that the government’s oil inflows have exceeded $25.2 billion since independence in 2011, including revenues and oil-backed loans, yet systemic corruption and diversion of revenues mean hardly any money reaches essential services.

    Most civil servants are underpaid or unpaid.

    International donors now spend more on South Sudan’s basic services than the government itself, and the country ranks last out of 180 nations in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

    The UN report, titled “Plundering a Nation,” was not an abstract finding. It named schemes, named figures, and named the precise mechanisms through which a nation’s wealth was extracted. Yet those mechanisms continued to function until an injunction in a London court briefly made them visible to the outside world.

    South Sudan currently owes commodity traders and financiers an estimated $2.3 billion, much of it tied to oil-backed loans that creditors are increasingly pursuing in foreign jurisdictions.

    Qatar National Bank secured a $1 billion award against South Sudan after years of unpaid loans, with the government failing to even defend itself in arbitration. Afreximbank obtained a judgment worth $657 million in a London court in 2024 after South Sudan defaulted on pandemic-era credit facilities.

    The question of who knew, and when

    The former administration’s defenders argue that the pipeline rupture of February 2024, which halted exports for months and sent the government scrambling for emergency financing, explains much of the chaos. BB Energy itself acknowledged the disruption as an “exceptional circumstance” that caused delays under the prepayment agreement it signed with Juba in February 2025. But investigators close to the new administration reject the explanation as convenient cover.

    The redirection of cargoes to EuroAmerican Energy and Cathay Petroleum was not a response to an emergency. It was, according to officials who have reviewed internal records now in the hands of probers, a structural feature of how the petroleum ministry operated under the previous leadership.

    Former petroleum undersecretary Deng Lual Wol, dismissed alongside Bol Mel, is identified in investigative reporting as the day-to-day architect of the ministry’s commercial relationships with these opaque trading networks.

    Former Nilepet chief executive Ayuel Ngor Kacgor, also removed in November, is said to still hold board positions at operating companies registered in Mauritius and to receive remuneration linked to legacy arrangements. Investigators say key contracts were destroyed or removed by former officials before the new leadership could access them. The current team operates, in the words of one official, “blind.”

    Khartoum’s position and the Heglig complication

    Sudan’s statement that it has no knowledge of who buys the crude it transports is, from a narrow technical standpoint, accurate. Juba sells the oil; Port Sudan ships it. But the admission also illustrates the near-total absence of any transit-country oversight over who ultimately receives the cargo and on what financial terms.

    The Heglig processing hub, which handles South Sudan’s Unity State crude and which was briefly threatened by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces at the end of 2024, remains a critical chokepoint.

    Its vulnerability adds yet another layer of operational leverage that external actors, including Chinese state firms CNPC and Sinopec, have been accused of exploiting to extract commercial concessions.

    China’s dominance in South Sudan’s oilfield services sector, from drilling to logistics, has given it outsized leverage over production decisions. Policymakers have warned that this influence has become a structural threat to South Sudan’s economic sovereignty, allowing external actors to dictate the pace at which national revenues are realised.

    A new administration, a test of resolve

    The appointment in November 2025 of Dr Bak Barnaba Chol as Finance Minister, Emmanuel Athiei Ayual as Nilepet managing director and Dr Chol Thon Abel as petroleum undersecretary has been accompanied by the launch of formal investigative proceedings into the Petronas acquisition failure and the EuroAmerican network.

    Idris Taha himself travelled to Juba in December, his first known personal visit to the capital in years, in a bid to rebuild political access. He found locked doors. The new leadership has signalled that it will not engage with him.

    Whether that resolve holds is the question that now shadows every cargo that loads at Bashayer terminal. Taha and the traders he works with have spent decades perfecting their craft in sanctioned and conflict-affected markets. They know how to wait out political transitions.

    They know how to identify new officials who might be susceptible to inducements. They know that even when caught, as Glencore was when it admitted to bribery, the consequences are often manageable and the networks can survive to operate under new names.

    BB Energy has now lifted its first cargo under the reconstituted prepayment arrangement, with CEO Mohamed Bassatne calling it “an important first step.” The legal case against Juba remains technically alive, suspended pending finalisation of a comprehensive agreement. The company has $61.5 million outstanding at minimum and continues to operate under a framework where the full terms of delivery are still being negotiated.

    For South Sudan, the arithmetic is bleak. Oil generates more than 90 percent of government revenue. The buyers of that oil have, for years, been operating behind a veil that even Sudan’s own pipeline ministry admits it cannot penetrate.

    The traders who moved into that vacuum came from networks that paid bribes, collapsed under fraud allegations and then reconstituted themselves under new names.

    The officials who gave them preferential access are now under house arrest or under investigation.

    What remains is a nation whose most vital resource continues to flow outward every few weeks in 600,000-barrel cargoes, to buyers whose ultimate identities and the precise financial arrangements that govern their purchases remain, deliberately and systematically, unknown.

    That, more than any single legal filing, is the scandal at the heart of South Sudan’s oil industry.

  • Over 1,000 Kenyans Lured, Deceived and Sent to Die in Russia’s War

    Over 1,000 Kenyans Lured, Deceived and Sent to Die in Russia’s War

    NAIROBI — They were told they would be security guards. One expected to work as a salesman. Another believed he was headed to Russia as a high-level athlete. Instead, all of them were handed weapons after three weeks of perfunctory military training and sent to the front lines of one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern European history.

    More than 1,000 Kenyans have now been trafficked into Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to a classified joint report by the National Intelligence Service and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations that was tabled before Kenya’s National Assembly on Wednesday. The figure — far exceeding previous government estimates — has ignited a parliamentary firestorm and triggered demands for the exposure and prosecution of state officials who investigators say are complicit in what amounts to an industrial-scale human trafficking operation with blood on its hands.

    The report, presented by National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah, describes a criminal syndicate so deeply embedded in Kenya’s government apparatus that it has corrupted officers in immigration, the criminal investigations directorate, the anti-narcotics unit, the National Employment Authority and, most shockingly of all, staff inside both the Russian embassy in Nairobi and the Kenyan embassy in Moscow.

    “Government offices are not to be used for criminal activities,” Ichung’wah told a hushed House. “Our embassy must be the place where Kenyans can seek refuge, not exploitation.”

    The human toll documented in the report is stark. As of this month, 89 Kenyans remain on active front lines in eastern Ukraine. Thirty-nine are hospitalized. Twenty-eight are missing in action. Thirty-five remain confined to Russian military camps. At least 10 confirmed deaths have been recorded — a figure that separate tallies suggest could be as high as 18. Four Kenyans are currently held as prisoners of war in Ukrainian custody. One has completed his contract. One is detained.

    The families of those men and women have been left to agonize in silence, some clutching photographs of sons and brothers who vanished months ago after telling relatives they were off to find work abroad.

    A Recruitment Machine Hiding in Plain Sight

    The operation, investigators found, was not improvised. It was systematic, well-funded and brazen.

    Rogue recruitment agencies — at least one of them operating from a commercial address along Koinange Street in central Nairobi and hiding behind the branding of the government’s legitimate Kazi Majuu overseas employment initiative — have been actively head-hunting targets for the Russian military. Their preferred recruits: former Kenya Defence Forces personnel, ex-police officers and unemployed civilians between their mid-twenties and early fifties, men and women desperate enough to believe an offer that seemed, in hindsight, almost too good to be true.

    The promised terms were extraordinary. Monthly salaries of approximately 350,000 Kenyan shillings. Signing bonuses ranging from 900,000 shillings to 1.2 million. And the ultimate carrot: eventual Russian citizenship for those who survived long enough to collect it.

    What the recruits were not told was that the contracts they signed in Kenya — and countersigned with a shadowy overseas employment agency in Moscow — were written in Cyrillic, a script none of them could read. By the time they understood what they had agreed to, they were already in military camps.

    “They are basically just giving you a gun to go and die,” Ichung’wah told Parliament, his voice tight with barely contained fury.

    Victims paid as much as 1.6 million shillings in recruitment fees for the privilege of being trafficked. Bank accounts linked to key suspects have since been frozen. Passports, contracts and electronic communications have been recovered as evidence. Multiple arrests are expected.

    A State Within the State

    What has most alarmed lawmakers is not the existence of rogue private recruiters — those, at least, can be deregistered and prosecuted. What has alarmed them is the evidence that the network could not have operated without active protection from inside the Kenyan government itself.

    According to the NIS-DCI report, colluding officials from the Directorate of Immigration Services, the DCI and the National Employment Authority facilitated the movement of recruits through Jomo Kenyatta International Airport without interception. Embassy staff in Moscow helped issue the visit visas that made the travel possible. When airport scrutiny intensified after earlier exposures, traffickers simply rerouted their human cargo through Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa, exploiting the region’s more porous border systems.

    In September 2025, a DCI raid on Great Wall Apartments uncovered 22 victims aged between 24 and 38, being held under the supervision of two Kenyans operating on behalf of a Russian national. The Russian was arrested the following day — and deported back to Russia within 24 hours, raising immediate questions about whose interests were being protected and why justice moved so swiftly in his favor.

    Ichung’wah demanded answers. “The Ministry of Interior, through the State Department for Immigration Services, must pinpoint the officers colluding with criminals. The same applies to the DCI and the National Employment Authority. Our ambassador in Moscow must identify the officers within the embassy that may have colluded with these criminals.”

    Taita Taveta Woman Representative Lydia Haika, whose parliamentary committee has been flooded with complaints about overseas exploitation, noted that the National Employment Authority had blacklisted some agencies — but that many others continued to operate. “These are issues that come to our committee every day,” she said.

    A Continent Being Harvested

    Kenya’s crisis is not happening in isolation. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in November that Kyiv had identified at least 1,436 foreign nationals from 36 African countries fighting on Russia’s side, warning that the true number was almost certainly higher. A February 2026 report by INPACT, a Swiss-based investigative organization, identified 1,417 African men who since 2023 have signed formal contracts to enlist with Russian forces. Recruitment, the report found, has been accelerating steadily — rising from 177 cases in 2023 to 592 in 2024 and 647 in 2025.

    Cameroon leads African nations in confirmed deaths, with between 94 and 96 of its nationals killed in combat. Kenya’s confirmed death toll, while officially lower, is almost certainly undercounted. Identifying and repatriating the dead has proven agonizingly difficult. Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi, who announced plans in February to visit Moscow to demand formal bilateral protections for Kenyan citizens, told the BBC that some bodies had been found in Ukrainian territory, requiring coordination with Kyiv even to begin the process of bringing the dead home.

    Russia, for its part, has built an elaborate architecture of deception to sustain its African recruitment pipeline. A website called “Fight for Russia,” hosted on Russian servers and launched in January 2025, has carried online application forms for foreign volunteers. Social media campaigns run by influencers, many of them African fighters-turned-ambassadors for Russian military service, have been deployed to reach young men on the continent through platforms they already use daily. In some cases, the FSB, Russia’s federal security service, has been directly implicated in coordinating the networks.

    For those who refuse the pitch or try to turn back after arriving, the choices are brutal. Illegal immigrants intercepted in Russia, the INPACT report found, are given two options: deportation, or a contract with the Russian army.

    The Economy Behind the Desperation

    Every parliamentarian who rose to speak on Wednesday returned, eventually, to the same uncomfortable truth: the traffickers are exploiting a real and desperate hunger for economic survival.

    Funyula MP Wilberforce Oundo noted that Kenyans pursue manual and low-skilled jobs abroad not from recklessness but from extreme economic hardship. Baringo North MP Joseph Makilap called on the DCI and NIS to interrogate agencies suspected of sending Kenyans to conflict zones, and urged the government to create local reintegration pathways — farm work, vocational training — for those who have already returned, many of them traumatized, some amputated, some barely functioning.

    “The only way we can save ourselves,” said Oundo, “is to continuously build this economy so each Kenyan can have a job. Otherwise, many young people end up maimed or dead in conflict zones.”

    Ichung’wah echoed the warning, urging job seekers to verify overseas employment offers exclusively through licensed and regulated agencies. He reminded Kenyans that the Kazi Majuu program — the legitimate government initiative whose name and branding the traffickers have been stealing — exists precisely to provide verified overseas opportunities through channels that do not end in military camps in Kursk Oblast.

    What Happens Next

    Investigations are ongoing. Kenyan authorities say more arrests are imminent. Foreign Minister Mudavadi’s planned visit to Moscow, if it takes place, will seek a formal bilateral agreement barring the conscription of Kenyan nationals. Kenya has already deregistered more than 600 non-compliant recruitment agencies since the scandal broke.

    But the parliamentary session on Wednesday made clear that accountability within the state itself remains the harder problem. Names have not yet been named. The rogue immigration officials, the complicit DCI officers, the embassy staff in Moscow — none have been publicly identified or charged.

    Until they are, as Ichung’wah made plain, the pipeline remains open.

    “They have made other Kenyans lose lives,” he said. “Others suffer in the battlefield. And the emotional turmoil that the families are going through.”

    Outside Parliament, in houses across Nairobi and Kisumu and Eldoret and the Western counties, those families are still waiting for their sons to call.

    Reporting contributed by correspondents in Nairobi. Additional information drawn from NIS-DCI intelligence findings presented to the National Assembly, statements by Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and reports by INPACT, France 24, The Washington Post, and Al Jazeera.

  • ‪Somalia Adopts and To Start Printing EAC e-Passport‬

    ‪Somalia Adopts and To Start Printing EAC e-Passport‬

    Somalia has received official authorisation to adopt and print the East African Community (EAC) e-Passport, marking a practical step in its integration into the regional bloc, Somalia’s ambassador to Tanzania and permanent representative to the EAC, Ilyaas Ali Hassan, said.

    The envoy said in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday, February 17, 2026 that he formally handed over the decision to Somalia’s Minister of Internal Security, Gen Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail “Fartaag,” and the Director-General of Immigration and Citizenship, Mustafa Sheikh Ahmed Dhuxulow, during an engagement in Dar es Salaam.

    “I had the honour to hand over the official decision authorising Somalia to adopt and print the EAC passport to the Minister of Internal Security and Director-General of Immigration and Citizenship,” the ambassador said.

    The EAC e-Passport is designed to harmonise travel documents across member states while strengthening document security and verification at border points. According to the bloc, the passport contains an embedded electronic chip with biometric identifiers, aimed at reducing fraud, tampering and identity manipulation.

    Somalia’s move comes amid growing immigration cooperation with Tanzania. On February 16, the two countries signed a migration cooperation memorandum of understanding, which regional reports say provides visa exemptions for diplomatic passport holders, faster processing timelines for ordinary visas, and structured collaboration between immigration authorities.

    Somalia is the EAC’s newest partner state. The bloc admitted Somalia at the Summit of Heads of State on November 24, 2023, and the country became a full member on March 4, 2024, after depositing its instrument of ratification with the EAC secretary-general at the headquarters in Arusha.

    The regional e-Passport was launched on March 2, 2016, at the 17th Ordinary Summit of the EAC. It is issued in three categories—diplomatic, service and ordinary—reflecting different classes of official travel.

    Rollout among member states has been phased. Kenya began issuing the passport in September 2017, followed by Tanzania in January 2018, Burundi in May 2018, Uganda in December 2018, and Rwanda in July 2019. South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are still implementing the system, according to the bloc.

     

    Colour coding

     

    EAC documentation says the passport features standardised “East African Community” branding and partner-state identification, with colour coding by category: red for diplomatic, green for service, and sky blue for ordinary—reflecting the colours of the EAC flag and enabling uniform recognition.

    For Somalia, authorisation to adopt and print the EAC format is expected to align with broader reforms to its identity and travel-document systems. Somali media reports in late 2025 cited immigration officials saying the country plans to introduce a new passport in 2026 as part of a wider modernisation drive.

    The EAC frames harmonised travel documents as central to its integration agenda, aimed at facilitating lawful cross-border movement for work, trade, study and family travel.

    According to the bloc, the East African Community represents a combined market of about 331.1 million people with a gross domestic product of roughly $312.9 billion, underscoring the scale of mobility that common standards are intended to support.

  • FBI Investigates Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s Husband’s Sh3.8 Billion Businesses in Kenya, Somalia and Dubai

    FBI Investigates Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s Husband’s Sh3.8 Billion Businesses in Kenya, Somalia and Dubai

    Washington DC | Friday February 14 2026

    A congressional investigation into US Representative Ilhan Omar’s husband has taken a dramatic international turn, with American lawmakers demanding documents related to mysterious business dealings spanning Kenya, Somalia and the United Arab Emirates.

    House Oversight Chairman James Comer has written to Tim Mynett, the Somalia-born congresswoman’s husband, demanding he surrender all records of travel and business communications linked to the three countries by February 19.

    The probe has intensified following revelations that Omar’s family wealth exploded from a modest Sh6.6 million to a staggering Sh3.9 billion in just one year, according to federal financial disclosure documents filed in 2024.

    At the centre of the controversy is Rose Lake Capital, an investment firm co-owned by Mynett that claims to specialise in global opportunities. The firm had explored ambitious plans to build solar panel installations across Africa, with particular interest in Somalia and Kenya, according to documents obtained by investigators.

    Business records show that Mynett’s partner, William Hailer, received a Sh1.4 million airline ticket to Dubai for discussions about a potential deal in the Emirates. The nature of that deal remains unclear, as Rose Lake Capital has recently scrubbed its website of key information, including the names of its officers and advisors.

    The international scope of the investigation marks a significant escalation in what began as scrutiny of Mynett’s domestic business ventures. Comer’s February 5 letter specifically requests documentation of all travel to Kenya, Somalia and the United Arab Emirates, including dates, travellers and stated purposes.

    “She needs to explain to the American people how her net worth went from zero to Sh1.3 billion in one year, and explain why the Biden Department of Justice was investigating her husband’s financial activities over the course of that year, where her net worth ballooned up,” Comer said in a television interview Wednesday night.

    The probe extends beyond Rose Lake Capital to include eStCru, a California winery that Mynett co-owns with Hailer. That business has become the subject of intense scrutiny after its reported valuation skyrocketed from Sh2 million to Sh650 million in 12 months, despite having no visible operations, no active telephone lines and virtually no online presence.

    Multiple investors have already sued Mynett and Hailer over the winery venture. In one case, a Washington DC restaurant owner named Naeem Mohd claims he invested Sh39 million after being promised a 200 per cent return within 18 months. The lawsuit alleges the pair fraudulently misrepresented the winery as a legitimate business.

    Another lawsuit involving a cannabis investment saw Hailer settle for Sh156 million in August 2024 after investors claimed he promised to raise Sh975 million but instead allegedly misappropriated their Sh460 million investment.

    House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) demanded Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband Tim Mynett (r) hand over any information about his company Rose Lake Capital LLC’s business in Nigeria, Somalia, and the United Arab Emirates.
    House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) demanded Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband Tim Mynett (r) hand over any information about his company Rose Lake Capital LLC’s business in Nigeria, Somalia, and the United Arab Emirates.

    The connection to East Africa is particularly sensitive given Omar’s Somali heritage and her district’s large Somali-American population in Minnesota. That same district has been rocked by what authorities describe as a multi-billion shilling social services fraud scandal involving members of the Somali community.

    Former political operatives who worked with Mynett and Hailer describe them as well-connected Democratic Party insiders who previously ran E Street Group, a political consulting firm that received nearly Sh390 million from Omar’s congressional campaigns alone.

    The FBI and Department of Justice opened their own investigation into Omar’s finances in 2024, examining her campaign spending and interactions with foreign citizens, though that probe appears to have stalled without charges being filed.

    Omar’s spokesperson, Jackie Rogers, has dismissed the congressional investigation as a “political stunt” and “smear campaign,” insisting the reported valuations reflect full company assessments rather than Mynett’s individual stake.

    Comer has now referred the matter to the House Ethics Committee, whose members say they are better positioned to investigate sitting members of Congress. Republican lawmakers have vowed to pursue subpoenas if Mynett fails to comply with document requests.

    The deadline for Mynett’s response passed on Wednesday with no public indication he has turned over the requested materials. His attorneys have not responded to requests for comment.

    President Donald Trump has publicly called for Omar to face criminal charges, claiming without evidence that she is connected to what he alleges is Sh2.5 trillion in Minnesota welfare fraud, though he has provided no proof to support the astronomical figure.

    As investigators piece together the puzzle of how a struggling political consultant amassed a fortune seemingly overnight, the trail now leads from California vineyards to solar ventures in the Horn of Africa, and onwards to the gleaming towers of Dubai.

    Whether that trail reveals legitimate business success or something more sinister remains to be seen, but lawmakers have made clear they intend to follow the money wherever it leads.

  • M23 Leader Bertrand Bisimwa: Yes, Rwanda Supports Us

    M23 Leader Bertrand Bisimwa: Yes, Rwanda Supports Us

    Congolese rebel group AFC/M23 says Rwanda has a right to support its cause in pacifying eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to secure its borders and keep the genocidal Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) away.

    M23 political leader Bertrand Bisimwa said their cooperation with Kigali is not about political or military support but about security because of armed groups, especially the FDLR, which killed people in Rwanda and escaped into Congo, from where they plan attacks against Congolese civilians of Rwandan descent and cross-border attacks against Rwandans.

    “I admit Rwanda supports us. Why? Because we are neighbours. At the border, you will find many Congolese crossing into Rwanda and Rwandans crossing into Congo to do business,” he told journalists in Goma on Monday.

    “There are certain issues that crop up between neighbours that require cooperation. Our cooperation is because of armed groups, especially FDLR, who killed people in Rwanda and escaped into our country and started killing our people too.

    “Today, if you look at our towns, people have fled villages into towns because of threats by the FDLR. They even took over mines and started trading in minerals and used the proceeds to buy arms and recruit even children to continue perpetrating the genocide ideology. Now, this meant that we arm ourselves to protect ourselves and forestall any decision by Rwanda to come into Congo to deal with the threat.”

    He accused the Kinshasa government of supporting armed groups against Congolese civilians as well as neighbouring countries.

    “We said this problem could cause friction with Rwanda and, if the Rwandan military comes into our region, it’s civilians who will bear the brunt of the confrontations. So, we organised ourselves to secure our region and rout the armed militia so that the Rwandan military does not find an excuse to cross over. And this issue was supposed to be dealt with by the government in Kinshasa, yet when we do it, we are vilified,” the rebel leader said.

    He said, besides fighting FDLR, the border communities must collaborate economically, socially and culturally.

    “Having relations with Rwanda doesn’t mean that they support our army or our politics — it’s just country-to-country relations, even though we are not a country per se, but we bear the responsibility of securing the Congolese territory bordering Rwanda. If we had not shown them that we have dealt with their concerns, they’d have closed the border and we, the Congolese, would suffer,” Mr Bisimwa said.

    He said AFC/M23 wants partners in the East African Community to be able to work and invest in the region without security concerns.

    Bisimwa’s concession comes a few days after Rwandan President Paul Kagame vaguely admitted that his government troops were inside Congo.

    “The problem didn’t start in Rwanda — we didn’t cause it. Yes, we have a problem with Congo, and it pertains to the Interahamwe, their presence in the country and their genocide ideology. They keep saying, ‘We want to finish what we started.’ Some were in the old militia, and others have been recruited, trained and armed. When we are talking about this problem, one of the main questions we have faced is that some of them are old, 90 years old, but they have children in whose heads they instil genocide ideology,” he said.

    Interahamwe are a Hutu militia blamed for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. After their defeat, remnants of the group escaped into eastern Congo, from where they announced a bid to topple the government in Kigali.

    Rwanda has continually rejected accusations of backing the AFC/M23 in its offensive against the government forces in eastern DRC, with the United Nations Security Council in December demanding that Kigali stop supporting the rebels and withdraw its troops.

    Rwanda has always denied a role in the conflict, noting that the M23 fighters are bona fide Congolese fighting their own government over unresolved historical grievances.

    The UN Security Council has also acknowledged the FDLR threat to the Rwandan security and also demanded that Congolese troops stop supporting them and that the DRC fulfil its commitment to “neutralise the group.”

  • ‪Kenya-Somalia Border To Reopen After 15 Years Of Closure From Al-Shabaab Threat

    ‪Kenya-Somalia Border To Reopen After 15 Years Of Closure From Al-Shabaab Threat

    President William Ruto will officiate the reopening of the Kenya-Somalia border in April, ending a 15-year closure imposed during the Al-Shabaab insurgency.

    Speaking at Mandera Stadium on Thursday during the NYOTA Capital Disbursement event, Ruto said the government will double police deployment to secure the border  while allowing cross-border trade to resume.

    “We cannot trade with closed borders. For that reason, I will be returning here in April to officially open the border post linking Kenya and Somalia,” Ruto said.

    The President warned insurgents that security forces would deal with them decisively while giving traders freedom to operate.

    “We will deploy adequate security to ensure that criminals and insurgent groups do not infiltrate, while giving traders from both regions the freedom to operate. Leave the insurgents to us; we will deal with them,” noted Ruto.

    The border was officially closed in October 2011 under then-President Mwai Kibaki following sustained Al-Shabaab attacks.

    The militant group has waged a 15-year insurgency against Somalia’s federal government in Mogadishu.

    Ruto urged Mandera residents and regional leaders to provide timely intelligence to help dismantle Al-Shabaab networks that might exploit the border reopening.

    This marks the second attempt to reopen the border.

    In July 2022, Kenya and Somalia announced plans to reopen it during talks between then-President Uhuru Kenyatta and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, but the plans collapsed.

    A fresh attempt in 2023 to reopen the border in phases was suspended in July that year following a surge in Al-Shabaab activities.

    On February 6, Interior Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo announced the National Security Council Committee had ratified the border reopening for miraa trade through designated points, including Mandera, Liboi and Kiunga.

    The announcement followed a petition from the Nyambene Miraa Trade Association Chairman seeking access to the border for miraa farmers and traders.

  • Senegal Arrests 14 Members Of Alleged Paedophile Gang Linked To France

    Senegal Arrests 14 Members Of Alleged Paedophile Gang Linked To France

    Senegalese police say they have arrested 14 people and broken up a paedophile gang operating between the country and France.

    Those arrested, who are all Senegalese, were part of a “transnational” criminal group that has been in operation since 2017, according to a police statement.

    It said the group was accused of “organised paedophilia, pimping, rape of minors under 15, sodomy, and intentional transmission of HIV/Aids”. They allegedly repeatedly forced boys to have “unprotected sex” with men who were mostly HIV-positive and filmed it.

    Four of the accused are said to have been acting “on the instructions” of a Frenchman arrested in France in April 2025 “in exchange for money transfers”.

    The 14 accused were brought before a judge on Friday following searches in several neighbourhoods in Dakar, and the city of Kaolack, 200km (124 miles) south-east of the capital.

    A police statement released on Sunday said coordinated raids had been carried out at the homes of the various suspects, with items believed to be linked to the alleged crimes seized.

    “The DIC [Criminal Investigations Division] carried out a major operation, dismantling a transnational organised criminal group whose members are based primarily between France and Senegal,” the police said.

    The statement said the operation was conducted through cooperation between Senegal and France, with a delegation of French officers involved in the mission.

    The police have pledged to continue pursuing and dismantling such criminal networks and have released a toll-free number for the public to report any relevant information.

  • Why Safaricom Investors Are Worried About M-Pesa in Ethiopia

    Why Safaricom Investors Are Worried About M-Pesa in Ethiopia

    Ethiopians are spending just 50 cents per month on the mobile money platform, raising questions about the return on a $19.4bn bet

    Safaricom’s flagship M-Pesa mobile money service is faltering in Ethiopia, generating barely enough revenue to buy a coffee per user each month and casting doubt on the Kenyan telecoms giant’s most ambitious international expansion.

    The mobile money platform pulled in a meagre Sh12.2m ($94,000) across nine months to December 2025 from 2.36m active users in Ethiopia, translating to about 50 cents per user per month. The figure stands in stark contrast to Kenya, where M-Pesa users generate Sh374.83 monthly, more than 700 times Ethiopia’s rate.

    The dismal performance threatens to undermine Safaricom’s growth strategy in Africa’s second most populous nation, where the company paid $150m for the mobile money licence alone after an $850m telecoms licence. Including total infrastructure investments, the consortium has ploughed more than $2.27bn into the venture.

    “M-Pesa users in Ethiopia are mainly buying airtime products and data. Twenty per cent of sales go through the M-Pesa channel initiated by self-top ups,” said Wim Vanhelleputte, chief executive of Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia, acknowledging the platform’s limited monetisation.

    The fundamental problem: Ethiopians are using M-Pesa for free transactions rather than fee-generating transfers and payments.

    Instead of person-to-person money transfers that powered M-Pesa’s explosive growth in Kenya, Ethiopian subscribers primarily use the platform to purchase data bundles and airtime, services that carry no transaction fees.

    The struggle highlights a more profound challenge. Cash remains overwhelmingly dominant in Ethiopia, with 99 per cent of small-value transactions conducted in physical currency. World Bank data shows 99 per cent of Ethiopians pay utility bills in cash, compared with just 12 per cent in Kenya.

    “Banking penetration in urban areas is relatively high but 99 per cent of small value transactions are in cash,” Safaricom acknowledged in investor briefings, effectively admitting its bet on digital payments confronts entrenched consumer behaviour.

    M-Pesa contributed a negligible 0.13 per cent of Ethiopia’s total service revenue of Sh9.7bn during the nine months, whilst data services accounted for 66.97 per cent. The imbalance underscores how the Ethiopian operation remains fundamentally a traditional telecoms business, not the transformative fintech platform investors expected.

    The comparison with Kenya is sobering. During the year to March 2025, M-Pesa in Kenya generated Sh161.1bn from 35.82m monthly active customers, accounting for 44.2 per cent of total service revenue and cementing its position as Safaricom’s primary earnings engine. Even in 2010, when M-Pesa was three years old in Kenya as it is now in Ethiopia, monthly revenue per user averaged Sh79, far exceeding Ethiopia’s current 50 cents.

    What worked spectacularly in Kenya appears to have stalled in Ethiopia. M-Pesa scaled rapidly after its 2007 launch by riding urban-to-rural remittance flows as workers in cities sent money to relatives in villages. But Ethiopia lacks that dynamic. World Bank research shows only 11 per cent of Ethiopians have accessed loans from formal financial institutions, with most relying on informal savings groups and family networks.

    The monetisation crisis emerged despite some operational progress. M-Pesa revenue in Ethiopia has actually declined precipitously, plunging 64.3 per cent from Sh24.4m in September 2024 to just Sh8.7m by November 2025, even as the merchant base surged 358 per cent to 30,700 outlets.

    Safaricom has positioned the shortfall as a long-term infrastructure investment aligned with Ethiopia’s financial sector reforms. In October, M-Pesa integrated with EthSwitch, Ethiopia’s national payment switch, connecting to more than 30 banks and enabling interoperable QR payments across 50,000 merchants as part of Ethiopia’s National Digital Payment Strategy 2026-2030.

    But interoperability alone cannot overcome the fundamental barrier: Ethiopians do not yet see compelling reasons to pay fees for digital transactions when cash works perfectly well for their needs.

    The stakes could hardly be higher. Ethiopia’s 120m population positions it as one of Africa’s biggest long-term growth opportunities, and Safaricom has staked its regional expansion strategy on cracking this market. The company targets break-even in Ethiopia by 2027, banking on gradual subscriber growth and improved revenue streams.

    Investors have reason for scepticism. Annual licence costs alone total $66.7m, exceeding Safaricom Ethiopia’s entire FY2024 revenue of $53.6m, according to World Bank reports. The telco lost $325m in 2024, though losses narrowed 53 per cent year-on-year, providing some consolation.

    During the six months to September 2025, a 59 per cent contraction in Ethiopia losses helped raise Safaricom’s half-year profit 52.1 per cent to Sh42.7bn. Yet Kenya’s business remained the main profit driver on M-Pesa’s back, whose revenue rose 14 per cent to Sh88.1bn.

    For now, Ethiopia represents more hope than revenue. The question troubling investors is whether patience and infrastructure investment will eventually unlock Ethiopia’s digital payments potential, or whether Safaricom has fundamentally misjudged the market’s readiness for its transformative mobile money model.

    The 50-cent-per-month reality suggests the latter possibility cannot be dismissed.

  • Lobby Group Wants Convicted Zimbabwean Fraudster Wicknell Chivayo Banned From Visiting State House Warning It Threatens Kenya’s Sovereignty

    Lobby Group Wants Convicted Zimbabwean Fraudster Wicknell Chivayo Banned From Visiting State House Warning It Threatens Kenya’s Sovereignty

    The Consumers Federation of Kenya has taken the extraordinary step of filing a constitutional petition seeking to bar Zimbabwean businessman Wicknell Chivayo from accessing State House, escalating what has become one of the most controversial diplomatic episodes of President William Ruto’s administration.

    The lobby group, headed by Stephen Mutoro, argues that the continued presence of a foreign convicted fraudster within the highest echelons of Kenya’s presidency poses grave risks to national sovereignty and threatens the integrity of the 2027 general elections.

    The petition, set to be heard in court next week, represents an unprecedented challenge to presidential prerogative in matters of diplomatic engagement.

    Chivayo, who styles himself as Sir Wicknell, has become a fixture at State House despite a criminal record that includes fraud convictions in Zimbabwe and what opposition leaders describe as a troubling pattern of involvement in disputed elections across southern Africa.

    His frequent visits to Kenya, often landing at Eldoret International Airport near the president’s Sugoi home, have raised questions that the government has steadfastly refused to answer.

    The businessman’s most recent visit occurred on January 11, when he flew to Sagana State Lodge for a meeting with President Ruto and Deputy President Kithure Kindiki.

    True to form, Chivayo posted photographs on social media celebrating the encounter, adding fuel to mounting public concern about the nature of his relationship with Kenya’s leadership.

    What makes the federation’s legal challenge particularly potent is the timing.

    With Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission already embroiled in controversy over the extension of a contract with Smartmatic, the Venezuelan firm linked to disputed election technology, Chivayo’s connections to similar operations in South Africa and Namibia have set off alarm bells across the political spectrum.

    Former Attorney General Justin Muturi, now a key figure in the united opposition, has been particularly vocal in drawing parallels between Chivayo and Jose Camargo, the Venezuelan national whose mysterious presence during the 2022 elections became a central grievance in Raila Odinga’s unsuccessful Supreme Court petition.

    Odinga, who passed away in October, had warned that foreign involvement in Kenya’s electoral infrastructure represented an existential threat to democracy.

    The COFEK petition argues that allowing a convicted fraudster unrestricted access to State House undermines the dignity of the presidency and creates vulnerabilities that hostile actors could exploit.

    The language in the petition is unsparing, describing Chivayo’s visits as a matter of urgent national security that requires immediate judicial intervention.

    Efforts to obtain comment from State House have met with a wall of silence.

    Presidential spokesman Hussein Mohamed did not respond to inquiries about the president’s relationship with Chivayo. Neither did Munyori Buku, head of the Presidential Communication Service, nor Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who also serves as Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary. Only Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing’oei responded, tersely noting that the matter fell outside his area of responsibility.

    This official silence has only intensified speculation about what business interests might connect Chivayo to Kenya’s leadership.

    Zimbabwean entrepreneur and regional investor Wicknell Chivayo paid a distinguished courtesy call on President William Ruto.
    Zimbabwean entrepreneur and regional investor Wicknell Chivayo paid a distinguished courtesy call on President William Ruto.

    The businessman himself has been coy about his activities, telling the BBC in June 2025 that his main business involved government tenders in renewable energy, engineering and construction secured with foreign partners.

    He boasted of operations in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania but remained conspicuously vague about specifics.

    Court documents and investigative reports paint a portrait of a man who has mastered the art of leveraging political connections for commercial gain. A 2011 memoir by British mercenary Simon Mann recalls sharing a cell block with Chivayo in Zimbabwe’s Chikurubi Maximum Prison, where both men were serving time for fraud related offenses.

    Mann, who was imprisoned for his role in a failed 2004 coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea, described his cellmate as well educated and politically astute, someone who understood that in Africa the unsolicited gift is massively powerful.

    That observation has proven prophetic. Chivayo has cultivated relationships with some of the continent’s most powerful leaders, posting photographs with everyone from Zimbabwe’s late Robert Mugabe to current presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa, William Ruto and Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan.

    His social media accounts overflow with images of luxury cars, private jets and expensive gifts, a lifestyle that stands in stark contrast to the grinding poverty endured by most Zimbabweans.

    South African investigative organization Open Secrets alleged that Chivayo received millions of dollars as a facilitator for a tender to supply election materials to Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission in 2023.

    While the commission denied any dealings with him and he has not been charged, two other businessmen allegedly connected to him were arrested and charged with misappropriating approximately 910 million shillings in a separate case involving a presidential goat scheme.

    The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission launched an inquiry into Chivayo’s activities in 2024, but a year later no charges have materialized.

    This pattern of investigations that fail to result in prosecutions has led critics to conclude that his political connections shield him from accountability, a charge that resonates uncomfortably in Kenya where similar concerns about impunity among the well connected have fueled public anger.

    The COFEK petition arrives at a moment of profound political tension in Kenya.

    The recent resignation of IEBC chief executive Marjan Hussein Marjan following a falling out with commissioners has exposed deep fissures within the electoral body.

    Sources suggest the Smartmatic contract, originally set to expire in November, has been controversially extended despite opposition demands that the commission sever all ties with the firm.

    Against this backdrop, the united opposition coalition comprising Rigathi Gachagua’s Democratic Congress Party, Martha Karua’s People’s Liberation Party, Kalonzo Musyoka’s Wiper and Eugene Wamalwa’s Democratic Action Party Kenya has seized on Chivayo’s State House visits as evidence of a broader conspiracy to manipulate the 2027 elections.

    Their rhetoric echoes the grievances that defined the 2022 electoral dispute, raising the prospect of another contested outcome that could plunge Kenya into crisis.

    The legal arguments in the COFEK petition rest on constitutional provisions regarding the conduct of public officials and the protection of national sovereignty.

    The federation contends that presidential discretion in receiving visitors cannot extend to individuals whose criminal backgrounds and questionable business dealings pose clear and present dangers to the republic.

    They argue that the courts must intervene to establish binding standards for who may access the seat of government.

    What remains unclear is whether Kenyan courts will view this as a justiciable matter or dismiss it as an impermissible intrusion into executive prerogative.

    The presidency’s defenders will likely argue that the president has broad discretion to meet with whomever he chooses in pursuit of diplomatic and commercial objectives.

    They may also point out that Chivayo has not been convicted of any crimes in Kenya and therefore cannot be presumed guilty based on allegations emanating from other jurisdictions.

    Yet the political damage has already been done. Every photograph of Chivayo at State House, every social media post praising his meetings with President Ruto, reinforces a narrative of a government willing to consort with dubious characters in pursuit of unstated agendas.

    In a country where trust in institutions has eroded dramatically, such optics carry real political consequences.

    The case has also exposed the limitations of Kenya’s vetting mechanisms for foreign visitors seeking access to sensitive government facilities.

    That a convicted fraudster can repeatedly enter State House without triggering apparent concerns at the National Intelligence Service or other security agencies raises troubling questions about who else might be slipping through the cracks.

    As the court hearing approaches, the Chivayo affair has become a proxy battle over larger questions of transparency, accountability and the rule of law.

    For COFEK and its allies, this is about establishing the principle that even presidents must observe basic standards of propriety in their associations.

    For the government, it represents an unwelcome distraction at a time when economic challenges and political instability already threaten its survival.

    The outcome will likely have implications far beyond one controversial businessman’s travel privileges.

    It may determine whether Kenya’s courts are willing to constrain executive power in matters touching on national security and electoral integrity, issues that go to the heart of democratic governance.

    And it will send signals about whether the patterns that defined previous electoral controversies, particularly the entanglement of foreign actors in domestic political processes, will be permitted to repeat themselves in 2027.