Info or Intox?

In a previous post I talked about the elections for 2020 in the region ...  However we never realised the world would see a pandemic in the meantime, COVID-19 has brought bitter hardship to many.

Guinea went to their polls on Sunday, it got a little heated but nothing too bad.  However today there has now been a video circulating and according to the BBC Minister of Foreign Affairs Mamadi Touré denounced as "completely false" a video circulating online claiming to be a recording of a phone call made by President Alpha Condé conceding defeat to his rival Cellou Dalein Diallo.

This weekend on Sunday 25th October, the small archipelago state of Cabo Verde off the west coast of Senegal will go to the polls.  With a population of 600,000 or so, it would be hoped that the information coming from there is correct!  However they have suffered due to the pandemic as most of their income is from tourism and finally managed to open their airspace on 12th October,a day they reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases since the outbreak of the pandemic.

At the end of the month, Sunday 31st October Cote d'Ivoire will go to the vote.  This election has become a conflictual debate due to the running of the third term of President Outtara.  However, it appears the population forgot that he had put in his former Prime Minister, Gon Coulibaly to replace him.  Sadly Gon Coulibaly died on 8th July 2020 so the President found himself standing again.  There have already been demonstrations in pockets of the country against the 3rd term, intox is spreading and a small minority of the population seem to have forgotten the events of 2010-2011.  Most of the population would like to continue in peace!

Just three weeks later, it's Burkina Faso's turn on 22nd November, like Cote d'Ivoire it can go to a second round.  Burkina has had a few years of terrorism now with the jihadists trying to take over this beautiful country.

December 7th is the day the hotly contested seat of President in Ghana is up for grabs.  12 candidates have just been accepted by the electoral commission.  Word is that on the ground things are tense with people ready to go to the polls.  Ghana seems to be very much a two party nation between the NDC & NPP but a third party 'PPP' with a female candidate Brigitte Dzogbenuku is rallying voters around her.  After Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson of Liberia, it would be a positive move to have a fresh female face leading a country in the sub-region!

With the Nigerian #EndSARS movement taking an awful twist today with several shot and killed at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos, the region is getting somewhat edgy!