NAIROBI — Kenya’s senate began impeachment hearings against Kenya’s deputy president on Wednesday, hours after a court said the proceedings were constitutional, clearing the way for a vote on his dismissal this week.

Kenya’s National Assembly voted on Tuesday last week to impeach the deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua, on 11 charges which included corruption, undermining the government and stirring ethnic hatred. Gachagua has denied all charges.

Gachagua has said the impeachment motion, backed by opposition lawmakers and allies of President William Ruto, was based on falsehoods that constituted a political lynching, according to court documents seen by Reuters.

As the senate opened proceedings on Wednesday, Gachagua denied the 11 charges read out by senate clerk Jeremiah Nyegenye.

“Not guilty,” Gachagua said in response to each one.

Gachagua had launched a legal challenge against the impeachment proceedings in the high court, but Judge Erick Ogolla said the process could go ahead.

“At this stage, the process is a lawful, constitutional process, and the Senate will conduct a trial where all the issues being raised before the court will be raised and determined at the moment,” the judge said in court.

“The application at this stage is premature and anticipatory,” he said, referring to Gachagua’s legal challenge.

The deputy president was Ruto’s running mate in their 2022 election win, helping secure vital votes from the populous central Kenya region. But the men have since fallen out and political alliances have shifted.

Ruto fired most of his Cabinet and appointed members of the opposition to what he called a unity government after nationwide protests against tax increases in which more than 50 people were killed.

During Wednesday’s session, members of parliament seeking Gachagua’s removal are expected to present their case to the senators.

Gachagua is expected to defend himself on Thursday before the vote. A two-thirds majority would be needed to dismiss him.

The court also said it would decide on Oct. 29 whether Ruto can nominate a new deputy if Gachagua is dismissed.
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Abuja, Nigeria — The Libyan Football Federation (LFF) is criticizing Nigeria’s decision to withdraw from the 2025 AFCON qualifier in Libya and is threatening to take legal action.

On Monday, Nigeria’s national football team the Super Eagles walked off the fixture citing safety concerns after being stranded at a local airport in Libya without food and internet access for more than 16 hours.

Tuesday’s statement by the LFF accused its Nigerian counterpart, the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) of not cooperating with local organizers.

LFF said the flight diversion was possibly caused by routine aircraft protocols, security checks or logistical problems beyond their control, adding that Libyan players faced similar challenges in last week’s reverse fixture in Nigeria.

LFF said it will “take all legal measures to preserve the interests of the Libyan national football team.”

The Nigerian Super Eagles had been scheduled to take on the Mediterranean Knights of Libya on Tuesday to seal their qualification for the 2025 AFCON finals in Morocco.

However, the Nigerian men’s team pulled out of its Confederation of African Football, or CAF, qualifier in Libya and returned home in protest at being abandoned at an airport after their plane was diverted.

The NFF said the team was taken to Al-Abraq International Airport three hours away from the venue of the match and that local authorities did not make alternative travel plans for the team.

“It is consistent with their … hostile attitude toward other Africans,” said Ademola Olajire, spokesperson of the NFF. “We have filed a formal letter, the whole world is aware of what happened and how everything went, and we expect a reasonable and justifiable decision from CAF.”

Libyan authorities also have rejected allegations of foul play or willful attempt to dampen the morale of the Nigerian players ahead of Tuesday’s match.

However, Nigerian sports analyst Daniel Aderiye said Libya has faltered many times in the past.

“Historical antecedents have put them in a very bad spot,” Aderiye said. “It’s the most hostile environment anybody can play football in. They should go ahead and threaten because as far as we’re concerned, we will not be dimwitted. CAF has said they’re going to intervene — a disciplinary board has been set up to that effect.”

On Monday, the CAF said it was talking to both Nigeria and Libya and would take action if a member violated its rules.

Local football club coach Fred Tebit said Nigeria’s diminishing positive public image is to blame.

“We should not forget where we belong in the ranks of Africa — a national team of such caliber with players playing all over the top clubs in Europe will be treated as such, and I think CAF should take a tough stance on this,” he said. “Our government is not helping matters, our country is full of corruption, embezzlement, so that’s why the Libyans [think] they can measure shoulders with us.”

Last Friday, Nigeria defeated Libya 1-0, securing seven points over three games in their group. The top two teams in each group will advance to the 24-team finals.
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Turkey is deepening its cooperation with Somalia, this month sending a research ship to look for energy resources. But as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, tensions between Somalia and Ethiopia are threatening Ankara’s ambitions in the Horn of Africa region.
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — A leader of one of Haiti’s most powerful gangs was injured in a shootout with Haitian and Kenyan police in their first major incursion into gang-controlled territory since a United Nations-backed mission began earlier this year, police said Tuesday.

The second-in-command of the Kraze Barye gang, known simply as “Deshommes,” was shot in Torcelle, a community the gang controls in the southeast region of the capital, Port-au-Prince, Haiti National Police said in a statement Tuesday.

Some 20 other gang members were killed during the police operations, which occurred on Saturday and Monday, officials said, adding that they confiscated firearms, munitions, phones and “sensitive materials and equipment.”

Nobody was detained in the operations, and police didn’t say how they know that Deshommes was injured.

Police said the incursions would continue until the gang and its top leader, Vitel’Homme Innocent, could be neutralized.

In a statement, the Kenyans who are leading the mission called on Innocent to “stop committing atrocities against innocent Haitians.”

“[The mission] is sending a strong warning to key gang leaders to stop the barbarous acts of rapes, extortion, kidnapping, blackmail and killings,” they said.

Innocent has been sanctioned by the U.S., the European Union and the U.N. Security Council, with the U.S. offering a $2 million reward for information leading to his capture. He has been indicted in the U.S. for the armed kidnapping of 16 Christian missionaries in 2021 and the slaying of missionary Marie Franklin and kidnapping of her husband in 2022.

In a recent video, Innocent stands near an armored vehicle set on fire that police said they were forced to abandon due to engine failure during one of their operations.

Innocent claimed the gang was not giving police any problems and accused them of “hurting too many innocent people.” He also said the gang has the power to decide who enters and leaves the community it controls.

Kraze Barye is an ally of the G-Pep gang federation, an enemy of G9 Family and Allies, a different federation led by former elite police officer Jimmy Cherizier, best known as Barbecue.

Kraze Barye has about 600 members and controls the community of Tabarre as well as parts of Petionville and Croix-des-Bouquets. The gang is accused of killings, drug and weapon trafficking, rapes, robberies and other crimes, according to the U.N., which called it “one of the most powerful gangs” in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.

Kenyan officials pledged that “the pressure will be sustained on the gangs until or unless they surrender to the authorities.”

They also noted that operations are still ongoing in the central town of Pont-Sonde, where at least 115 people were killed by another gang earlier this month.
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Cairo — A bus carrying university students crashed and overturned on a highway in northeastern Egypt, killing 12 people and injuring 33 others, the health ministry said Monday night.

Students from the Suez-based Galala University, southeast of Cairo, were on board. Local media reported they were returning from their classes to their dormitory in Porto Sokhna resort, using the Ain Sokhna highway, when the accident happened, and that the driver was arrested as part of an investigation into the crash.

The ministry didn’t say what caused the accident.

The statement said 28 ambulances rushed to the site and transported the injured to the Suez Medical Complex, but didn’t disclose their condition.

Deadly traffic accidents claim thousands of lives every year in Egypt, which has a poor transportation safety record. Speeding, bad roads and poor enforcement of traffic laws mostly cause the collisions.
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Nairobi — The World Bank said on Monday it had lowered its economic growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa this year to 3% from 3.4%, mainly due to the destruction of Sudan’s economy in a civil war.  

However, growth is expected to remain comfortably above last year’s 2.4% thanks to higher private consumption and investment, the bank said in its latest regional economic outlook report, Africa’s Pulse.  

“This is still a recovery that is basically in slow gear,” Andrew Dabalen, chief economist for the Africa region at the World Bank, told a media briefing.  

The report forecast next year’s growth at 3.9%, above its previous prediction of 3.8%.  

Moderating inflation in many countries will allow policymakers to start lowering elevated lending rates, the report said.  

However, the growth forecasts still face serious risks from armed conflict and climate events such as droughts, floods and cyclones, it added.  

Without the conflict in Sudan, which devastated economic activity and caused starvation and widespread displacement, regional growth in 2024 would have been half a percentage point higher and in line with its initial April estimate, the lender said.  

Growth in the region’s most advanced economy, South Africa, is expected to increase to 1.1% this year and 1.6% in 2025, the report said, from 0.7% last year.   

Nigeria is expected to grow at 3.3% this year, rising to 3.6% in 2025, while Kenya, the richest economy in East Africa, is likely to expand by 5% this year, the report said.   

Commodities  

The sub-Saharan Africa region grew at a robust annual average of 5.3% in 2000-2014 on the back of a commodity supercycle, but output started flagging when commodity prices crashed. The slowdown was accelerated by the COVID pandemic.  

“Cumulatively, if that were to continue for a long time, it would be catastrophic,” Dabalen warned.  

Many economies in the region were starved of public and private investments, he said, and a recovery in foreign direct investments that started in 2021 was still tepid.  

“The region needs much, much larger levels of investments in order to be able to recover faster… and be able to reduce poverty,” he said.  

Growth across the region is also hamstrung by high debt service costs in countries like Kenya, which was rocked by deadly protests against tax hikes in June and July.  

“There are staggering levels of interest payments,” Dabalen said, attributing this to a shift by governments to borrow from financial markets in the last decade and away from the low-priced credit offered by institutions like the World Bank.  

Total external debt among economies has risen to about $500 billion from $150 billion a decade and a half ago, he said, with the bulk owed to bond market investors and China.  

Chad, Zambia, Ghana and Ethiopia went into default in the last four years and have overhauled their debt under a G20 initiative Common Framework. Ethiopia is still working to restructure its debt while the others have completed their debt restructuring.  

“As long as these debt issues are not resolved, there is going to be a lot of ‘wait and see’ games going on, and that is not good for the countries, and certainly not good for the creditors as well,” he said.
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Geneva — The head of the U.N. refugee agency warned on Monday that displacement crises in Lebanon and Sudan could worsen, but said tighter border measures were not the solution, calling them ineffective and sometimes unlawful.

Addressing more than 100 diplomats and ministers in Geneva at UNHCR’s annual meeting, Filippo Grandi said an unprecedented 123 million people are now displaced around the world by conflicts, persecution, poverty and climate change.

“You might then ask: what can be done? For a start, do not focus only on your borders,” he said, urging leaders instead to look at the reasons people are fleeing their homes.

“We must seek to address the root causes of displacement, and work toward solutions,” he said. “I beg you all that we continue to work — together and with humility — to seize every opportunity to find solutions for refugees.”

Without naming countries, Grandi said initiatives to outsource, externalize or even suspend asylum schemes were in breach of international law, and he offered countries help in finding fair, fast and lawful asylum schemes.

Western governments are under growing domestic pressure to get tougher on asylum seekers and Grandi has previously criticized a plan by the former British government to transfer them to Rwanda.

In the same speech he warned that in Lebanon, where more than one million people have fled their homes due to a growing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the situation could worsen further.

“Surely, if airstrikes continue, many more will be displaced and some will also decide to move on to other countries.”

He called for a drastic increase in support for refugees in Sudan’s civil war, saying lack of resources was already driving them across the Mediterranean Sea and even across the Channel to Britain.

“In this lethal equation, something has got to give. Otherwise, nobody should be surprised if displacement keeps growing, in numbers but also in geographic spread,” he said.

The UNHCR response to the crisis that aims to help a portion of the more than 11 million people displaced inside Sudan or in neighboring countries is less than 1/3 funded, Grandi said.

The number of displaced people around the world has more than doubled in the past decade.

Grandi, set to serve as high commissioner until Dec. 2025, said the agency’s funding for this year had recently improved due to U.S. support but remained “well below the needs.”
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DAMASAK, Nigeria — When Boko Haram launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2010, Abdulhameed Salisu packed his bag and fled from his hometown of Damasak in the country’s battered Borno state. 

The 45-year-old father of seven came back with his family early last year. They are among thousands of Nigerians taken back from displacement camps to their villages, hometowns or newly built settlements known as “host communities” under a resettlement program that analysts say is being rushed to suggest the conflict with the Islamic militants is nearly over. 

Across Borno, dozens of displacement camps have been shut down, with authorities claiming they are no longer needed and that most places from where the displaced fled are now safe. 

But many of the displaced say it’s not safe to go back. 

Boko Haram — Nigeria’s homegrown jihadis — took up arms in 2009 to fight against Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law, or Sharia. The conflict, now Africa’s longest struggle with militancy, has spilled into Nigeria’s northern neighbors. 

Some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced in the northeastern region, according to U.N. numbers. The 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in the village of Chibok in Borno state — the epicenter of the conflict — shocked the world. 

Borno state alone has nearly 900,000 internally displaced people in displacement camps, with many others absorbed in local communities. So far this year, at least 1,600 civilians have been killed in militant attacks in Borno state, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit. 

And in a state where at least 70% of the population depends on agriculture, dozens of farmers have also been killed by the extremists or abducted from their farmland in the last year. 

In May, hundreds of hostages, mostly women and children who were held captive for months or years by Boko Haram were rescued from a forest enclave and handed over to authorities, the army said. 

In September, at least 100 villagers were killed by suspected Boko Haram militants who opened fire on a market, on worshippers and in people’s homes in the Tarmuwa council area of the neighboring Yobe state, west of Borno. 

Analysts say that a forced resettlement could endanger the local population as there is still inadequate security across the hard-hit region. 

Salisu says he wastes away his days in a resettlement camp in Damasak, a garrison town in Borno state of about 200,000 residents, close to the border with Niger. 

Food is getting increasingly difficult to come by and Salisu depends on handouts from the World Food Program and other aid organizations. He longs to find work. 

“We are begging the government to at least find us a means of livelihood instead of staying idle and waiting for whenever food comes,” he said. 

On a visit last week to Damasak, Cindy McCain, the WFP chief, pledged the world would not abandon the Nigerian people as she called for more funding to support her agency’s aid operations. 

“We are going to stay here and do the very best we can to end hunger,” McCain told The Associated Press as she acknowledged the funding shortages. “How do I take food from the hungry and give it to the starving,” she said. 

Resettlement usually involves the displaced being taken in military trucks back to their villages or “host communities.” The Borno state government has promised to provide returnees with essentials to help them integrate into these areas, supported by aid groups. 

The government says the displacement camps are no longer sustainable. 

“What we need now is … durable solutions,” Borno governor Babagana Zulum told McCain during her visit. 

As the resettlement got underway, one in five displaced persons stayed back in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, and nearby towns but were left without any support for local integration, the Global Protection Cluster, a network of non-government organizations and U.N. agencies, said last December. 

Many others have crossed the border to the north, to settle as refugees in neighboring Niger, Chad or Cameroon. The three countries have registered at least 52,000 Nigerian refugees since January 2023, according to the U.N. refugee agency — nearly twice the number registered in the 22 months before that. 

A rushed closure of displacement camps and forced resettlement puts the displaced people at risk again from militants still active in their home areas — or forces them to “cut deals” with jihadis to be able to farm or fish, the International Crisis Group warned in a report earlier this year. 

That could make the extremists consolidate their presence in those areas, the group warned. Boko Haram, which in 2016 split into two main factions, continues to ambush security convoys and raid villages. 

Abubakar Kawu Monguno, head of the Center for Disaster Risk Management at the University of Maiduguri, said the best option is for government forces to intensify their campaign to eliminate the militants or “push them to surrender.” 

After not being able to access their farms because of rampant attacks by militants, some farmers in Damasak and other parts of Mobbar district returned to work their land last year, armed with seedlings provided by the government. 

Salisu was one of them. 

Then a major flood struck in September, collapsing a key dam and submerging about 40% of Maiduguri’s territory. Thirty people were killed and more than a million others were affected, authorities said. 

Farms that feed the state were ruined, including Salisu’s. His hopes for a good rice harvest were washed away. Now he lines up to get food at a Damasak food hub. 

“Since Boko Haram started, everything else stopped here,” he said. “There is nothing on the ground and there are no jobs.” 

Maryam Abdullahi also lined up at a WFP hub in Damasak with other women, waiting for bags of rice and other food items she desperately needs for her family of eight. Her youngest is 6 years old. 

The donations barely last halfway through the month, she said, but she still waited in the scorching heat. 

What little money she has she uses to buy yams to fry and sell to sustain her family, but it’s nowhere enough. Her only wish is to be able to get a “proper job” so she and her children would feel safe, she said. 

“We either eat in the morning for strength for the rest of the day or … we eat only at night,” Abdullahi said. 
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Port Sudan, Sudan — A Sudanese network of volunteer rescuers said on Sunday the military carried out an air strike a day earlier on a marketplace in Khartoum, leaving 23 people dead.  

The market is near one of the main camps in the Sudanese capital, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting the military as part of a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people.  

“Twenty-three people were confirmed dead and more than 40 others wounded” and taken to hospital after “military air strikes on Saturday afternoon on the main market” in southern Khartoum, the youth-led Emergency Response Rooms said in a post on Facebook.  

Fierce fighting has raged since Friday around Khartoum, much of which is controlled by the RSF, with the military pounding the center and south of the city from the air.  

The military is advancing towards Khartoum from nearby Omdurman, where clashes erupted on Saturday, eyewitnesses said.  

World’s largest displacement crisis  

Since April 2023, when war broke out between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the paramilitaries had largely pushed the army out of Khartoum.  

The World Health Organization says at least 20,000 people have been killed in the civil war, but some estimates put the toll much higher at up to 150,000.  

The war has also created the world’s largest displacement crisis, the U.N. says.  

More than 10 million people, around a fifth of Sudan’s population, have been forced from their homes, according to U.N. figures.  

A U.N.-backed assessment in August declared a famine in the Zamzam refugee camp in Darfur near the city of El-Fasher.  

The government loyal to the army is based in Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, where the army has retained control.   

The RSF meanwhile has taken control of nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur, rampaged through the agricultural heartland of central Sudan and pushed into the army-controlled southeast. 
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KILIFI, Kenya — Dozens rallied against a proposal to build Kenya’s first nuclear power plant in one of the country’s top coastal tourist hubs which also houses a forest on the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage site. 

Kilifi County is renowned for its pristine sandy beaches where hotels and beach bars line the 165-mile-long coast and visitors boat and snorkel around coral reefs or bird watch in Arabuko Sokoke Forest Reserve, a significant natural habitat for the conservation of rare and endangered species, according to the United Nations organization. 

The project, proposed last year, is set to be built in the town of Kilifi — about 522 kilometers (324 miles) southeast of the capital, Nairobi. Many residents have openly opposed the proposal, worried about what they say are the negative effects of the project on people and the environment, leading to a string of protesters which at times turned violent. 

Muslim for Human Rights (MUHURI) led the march Friday in Kilifi to the county governor’s office where they handed him a petition opposing the construction of the plant. 

Some chanted anti-nuclear slogans while others carried placards with “Sitaki nuclear,” Swahili for “I don’t want nuclear.” 

The construction of the 1,000MW nuclear plant is set to begin in 2027 and be operational by 2034, with a cost of 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($3.8 billion). 

Francis Auma, a MUHURI activist, told the Associated Press that the negative effects of the nuclear plant outweigh its benefits. 

“We say that this project has a lot of negative effects; there will be malformed children born out of this place, fish will die, and our forest Arabuko Sokoke, known to harbor the birds from abroad, will be lost,” Auma said during Friday’s protests. 

Juma Sulubu, a resident who was beaten by the police during a previous demonstration, attended Friday’s march and said: “Even if you kill us, just kill us, but we do not want a nuclear power plant in our Uyombo community.” 

Timothy Nyawa, a fisherman, participated in the rally out of fear that a nuclear power plant would kill fish and, in turn, his source of income. “If they set up a nuclear plant here, the fish breeding sites will all be destroyed.” 

Phyllis Omido, the executive director at the Center for Justice Governance and Environmental Action, who also attended the march, said Kenya’s eastern coastal towns depended on eco-tourism as the main source of income and a nuclear plant would threaten their livelihoods. 

“We host the only East African coastal forest, we host the Watamu marine park, we host the largest mangrove plantation in Kenya. We do not want nuclear (energy) to mess up our ecosystem,” she said. 

Her center filed a petition in Nov. 2023 in parliament calling for an inquiry and claiming that locals had limited information on the proposed plant and the criteria for selecting preferred sites. It also raised concerns over the risks to health, the environment and tourism in the event of a nuclear spill, saying the country was undertaking a “high-risk venture” without proper legal and disaster response measures in place. The petition also expressed unease over security and the handling of radioactive waste in a country prone to floods and drought. 

The Senate suspended the inquiry until a lawsuit two lawyers filed in July seeking to stop the plant’s construction, claiming public participation meetings were rushed and urging the Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (Nupea) not to start the project, was heard. 

Nupea said construction would not begin for years and environmental laws were under consideration, adding that adequate public participation was carried out. 

The nuclear agency also published an impact assessment report last year that recommended policies be put in place to ensure environmental protections, including detailed plans for the handling of radioactive waste, measures to mitigate environmental harm, such as setting up a nuclear unit in the national environment management authority, and emergency response teams. 
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Maputo, Mozambique — Mozambique’s electoral body extended voting until Saturday in some areas and in one overseas location because material didn’t arrive on time.

Most of the country completed voting Wednesday and now awaits results.

National Electoral Commission spokesperson Paulo Cuinica told reporters on Friday that voting did not take place in some districts of Zambezia province, in central Mozambique,  partly due to problems getting voting materials in time. 

“As a result of this fact, 23 polling stations did not open in the province of Zambezia, [or in the coastal circle of Zambezia], with 4 in Maganja da Costa and 19 in the district of Gilé,” Cuinica said.

Voting outside the country also had hiccups, he said, noting that 670 Mozambicans living in Germany in were unable to vote.

He said voting materials were shipped to Germany on September 27th, but were held up in Cologne and did not reach Berlin until Thursday, the day after the election.

As a result, Cuinica said voting is being extended in affected areas. He said voters can cast ballots from 7 am to 6 pm Saturday in the districts of Gilé and Maganja, and from 9 am to 9 pm in Germany.

Meanwhile, election monitors in Mozambique gave preliminary assessments of the process. Laura Valerin, a member of parliament from Spain and chief observer of the European Union election mission, told VOA monitors observed about 800 polling stations.

While she praised the peaceful campaign and orderly voting, she said there were issues. 

“We saw the counting phase,” she said. “Our observers saw the processes were in many times very long, really slow with some difficulties foreseen by polling staff, with some doubts about how the process had to take place.”

She said that before election day, the EU team’s engagement with political parties, media and civil society indicated that there is widespread mistrust about the independence of the electoral bodies.

Succès Masra, a former prime minister of Chad and head of the observer mission for the U.S.-based International Republican Institute, said his organization had teams from 20 countries, including 12 in sub–Saharan Africa, deployed across Mozambique. 

Masra praised the democratic spirit of Mozambicans but said his teams had reservations about the electoral process. 

“Citizens were not deterred from exercising their right to determine their future,” he said. “Our observations show delayed accreditation for observers and party agents, late changes to electoral laws and the misuse of state resources during the campaign. These issues raised concerns about public confidence in the process and independence of institutions.”

Masra said he hopes that Mozambicans can address the issues to strengthen their democratic institutions. 

Now Mozambique awaits the results from this, the country’s seventh general elections since the advent of multiparty democracy 30 years ago.   The first official results from the National Electoral Council could come as early as Saturday. 
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YAOUNDE, cameroon — Cameroon has outlawed any discussion about the health of 91-year-old President Paul Biya, a letter shared by the interior ministry said, after Biya’s prolonged absence fueled widespread speculation he was unwell.

Earlier this week, the authorities put out statements saying the president was on a private visit to Geneva and in good health, dismissing reports he had fallen ill as “pure fantasy.”

In the letter to regional governors dated October 9, Interior Minister Paul Atanga Nji said discussing the president’s health was a matter of national security.

From now on, “any debate in the media about the president’s condition is therefore strictly prohibited. Offenders will face the full force of the law,” Nji said.

He ordered the governors to set up units to monitor broadcasts on private media channels, as well as social networks.

Cocoa and oil-producing Cameroon, which has had just two presidents since independence from France and Britain in the early 1960s, is likely to face a messy succession crisis if Biya became too ill to remain in office or died.

Cameroon’s media regulator, the National Communication Council, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The move faced criticism as an act of state censorship.

“The president is elected by Cameroonians and it’s just normal that they worry about his whereabouts,” said Hycenth Chia, a Yaounde-based journalist and talk show host on privately owned television Canal2 International.

“We see liberal discussions on the health of Joe Biden and other world leaders, but here it is a taboo,” he told Reuters.

Press freedom advocacy group Committee to Protect Journalists said it was gravely concerned.

“Trying to hide behind national security on such a major issue of national importance is outrageous,” said Angela Quintal, head of the CPJ’s Africa Program.

Biya has not been seen in public since attending a China-Africa forum in Beijing in early September. His failure to appear as scheduled at a summit in France last weekend further stoked public discussion about his health. 
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