Today in Nigerian/African History.....14th May

In 2011;;;;In Egypt, Bothaina Kamel (48) a political activist, TV presenter and a candidate for president, was hauled in for questioning because of her outspoken criticism of the nation’s military rulers and said she is facing allegations of slandering a top official and the military. Clashes between Muslims and Christians in the center of Cairo left 51 people wounded, as Coptic Christians pursued a sit-in protest against the violence.


1999;;;In South Africa, Winnie Mandela was sentenced to six years in prison for her part in the kidnapping and beating of three black youths and the death of a fourth.

2013; Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency allowing soldiers to arrest people at will and take over buildings suspected to house extremists in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. An official in the Kaduna state said gunmen armed with assault rifles and suspected to be Hausa-Fulani cattle herders killed 11 people in a village there. In Benue state, a government spokesman said an attack blamed on Hausa-Fulani cattle herders there killed at least 12 people.

2000; In Zimbabwe elections were set for June 24-25, but the opposition objected because voting districts were not yet established and a May 29 deadline for candidates was thought too soo.

2002; In Sierra Leone UN sponsored voting for the presidency and parliament took place for the 1st time since the war ended in 2000.

2005; Congo’s legislature adopted a constitution that reduces the required age for presidential candidates, a change that would allow President Joseph Kabila to stand in the country’s next elections.

2007 ; In southern Nigeria’s Rivers State unidentified gunmen snatched a Nigerian working for Italian oil giant Agip.

2010; In southern Nigeria gunmen sporting military uniforms kidnapped four Lebanese road construction workers in an attack that left a soldier and a gang member dead in Abia state. The 4 workers were freed on May 22.

2007 ; In South Africa deputies and experts attending the Pan African Parliament called for Western countries to help reverse the environmental damage to the continent that they had helped create.

2008 ;, In Kenya an international aid worker said officials backed by armed police are forcing some 9,000 Kenyans displaced by postelection violence to leave a refugee camp in Kitale.

2008; In Sudan clashes erupted in Abyei between the northern-based national army and former guerrillas from the south. Arab Misseriya nomads, some armed by the northerners, and the southern Ngok Dinka, protected by the SPLM, held a historic animosity in the area over land and water. The UN mission (UNMIS) there did little more than protect the local UN base

2010; , In Algeria a moderate earthquake killed two people and injured 43 other

2010 ;, In eastern Central African Republic villagers at Guerekindo killed two Ugandan rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army in a self-defense initiative.

2010;, Four African countries (Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda) signed a new treaty on the equitable sharing of the Nile waters despite strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan, who have the lion’s share of the river waters. The new agreement, the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework, is to replace a 1959 accord between Egypt and Sudan that gives them control of more than 90 percent of the water flow. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit warned at the weekend that Cairo’s water rights were a “red line” and threatened legal action if a partial deal is reached.

2010 ; In Sudan government troops killed 108 fighters from the rebel Justice and Equality Movement in the Jebel Moon area of western Darfur. Government forces also battled JEM rebels near Nyala in south Darfur where 27 police and 33 rebels were killed. Forces loyal to a renegade south Sudanese general clashed with government troops for the fourth time in two weeks, leaving at least five soldiers dead.

2011;, In Libya NATO conducted 147 air sorties, 48 of them strike sorties that aimed to identify and hit targets but not always deploy munitions. Targets included surface-to-air missile launchers, ammunition stores and artillery pieces.

2011 ;, Tunisian army troops deployed along the border thwarted an attempt by 200 troops from Gadhafi’s army to cross the border aboard some 50 off-road vehicles. 3 pro-Gadhafi officers who defected landed at Tunisia’s port of Zarzis on a boat. 2 people suspected of links to al-Qaida’s North African affiliate were arrested overnight, one with a belt of explosives and the other carrying a grenade.

2012 ;, In northern Mali hundreds of residents of Gao took to the streets to protest against the Tuareg rebels, Islamists and an Al-Qaeda group that took control of the city after a March coup.