Toll in lynching of Nigeria wedding guests rises to 12
JOS: The number of people killed after a mob stormed a bus carrying Muslim wedding guests in central Nigeria's volatile Plateau state has risen to 12, according to the Nigerian presidency.
The dead include the groom's father and brother, it said.
President Bola Tinubu has condemned the killings, the latest attack to hit the region where tensions are high after a series of bloody attacks in recent days, with ethnic Fulani nomadic Muslim herders suspected of killing dozens of people in Plateau's Mangu local government area.
Police, survivors and local organizations said around 30 people on a bus to a wedding lost their way, stopped to ask for directions, and were accosted by an irate mob.
They were attacked with sticks, machetes and stones and their bus set ablaze, a survivor told AFP. Initially authorities had confirmed eight dead with four reported missing.
Tinubu described the lynching 'as unacceptable and barbaric,' said a statement from his office which said the dead included the groom's father and brother.
The Nigerian leader ordered the arrest and punishment of the culprits as he urged the Plateau state government to 'take decisive action in handling these vicious cycles of violence.'
Fulani herders in the state have long clashed with settled farmers, many of whom are Christian, over access to land and resources.
Police say they have arrested 22 suspects in connection with the attack.
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Arab News
5 hours ago
- Arab News
Toll in lynching of Nigeria wedding guests rises to 12
JOS: The number of people killed after a mob stormed a bus carrying Muslim wedding guests in central Nigeria's volatile Plateau state has risen to 12, according to the Nigerian presidency. The dead include the groom's father and brother, it said. President Bola Tinubu has condemned the killings, the latest attack to hit the region where tensions are high after a series of bloody attacks in recent days, with ethnic Fulani nomadic Muslim herders suspected of killing dozens of people in Plateau's Mangu local government area. Police, survivors and local organizations said around 30 people on a bus to a wedding lost their way, stopped to ask for directions, and were accosted by an irate mob. They were attacked with sticks, machetes and stones and their bus set ablaze, a survivor told AFP. Initially authorities had confirmed eight dead with four reported missing. Tinubu described the lynching 'as unacceptable and barbaric,' said a statement from his office which said the dead included the groom's father and brother. The Nigerian leader ordered the arrest and punishment of the culprits as he urged the Plateau state government to 'take decisive action in handling these vicious cycles of violence.' Fulani herders in the state have long clashed with settled farmers, many of whom are Christian, over access to land and resources. Police say they have arrested 22 suspects in connection with the attack.
Arab News
a day ago
- Arab News
An African credit rating agency? Easier said than done
Africa's sovereign debt crisis is not merely a story of fiscal mismanagement or external shocks. It is amplified by a systemic anomaly: The continent pays more to borrow than its peers with comparable economic indicators. This penalty, often termed the 'African premium,' costs the region an estimated $24 billion annually in excess interest payments, and has deprived it of more than $46 billion in potential lending. With 20 low-income African nations in or near debt distress, and 94 percent of rated African sovereigns downgraded over the past decade, the search for solutions appears to be culminating in the establishment of an African Credit Rating Agency, or AfCRA for short. For now, the move is being framed as both a corrective measure and a symbol of financial sovereignty. Yet while politically sound, it faces profound operational and philosophical challenges. Even if the ambition to establish the agency is framed as a bold act of sovereignty, the terrain it seeks to conquer is littered with the wreckage of similar aspirations in richer, better-equipped regions. Granted, the financial logic behind the move is well-established: Africa's sovereign debt is routinely mispriced, with subjective and often opaque assessments by the 'Big Three' credit rating agencies — Moody's, Fitch and S&P — inflating risk perception and pushing average borrowing costs ever higher. As a result, total annual lending losses and excess interest payments exceed annual official development aid to the continent. That Africa is being 'penalized' beyond its macroeconomic fundamentals is no longer a niche theory among a few experts, policymakers or scholars at poorly attended conferences, it is a measurable economic hemorrhage. But attempting to correct this through AfCRA introduces a dilemma. Can a continent hobbled by thin capital markets, erratic fiscal transparency, and a fragmented political economy build a ratings agency that would be perceived as credible by the very investors it seeks to court? The evidence so far is not encouraging. Europe, despite its institutional depth and capital abundance, has failed to create a viable alternative to the Big Three, even after sinking more than €300 million ($346 million) into various experiments, all of which ended in regulatory quagmires or strategic surrender. The most successful nonaligned agencies, such as Scope in Europe or Morningstar DBRS in Canada, only survived by serving niche markets and accepting that they could not displace the incumbents. Africa's task is even tougher. Most of the continent's 21 Eurobond issuers are repeat borrowers, yet their ratings have on average worsened since their inaugural issuances. This contradicts the usual pattern in emerging markets, where familiarity tends to reduce pricing premiums. Even the most prominent issuers — Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa — have faced frequent downgrades, often based on models that lack local granularity or fail to consider governance heterogeneity. Furthermore, agencies frequently do not send analysts to the countries they rate; Fitch has no office at all on the continent, and both S&P and Moody's operate out of a single office in Johannesburg, covering dozens of vastly different economies. Meanwhile, unsolicited ratings, those issued without government request or input, are both more common in Africa and more damaging. Moody's leads the way in such unsolicited assessments, despite objections by African governments to their inherent opacity. It is not surprising, therefore, to see a resurgent push for an independent agency, given the cost of delays. Between 2021 and 2024, for instance, the average coupon on African Eurobonds nearly doubled to just under 11 percent, even as fundamentals remained stable. The continent pays more to borrow than its peers with comparable economic indicators. Hafed Al-Ghwell Moreover, the absence of localized assessment left 22 African countries unrated, starving them of institutional capital. When Botswana and Mauritius secured investment-grade ratings, they accessed financing at 300-400 basis points below regional peers. At a continental level, each one-notch upgrade in a rating could unlock more than $15 billion in much-needed capital. The cost of waiting is clear and unambiguous. Yet, the creation of AfCRA cannot be reduced to a matter of injustice alone. The economics of operating a credit rating agency are ruthless. Even the most optimistic forecasts suggest that the launch of a credible African agency would require $400–500 million in capital, an amount that dwarfs the annual budget of the African Union itself. A very familiar, and suffocating, dependency loop swiftly kicks in; the AU's own programs remain more than 60 percent funded by the EU and other external partners, and if these same entities are now expected to bankroll an 'African-owned' ratings apparatus, the concept begins to cannibalize its own purpose. Beyond the matter of funding, AfCRA would also find itself confronted by the same structural hurdles that felled its European predecessors. Regulatory legitimacy, for one thing, cannot be assumed. In many global markets only ratings from the Big Three are recognized, particularly among institutional investors bound by prudent regulation. Even with improvements in rating models, the acceptance of new agencies into the portfolios of pension funds or sovereign wealth funds hinges on an arduous and opaque process of validation by regulators located far outside Africa. Without international regulatory recognition, AfCRA risks becoming an advisory service masquerading as an agency; technically useful but irrelevant where it matters. Even if credibility can somehow be established, the pipeline of rating activity might not justify the operating costs. Government debt issuance in Africa remains sporadic and constrained. Moreover, much of the domestic debt, particularly in Francophone Africa, is already absorbed by regional banks under arrangements that do not require third-party ratings. Corporate appetite for ratings is growing but still shallow. GCR Ratings, once Africa's most promising homegrown agency, did not consider government bond ratings a serious business line, and it has since been acquired by Moody's, effectively reversing the localization effort. And then there is the governance risk. Africa's existing national and regional agencies have not been free from scandal. Recent cases, such as West African agency DataPro's withdrawal from a local firm because of a fraudulent rating that was exposed by a US research organization, highlight the fact that domestic proximity does not immunize against error or, worse, complicity. Creating an agency without a ferociously independent mandate, transparent methodology, and hard, legal accountability would not reduce bias, it would simply substitute one form of distortion for another. Ultimately, the issue is not whether Africa deserves better ratings; it certainly does. However, establishing an agency without first fixing the deficits in data integrity, fiscal reporting, macroeconomic coherence, and regulatory independence might produce only a costly mirror image of the very system it seeks to escape. A credible alternative cannot be built on grievance alone, but it could be a catalyst for data reform, methodological innovation, and investor dialogue, which might finally ensure that finance costs reflect Africa's true risk and not perceived ghosts from the past. However, such an undertaking must emerge as a result of discipline, innovation and, above all, proof of its usefulness to markets. Otherwise, AfCRA runs the risk of being filed away in the continent's growing archive of initiatives that were politically resonant but financially futile.
Arab News
a day ago
- Arab News
Suicide bomber kills at least 10 in a restaurant in northeast Nigeria
ABUJA: A suicide bomber in Nigeria's northeast state of Borno killed at least 10 people and injured several others in an explosion in a restaurant, police said Saturday. The blast occurred in the Konduga area late Friday, police spokesperson Nahum Daso told The Associated Press. The suicide bomber was able to slip through unnoticed because of a heavy downpour, said Ismail Ahmed, a resident of Konduga. The town is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. Local media reported that those injured in the attacks have been taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. They also reported that the bomber was female. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Nigeria's northeast has been hit by attacks carried out by Islamic militants from the Boko Haram group and its splinter, the Daesh West Africa Province. Boko Haram, Nigeria's homegrown militants, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law. The conflict also has spilled into Nigeria's northern neighbors. Some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million displaced in the northeastern region, according to the UN Despite promises by President Bola Tinubu's administration to address Nigeria's security challenges, the violence has persisted.
