Focus on Africa
Why is Ghana's opposition demanding a voters roll audit ?
Ahead of knife-edge December elections there are demands for an independent forensic audit of the voter register. The electoral commission says it is not needed. Why is the opposition party NDC adamant?
Communities in Guinea welcome the return of land taken from them violently by previous governments
Africa's future is urban- we explore what's behind the growth of megacities on the continent?
Presenter: Audrey Brown Producers: Sunita Nahar, Bella Hassan, Yvette Twagiramariya, Kaine Pieri and Nyasha Michelle in London. Technical Producer: Nick Randell Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
- Broadcast on:
- 18 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
Hello and welcome to this podcast from the BBC World Service. Please let us know what you think and tell other people about us on social media. Podcasts from the BBC World Service are supported by advertising. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those honours to your contracts, they said what the f*ck are you talking about? You insane Hollywood s*ck. So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up front for three months plus taxes and fees, promoting for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month, so full turns at mintmobile.com. Hi folks, this is Mark Bitman from Food with Mark Bitman. And I'm going to share some money-saving tips when it comes to shopping at Whole Foods Market. It's great to be a prime member when you shop at Whole Foods Market because you get an extra 10% off all sales, excluding alcohol. On Tuesdays, take advantage of deals like Buy 1, Get 1 50% off on packaged soups, and $2 off of their no antibiotics ever wrote to Surrey Chicken. Huge Friday savings on ready-to-eat sushi rolls, 12 for 12 all-live oysters, any hot one topping pizza for just $12, and there are even more deals. There are so many ways to save at Whole Foods Market, and now you know. Hello, I'm Audrey Brown, and today in Focus in Africa, we're talking about the unusual circumstance of communities actually getting redress for land violently taken from them by previous governments in Guinea. And African cities are growing at a phenomenal rate, by the year 2035, will have six cities with populations of 10 million or more. One of them may be in your country. Rapid urbanization is one of the factors propelling this growth. But is it a good thing or a bad thing? Rapid urbanization can be beneficial if the advantages are harnessed. For instance, in Uganda, 60% of the GDP is generated from Kampala City alone, and so with that increase in population comes better economic opportunities. If well-honest, then you would have improvement in the quality of life of the citizens. It's Wednesday, the 18th of September. First, we go to Accra. Ghana has achieved that rare thing in West Africa since 1992, multi-party elections, and the peaceful transfer of power. It has been touch and go a couple of times since then, to be honest. But Ghanaians managed to keep it together. But now, the biggest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress, alleges that there are irregularities in the compilation of the voters' role. Elections are due in December, so everyone's getting a bit jumpy about the seeming unauthorized transfer of voters to unspecified districts, the removal of names from the role and so on. The NDC says this is unprecedented, and they are asking the Electoral Commission to investigate the issue, and they've called on their supporters to demonstrate in support of this particular demand. So if registration equipment have been stolen, and then you see people who have been transferred, and you cannot trace where they were transferred from, the conclusion can be obvious. Another layer is that over 3,000 people have their names deleted completely from the register. Yes, we'll sit up, and there are two, what is good for the country. That's for all that we want. The National Democratic Congress won the Electoral Commission to open up the process of auditing the voters' role to all interested parties. The Commission says the NDC's call is misguided, but why won't the Commission allow a forensic audit? I've been finding out from Franklin Kunjo, founding president and CEO of Imani Center for Policy and Education, which is a think tank based in Accra. So Franklin, what is the issue with the voter register? Well, you know, the Communist voters' register has always had issues. Any time we have elections, the number of issues that come up, but specifically on this one, the NDC managed to be the opposition party, managed to find out that there have been multiple errors in registration of voters. Voters have been transferred to other places that we're not aware of. And another errors that come up a million people who may have had their registration affected. So clearly, there are multiple errors, but essentially it is about the fact that some voters have been transferred unknowingly to other places, and indeed, others cannot find their names at all. Is the implication that this is being done deliberately, or are they genuinely errors? Well, if you listen to the EC, for the EC, the Electoral Commission naturally confessed that a few of the officials have actually engaged in voter transfers without the authorities, the Commission's approval. So there's some aspects that people want to believe that is deliberate. The problem with the EC is that while it accepts some of the errors, at least three of the errors the NDC has pointed so far, it is unwilling to do anything about it. In fact, it claims that the errors are misguided, and that the call for an audit is actually misguided and premature. But the skill of the errors are quite frightening, and that's why the whole country is actually quite worried right now. Why are they digging their heels in? If 250,000 people are sort of erroneously moved around or removed from the voters' role, surely they must see that this is a problem for people and it raises tensions unnecessarily. Is there no way of compelling them to do it? Well, not only the EC should have been speaking to the parties, but the EC has created this atmosphere of essentially not listening to any alternative voices at all, and so it's very difficult. We are hoping that the parliament will be called record from recess, and then maybe the method will determine their own. But clearly speaking, but I'm worried that the skill of the errors may actually be more than we act dealing with right now. And I suspect that the reason why the EC is being reticent and listening to good reason. And many independents, by the way, not just me, are respecting the independents and academics are called on the EC, the electoral commission, but such an audit. And people might be asking for an external audit. All they are saying is that, well, the EC puts up little IT officials, and then the various parties as well bring the IT officials, and they go through painstakingly, go through the register and correct the errors. Because the EC has accepted that at least three out of six of the errors identified by the legislature position are actually true. How credible has the EC been up to now? Well, you may be asking their own person, because this EC in 2020 told my constituents, and I come from some part of the region, Ghana, called SAO. My people were worried that they were not going to be allowed to put in the parliamentary elections. I send them to the chiefs and some others. I send them to the electoral commissioner. She received them, and let us show me that our people are going to vote for their MP in the elections. Five days later, she sent a bit night saying that no one could not put in the elections. And since 2020, we've never had representation in parliament at all. So if you're asking someone who really about credibility, I have lived it. And frankly speaking, I may be probably be their own person, but the judgement, the jury's are out there. Many people do not trust this EC. In fact, the Afro-barometer survey, which is run by this, another thing that I call the Center for Democratic Development in Ghana, has consistently shown that the results, constantly shown that the EC is less desperate. In fact, they've moved from a half, about 67% above six years or eight years ago, about 83% as a speech. So it's not just me, but many people really did not trust the EC. The EC said that the call for a forensic audit was misguided. And you said that earlier, and they said that the commission strongly believes that the surest way to attaining a robust and credible read register is not through demonstrations. But so what are they suggesting then, is the surest way of attaining a robust and credible register? Well, in the EC's Mexican, the robust way is to exhibit the register for people to find out about these multiple errors. But the challenge here is that, I mean, there are many thousands of people who may find out quite late in the day about this error. So I don't think the addressing the issue had on the fall. And I think clearly speaking, the surest way to get them to act is through mass demonstrations. And I hope that parliament is called, record from recess, so that this matter will be determined once and for all. So tell us about the major players and parties. This president, Dan Akufuado, won't be standing again, right? Because he's exhausted his two terms. Yes, he wouldn't be standing. His vice president has been really nominated as the flag bearer of the party right now. Dr. Mahmoud Baum, yeah, it is right. And the position leader would be contesting as former president John Muhammad. Those are the leading candidates. And of course, there's a tech candidate who defected from the ruling party, Alan Chairman who used to be the trade minister in Nanakufuado's government. So where did he defect to? Is he an independent? He formed his own movement called the Movement for Change, but the butterfly act of Sunderland. Okay. Yeah. So Dr. Baumia has incumbency to deal with. Former president John Dramani, Muhammad has a record that he will have to defend now, given that he lost eight years ago to Nanakufuado. What do they have to say with themselves, then? Well, they've been comparing records. The vice president has definitely formed a precedent to compare records. And he says that he's managed to achieve the three things, at least as vice president. The challenge with that narrative, too, is that a lot of his narratives suggest that for some of the many, many years in the current government, he didn't have constitutional authority to deal with them, especially the economic decadence, that the experience over the last eight years. He doesn't want a responsibility for that. But there are certain things he says that he's able to achieve and he's attributed the three of them, and then says he had he alone actually initiated that. But for those that are negative, he had no constitutional authority. There's some sort of contempt, really. The former president then comes and says, well, I left you with an economy that was quite doing well. I mean, the dollar to the city was around four cities to a dollar. Today, as you speak, is near-existence to this, right? Inflation at the point went to 54% I think two years ago. Never did inflation go to that level and that the former president. And there are many economic factors on employment itself has gone that high. And so the former presidency is, well, look, I built so much infrastructure within four years as president, compared with how much you have received so much money, you grew the country into a dead-eyes back and virtually into a junk spatula, and then in an IMF program as a speak. So clearly the elections look set to be fought among the economy. Now, Ghana has largely, for this century, certainly had peaceful transfers of power. There were a couple of times when it got very sticky and it got a bit scary. This election registered issue, can it endanger that sense of security that Ghana can hence have inculcated in the democratic process? Oh, without a doubt, it definitely can. And, you know, we've had issues in the past of the registers. We never got this close to having a whole should I call it a post-sync party organizing elections in almost every region. And they are threatened to do so in every district, if they see it as in parts. And this time around, there are many, many people, independents who are actually now calling on the EC, but I suspect the EC does not act, they could be troubled. That's Franklin Cugio, the CEO of the Imani Centre for Policy and Education in Accra. Now to Guinea. And the situation, many communities across the continent often find themselves in. They have their land taken from them, often with violence, and no hope of redress or compensation. This happened most recently to people living in Caporo rails, Kippetu, Dimes, and Dares Alarm. All these are neighbourhoods in Conakri, the capital. These people have had their land taken away from them by the government of the then-President Alpha Conde in 2019. Others were dispossessed in 1998. But things are different this time. Thousands of people forced off their land over several decades can now have their land back. This decision follows decades of struggle for justice and compensation, highlighted in a Human Rights Watch report that uncovered severe legal and humanitarian violations related to the evictions. We'll be hearing from a member of the community in a moment, but let's first listen to Jim Wormington, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch and one of the authors of the report. He shared the findings with me in our conversation. This was from research that we conducted in 2019 in Conakri, the capital of Guinea, in an area particularly called Caporo Rai, which was really an area that looked like other neighbourhoods of Conakri that were multistory buildings, that were families, extended families living in houses. And then very suddenly, over the course of a few days, bulldozers came into that neighbourhood and raised, destroyed, the entire area. So I remember I used to drive past the area a lot when I was in Conakri, and then when I came back to do the actual research about the evictions, it looked like a bomb had exploded. There was debris everywhere, there were flattened buildings over the entire area, and nobody was really left except for a few people who were picking through the belongings that were left there and a few young men who were sleeping around a campfire in the few shelters that they could find. So it was an absolutely devastating event for these families that were involved. And now they're getting their land back? Yes, I mean, I think that what they had been asking for at the time of the report that we wrote was first of all for the evictions to stop, because this was in an area of land that was being developed for business, according to the Ghanaian government. And the people who were living there, for them, this was not an area for business, this was an area that had been the home for their families for many, many years. And so the consistent demand that they had back then was for the evictions to stop. I think in the years that have followed, they have been campaigning relentlessly for justice. And that's, we've seen a transition from the government of Alpha Conde. It was in power when the evictions happened to the military government. And so that campaigning, which has gone on for years, has also included fighting and succeeding in a lawsuit against the Conde government's actions at the Regional Echo West Court, so the West African Court of Justice. And that campaigning has obviously helped them meet up until today. - There was another destruction of people's homes and properties in 1998, and then, of course, the 2019 one. But what were the reasons behind this? Was it just gentrification or making way for development without consultation, without consideration for people? Or was there something more behind it? - Yeah, it's a really good question. So from the government's perspective at the time, they were saying that this was land that they needed to develop connoquery, connoquery. It's a peninsula city. A lot of the business and administration is concentrated at one end of the peninsula. So they were saying that they needed to open up other areas of land, so business. But the reality was for these families that had been living there for so long, the process that the government should follow if they are going through a development process was far from what was followed. So according to human rights standards and human rights laws, if you've got going to evict families for the purposes of development, you need to have extensive consultation with those families. You need to have courts that give you the right to take that land. You need to make sure they have other places to go and they have notice and really have the chance to leave the land somewhere comfortable before the evictions. So really it should be a last resort and with a lot of safeguards. None of those things in this case had happened. There were nowhere for people to go. They had had really short notice, essentially a very violent process of evictions. And then for many years, the land was just left dormant and developed. So from a family's perspective, this was something that was far from the safeguards that you would expect. - So is this an ongoing process of the government now to address these previous and grievous damages to communities concerning land grabs and so on? Is this a concerted policy of theirs? Or are these one-offs? - Yeah, I think that would be a question also to ask the victims involved. I think that certainly I'm, for example, I do a lot of work in the mining sector in Guinea and there's still a lot of challenges with access to land communities, land communities that has been taken from mining. - Okay, thank you so much. Bye-bye. - Bye-bye. - Jim Wilmington, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. Now let's hear from Sam Basau, the spokesperson for the victims. He began by telling us how people feel about the government's decision to return their land. - I would say that the victims are extremely satisfied. They were overcome with emotion. We saw photos of elderly people in tears who did not expect these reparations because Guinea has a history marked by state violence, political violence against its own populations and the problems are either pending before Ghanaian courts which are known for their slowness and sometimes they're forgotten. It is very rare in Guinea that the state can recognize the areas of the past and this is what has just been done. We salute this act and all the victims today are truly satisfied. - We wondered whether the victims had any concerns about the process. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no. - No, there is no doubt. It's a long process that began after the coup d'état against Alpha Condé who was nevertheless one of the architects of the destruction of our neighbourhood. A week or less than a week after the coup, we asked the government, President Domboya, to look into our case. Afterwards, we were invited to participate in the national meetings which brought together a good part of the country's elite and different components of Ghanaian society. We explained all our problems and then afterwards the state came to us to carry out the census of the different families. That's 2,673 families who were identified with their property through a Senegalese firm which used satellite images of the neighbourhood before its destruction to allow each family to identify their house. For people who have complete confidence because the president was not obliged to do so, especially in the country's context, Alpha Condé had promised to bring justice to the victims of 1998. He said in 2016 that the state was wrong and that this problem needed to be resolved. But unfortunately, three years later, the same Alpha Condé sent through his government machines that destroyed the rest of our homes. (speaking foreign language) - Samba did say they worry that the process of organising and distributing the compensation they've been waiting for might take a long time. (speaking foreign language) - No, the money has not yet been provided. The amount has not yet been defied. But there are plans to create a commission made up of various state services but also of victims to reflect together on the terms and conditions of financial compensation. (speaking foreign language) - And that was Samba Sal in Guinea. (upbeat music) - This is Focus in Africa from the BBC World Service. (upbeat music) - Hi folks, this is Mark Bitman from Food with Mark Bitman. And I'm gonna share some money saving tips when it comes to shopping at Whole Foods Market. It's great to be a prime member when you shop at Whole Foods Market because you get an extra 10% off all sales, excluding alcohol. On Tuesdays, take advantage of deals like buy one, get one 50% off on packaged soups, and two dollars off of their no antibiotics, ever wrote to Surrey Chicken. Huge Friday savings on ready to eat sushi rolls, 12 for 12, all live oysters, any hot one topping pizza for just 12 dollars, and there are even more deals. There are so many ways to save at Whole Foods Market, and now you know. - Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Midmobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. - $45 up front for three months plus taxes and fees, promoting for new customers for limited time, unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month slows, full turns at mintmobile.com. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - We know that Africa's population is growing at a rapid rate, and that large numbers of people are moving from rural to urban areas in search of economic opportunities. This means that cities have to expand to cope with this massive influx. They have to provide jobs, housing and schools and health infrastructure. According to an economist intelligence unit report, six African cities will have more than 10 million people by 2035. Cities like Luanda and Daris Alam will join others like Cairo, Kinshasa, and Joburg with populations of more than 10 million people. On top of that, 17 other urban areas will have more than 5 million people. Alice Ababa, Kampala and Abijan appear to be growing the fastest, nearly 10% per annum. So by 2035, more than half of all Africans will be living in urban areas. This presents challenges and opportunities. And what are they? Fiona and Shemerirwe is in Kampala, and Mateus Spalliviero is in Abijan. They are both urban development experts from UN Habitat. And there are many of the answers that we seek. So Mateus, what is driving rapid urbanization in those cities, do you think? What is producing rapid urbanization is the fact that people are moving from rural to urban areas, but they are free main factors determining migration right now. The social economic factor, which is the one we know. But now, in addition, there is the climate impact and the conflict as well. In urban urbanization, then it's not just caused from people inflexing into cities. It's also caused by the natural growth of cities. So of people already living in cities that are just-- the population is naturally increasing. So it's the combination of the two that is determining rapid urbanization. And in Africa, it's a bit out of control right now in most of the countries. And why is that? The demographics, first of all. So there is a demographic growth that is much higher than the other continents. That determines a very high youth population. The youth maybe do not have the same behavior as the parents working more in the rural areas or rural related works. So they prefer to seek for a job and better opportunities in terms of access of services and so on in cities. And so this is causing a very high level of urbanization. We have cities in Africa, mainly in West Africa, but not only growing more than 5% per year, which is completely unmanageable for any city in the world, actually. So Fiona is rapid urbanization always a problematic process, or can it also be a beneficial process? Rapid urbanization can be beneficial if the advantages are harnessed. For instance, with population growth comes an increase in the labor availability. That would really improve the economic growth of a city. For instance, in Uganda, 60% of the GDP is generated from Kampala City alone. And so with that increase in population comes better economic opportunities. If well-honest, say if it is planned and well-honest, then you would have improvement in the quality of life of the citizens. It has its advantages. And what are the disadvantages? The disadvantages are if it is unplanned. Rapid urbanization moves faster than the ability for planning for the increased population growth. So this is where the disadvantage lies, because you will have advanced parole, unplanned settlements, such as slums. You will have poor connectivity and eventually a high unemployment rate. Matias, so are there cities right now on the continent that are actually managing the process of rapid urbanization well? Personally, from my experience, I think the majority of the cities are overwhelmed with the speed of growth of urban areas. I agree with Fiona. Of course, the theory says that if a city's property planned and managed, we can harness the benefits of urbanization. At the same time, the reality shows that currently, as you improve, for example, informal settlements in one part of the city, there are more appearing in other parts of the city. And I think one of the solution lies on not just focusing on mega cities and big cities, but on a system what we call a system of cities, meaning that we need to look at secondary and tertiary cities in a national territory so that the population are attracted by different alternatives. And then cities would be able to manage better the faster banization rate. Fiona, I'm going to ask you the same question. I wouldn't say that they are managing rapid urbanization. But I've seen cities that are actually making an effort, such as Addis, Addis Ababa recently hosted the Afrikaaban Forum. And you could really see that the city's making an effort through improved transportation systems and providing housing. OK, so what are we learning from rapid urbanization? What do we actually need to do? Mateus, you started answering that question. Can you expand a little bit? Yes, what we have to learn is how to manage urban areas, which is not the same as managing rural areas, because you have more density of assets and infrastructure. So it requires more coordination and more generalists, meaning experts that are able to understand different fields at the same time, not specialists. So you need to have really strong technical capacities at the local level, at the level of municipalities and city governance. Secondly, is that countries need to have proper national territorial development plans, meaning that they need to consider the whole territory of their country and plan for it, meaning understanding where development corridors located, where areas of growth and how to promote a policy of investment, which is diversified, avoiding investing everything in the same city. There is also awareness raising at the local level, with the communities, the way they settled, and the way they can also improve in terms of basic and social services management, and so on. So Fiona, would you say that there is the political sense of urgency and political will about how African countries can actually harness the benefits of a very young population, for instance, that is coming in with this very young energy to expand cities. Is the plan there-- are there plans of food to actually make-- to turn rapid urbanization into a positive for the continent? I think there is evidence of political will and political awareness of the need to deal with the urbanization issue in Africa. And this was evidence that the Britain will concluded the African urban forum, where we saw ministers and different political figures coming together to derive African solutions to the urbanization challenges. We have finally come to the realization that the future is urban, and there is no turning back, especially the fact that we have a huge youth population, like Uganda has more than 70% of this population under 30. Madras, would you like to add anything? The banisation is happening at a very fast rate. We always talk about percentages of population, but if you look into absolute numbers, the urban population is going to double in the next 25 years, and to triple just after that. So it's like an exponential growth, and so there is need for coordination and collaboration and partnerships. Matthias Paliviero and Fiona Ncemerirwe, urban development experts from UN Habitat. Focused in Africa was put together by Sunita Nahar, Bella Hassan, Yvetteo Aguiramaria, Kane Piri, and Yasha Michelle here in London. Nick Randal was our technical producer. Paul Badjabinger was our senior journalist. Andre Lombard and Alice Moudenki are our editors. I'm Audrey Brown. Thank you for listening. He owned iconic luxury brands. Harrods was the ultimate glamorous shop, the most famous people in the world coming there. But Muhammad Al-Fayed used his wealth and power to control more than just his business interests. One of his HR team approached me and said, "The chairman would like you to work in his office." It was pretty quick that my gut instinct started to go, "This is not right." The only thing that he was interested in was touching my body. World of Secrets, Season 4. Al-Fayed, Predator at Harrods. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]