World Tour: Presidential election preparations in Nigeria

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with our Africa reporter Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Nigeria election prep — We kick off today’s global news roundup here in Nigeria, where residents are gearing up for a presidential election on Feb. 25.

AUDIO: [Rally chant]

Thousands of people have turned out to support candidates as campaigns wrap up.

Political analysts have called the election a make-or-break situation. The three major contenders include candidates from the ruling and top opposition parties, as well as a third-party Christian candidate.

Parts of the country are battling a deadly security crisis.

AUDIO: [Fighting]

A policy from the central bank last month to redesign currency notes and limit cash withdrawals has sparked a cash crisis. Long queues also remain outside fuel stations.

Mohamed Rabiu Mudi is a businessman in northern Kano State. He says hunger and frustration is growing.

MUDI: As people are getting angry, it will get to a boiling point where people will start to revolt. And this is what we are afraid of.

State governors and lawmakers will be chosen in a separate vote two weeks after the presidential election.

South Africa power crisis — Next, we go to South Africa.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a state of emergency over the country’s worsening power crisis.

Rolling power cuts of up to eight hours a day are taking a toll on homes and businesses.

AUDIO: [Protesters yelling]

Demonstrators last week disrupted Ramaphosa’s annual address to protest the shortages.

During his address, Ramaphosa also said he plans to appoint an electricity minister tasked with responding to the crisis.

RAMAPHOSA: We will continue our just transition to a low carbon economy at a pace our country is able to keep up with, and at that pace we can afford and in a manner that ensures energy security.

Eskom—the country’s power utility—has battled years of corruption and frequent breakdowns at its aging coal-fired power stations.

Nicaragua sentencing — We head over to Nicaragua where an outspoken Catholic bishop has received a prison sentence.

Bishop Rolando Alvarez is facing 26 years in prison and was stripped of his citizenship.

Nicaraguan authorities deported more than 200 opposition figures last week on a U.S.-bound flight that Alvarez refused to board.

AUDIO: [Ortega speaking]

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega saying here that Alvarez refused to leave. He insisted on meeting first with bishops in the country.

Ortega has cracked down on his opponents, whom he blames for trying to oust him in 2018 protests.

AUDIO: [Chanting protesters]

Several thousand pro-government demonstrators marched over the weekend to support the government’s expulsion of Ortega’s critics.

Cambodia media shutdown— We wrap up today in Cambodia.

AUDIO: [Crying]

Journalists were left in tears after the country’s strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen shut down one of the last independent media outlets.

Hun Sen revoked the broadcasting license for the online Voice of Democracy radio. The outlet reported that the prime minister’s son approved $100,000 worth of financial aid—on his father’s behalf—for earthquake relief in Turkey.

Hun Sen denied the report saying he signed off on the foreign aid himself.

The media director at the Cambodian Center for Independent Media says the radio team is ready to work with authorities.

AUDIO: Hopefully a solution can be realized soon.

Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia for 38 years. He has increasingly cracked down on opposition ahead of elections later this year.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

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