Nigeria seeks to transform technical talent landscape through 3MTT

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Africa Headlines

• Nigeria seeks to transform technical talent landscape through 3MTT – Nigeria’s seeking to transform the scale of supply of technical talent in the country and for global needs through the Three million technical talent (3MTT) programme. The three-month programme in the first phase is focused on key technical areas such as software development, UI / UX design, data analysis and visualization, product management, data science, animation, Ai and machine learning etc. The government has received more than 300,000 applications for the available 30,000 slots in phase one of the project. In this phase, the government is paying for the training.

• Africa football league kicks off – Football is a global business and Africa does not want to be left behind. This weekend, the much-awaited African Football League kicked off with eight teams – Al Ahly (Egypt), Simba (Tanzania), TP Mazembe (Congo), ES Tunis (Tunisia), Petro de Luanda (Angola), Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa), Enyimba (Nigeria), and Wydad AC (Morocco). The AFL is organised by the Confederations of African Football (CAF). This first edition runs from October 20 to November 11. The club selection was based on rankings with not more than one club from each country. The competition is designed to run in parallel with CAF’s Champions league and expected to be a fully-fledged competition next season with about 24 teams competing.

• South Africa to play New Zealand in Rugby World Cup final – South Africa beat England 16 – 15 in a tight Rugby World Cup semifinal to set up a date with the New Zealanders. After beating the host France to reach the semifinal of the 2023 Rugby World Cup, South Africa beat another European country to reach the final of the competition. South Africa will play New Zealand, also three-time champion on Saturday 28^th October at the Stade de France in Saint Denis. South Africa have won three Rugby World Cup finals in 1995 on home soil, 2007 in France and 2019 in Japan and won in every world cup final they played.

• Kenya abolishes visa requirement for Angola visitors – The presidents of Kenya William Ruto and Joao Lourenco of Angola met weekend, first time an Angolan head of State is on a State visit to the East African State. The Kenya president used the opportunity to abolish visa requirements for Angolans coming into Kenya. The Kenya president says he expects his counterpart will consider same when he returns to Luanda. The president also said that he will push for direct connections between Nairobi and Luanda to boost trade and tourism between the two countries. This is the latest in a long line of visa free requirements for selected African countries by the William Ruto government. Angola now joins South Africa, Eritrea, Comoros as African countries that do not require visa to come into Kenya.

• Nigeria’s Supreme Court fixes today for hearing – Nigeria’s supreme court will today start hearing of the petition by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Abubakar Atiku and Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi. They are challenging the outcomes of the presidential elections of 25^th February 2023 and seeking the nullification of the election. At the hearing, the supreme court expected to unveil a seven-member team to decide the case. After the elections in February, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was declared winner. Last month September 6th, the presidential election tribunal led by Justice Haruna Tsammani dismissed the petitions and affirmed the outcome of the February 25 elections. The supreme court is the last in the process of the election petitions and appeal and the country keenly awaits the conclusions of the process.

Global

• Jim Jordan withdraws, nine Republicans vie for Speaker position – After failing to get enough votes for his speakership ambition on Friday, Jim Jordan, the Chair of the House Judiciary committee, the Republicans are back to square one. Nine people have now put their names forward and the impasse is set to continue into a new week since Kevin McCarthy was removed as Speaker October 3^rd . The genesis of the impasse is the slim margin of the size of the Republican over the Democrats in the House. This has magnified the internal divisions in the Republican party. The House is currently divided along 221 and 212 Republican and Democrat members, respectively. The scale of the task ahead of each candidate is huge. There is a widespread analytical acceptance that a new speaker may not mean an end to the divisions in the House Republican party and may show up again when the critical bills of funding the government comes up next month. Initial ballot for the next speaker is now scheduled for Tuesday.

• Argentina currency woes amidst elections – Argentina went to polls yesterday to elect a new President amidst its worst economic crisis in two decades. Ahead of the elections, it was widely agreed that the most challenging issue facing the country is the economy. The leading candidates are Javier Milei, Sergio Massa, Patricia Bullrich, and Juntos por el Cambio. Who becomes President must win 45% of the votes or 40% but by 10% lead over the second placed candidate. There will be a second round of elections if any of the requirement is not met. Growth rate is expected to decline by 2.5% this year compared to over 4% in 2022. Inflation was 138% in September 2023. One of the extreme proposals by one of the candidates is the scrapping of the Central Bank and the dollarization of the Argentine economy. While the official rate to the US $ is currently pegged at 365 pesos to the US $, it is exchanged for close to 1,000 pesos to the US $, widening the gaps between the official and black-market rate to about 165%.

Weekend of protests over Israel – Palestinian Crisis – The weekend was dominated by widespread protests Israel’s continuous bombardment of Gaza across many capitals, including London, Bangkok, Dublin, Paris, Marseille, Rome, Sydney, New York etc. while pro-Israeli demonstration and vigils have also been held around the worlds, focused on securing the return of hostages captured by Hamas. It is now Day 17^th , and aids have started to trickle into the troubled region. From last week, the crisis has raised tensions in the region to very high levels and risks of a lengthy and wider conflict materialising. The US President Joe Biden has made a request to the Congress for emergency support for Israel and Ukraine. It is estimated that over 4,000 and about 1500 people have been killed in Palestine and Israel, respectively. Also, in Gaza, about 1m people have been internally displaced, including women, children, and the elderly. The blockage of water, food, and fuel have started to ease.