14/07/2026
[ IN THIS WEEK'S IBA LEGALBRIEF AFRICA ]
Sudanese paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), is facing increasing pressure, with its leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo receiving an in absentia death sentence amid damning declarations by the UN and the International Criminal Court. It comes as the European Parliament makes a bid to deem it a terrorist organisation. The sentence against Daglo and 15 others are for the killing of a regional governor and war crimes in Darfur, and is the first against the leadership of the RSF since war broke out in April 2023.
In Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu has directed the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to investigate major global technology companies and Generative Artificial Intelligence platforms over allegations of anti-competitive practices and unlawful exploitation of the content of Nigerian media organisations. The move followed a joint petition submitted to the Presidency by the Nigerian Press Organisation, the Nigeria Union of Journalists, the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria and the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers.
The High Court has ordered MTN Uganda to pay more than Shs2.3bn ($625 000) in damages to former senior manager Richard Mwami after finding that the telecoms company maliciously instigated criminal proceedings against him, despite evidence clearing him in a multibillion-shilling mobile money fraud case. In his judgment, Justice Isaac Bonny Teko held that MTN was the ‘moving force’ behind Mwami’s prosecution. Mwami was among the first officials to detect suspicious transactions on the company’s mobile money platform in December 2011.
Also in Uganda, four farmers filed a case against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) at the UK's High Court this week, seeking to have Ugandan constitutional, environmental and climate law applied to Eacop Ltd, the UK-registered company financing the project. Rights NGO Avaaz, which is supporting the case, has called it the ‘first-of-its-kind’ litigation against the $5.6bn project, led by French energy giant TotalEnergies, which holds the majority stake.
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