By John Michael Ojo

King Charles III whose reign began in September 2022 after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II is currently suffering from a cancer-related illness.

The King’s ill-health was made known on Monday evening in a circular from the Buckingham Palace.

While the circular did not reveal the exact nature of the cancer, it stated that  the disease was detected during a medical procedure that recently treated the monarch’s enlarged prostate.

The circular which has now gone viral and seen by New Times reads in part: “During The King’s recent hospital procedure for benign prostate enlargement, a separate issue of concern was noted.” “Subsequent diagnostic tests have identified a form of cancer. His Majesty has today commenced a schedule of regular treatments, during which time he has been advised by doctors to postpone public-facing duties.”

The Royal Palace added that while the King may not be facing the public anytime soon, he would however be actively working “to undertake state business and official paperwork as usual.”

“The King is grateful to his medical team for their swift intervention, which was made possible thanks to his recent hospital procedure. He remains wholly positive about his treatment and looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible.”

Namibia’s President Hage Geingob, 82, died in hospital early on Sunday, the presidency said, weeks after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Geingob had been in charge of the thinly populated and mostly arid southern African country since 2015, the year he announced he had survived prostate cancer.

Vice President Nangolo Mbumba takes the helm in Namibia – a mining hotspot with significant deposits of diamonds and the electric car battery ingredient lithium – until presidential and parliamentary elections at the end of the year.

A presidency post on social media platform X did not give a cause of death, but late last month the presidency said he had travelled to the United States for “a two-day novel treatment for cancerous cells”, after being diagnosed following a regular medical check-up.

Born in 1941, Geingob was a prominent politician since before Namibia achieved independence from white minority-ruled South Africa in 1990.

He chaired the body that drafted Namibia’s constitution, then became its first prime minister at independence on March 21 of that year, a position he retained until 2002.

In 2007, Geingob became vice president of the governing South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), which he had joined as an agitator for independence when Namibia was still known as South West Africa.SWAPO has remained in power in Namibia unchallenged since independence. The former German colony is technically an upper middle-income country but one with huge disparities in wealth.

“There were no textbooks to prepare us for accomplishing the task of development and shared prosperity after independence,” he said in a speech to mark the day in 2018. “We needed to build a Namibia in which the chains of the injustices of the past would be broken.”
Geingob served as trade and industry minister before becoming prime minister again in 2012.
He won the 2014 election with 87% of the vote but only narrowly avoided a runoff with a little more than half the votes in a subsequent poll in November 2019.

That election followed a government bribery scandal, in which officials were alleged to have awarded horse mackerel quotas to Iceland’s biggest fishing firm, Samherji, in exchange for kickbacks, according to local media reports. The resultant outcry led to the resignation of two ministers.

The following year, Geingob lamented that Namibia’s wealth still remained concentrated in the hands of its white minority.

“Distribution is an issue, but how do we do it?” Geingob said in a virtual session at an event organised by international organisation Horasis.

“We have a racial issue here, a historical racial divide. Now you say we must grab from the whites and give it to the Blacks, it’s not going to work,” he said.

His comments came after the government rescinded as unworkable a policy that would have made it mandatory for white-owned businesses to sell a 25% stake to Black Namibians.

Geingob died at Lady Pohamba Hospital in Windhoek, where he was receiving treatment from his medical team, the presidency said.

President Macky Sall  of Senegal has postponed indefinitely the presidential election scheduled for February 25, just hours before official campaigning was due to start .

In an address to the nation on Saturday, Sall said he signed a decree abolishing a previous measure that set the date as lawmakers investigate two Constitutional Council judges whose integrity in the election process has been questioned.

“I will begin an open national dialogue to bring together the conditions for a free, transparent and inclusive election,” Sall added without giving a new date.

It is the first time a Senegalese presidential election has been postponed.

A November 2023 decree signed by Sall fixed the election for February 25, with 20 candidates in the running but without two major opposition figures.

Sall had repeatedly said he would hand over power in early April to the winner of the vote.

After announcing he would not run for a third term as president, Sall designated Prime Minister Amadou Ba from his party as his would-be successor.

The Constitutional Council has excluded dozens of candidates from the vote, including firebrand anti-system figurehead Ousmane Sonko and Karim Wade, son of former president Abdoulaye Wade.