Again, Ethiopia shuts internet to prevent cheating in school exams

The Ethiopian government has shut down access to mobile internet in Ethiopia. The reason?- To prevent leakage of exam papers.  

Internet access was shut down around on Tuesday, and is yet to be restored. “The shutdown is aimed at preventing a repeat of leaks that occurred last year," says Mohammed Seid of the Office for Government Communications Affairs, to the Reuters news agency.

Ethiopia had earlier blocked the internet in July 2016, after university entrance exams were posted online, with another block following in August 2016

According to the BBC, it was unable to access websites belonging to the Ethiopian government and the sole communications provider, Ethio Telecom on Thursday. Preliminary data from Google shows a decrease in Ethiopian internet traffic to Google services since Wednesday afternoon.

Internet shutdowns seem to be a growing and worrisome trend in Africa. Algeria shut down its internet to prevent cheating in school exams in June last year. In other instances it has been for political reasons such as in Cameroon earlier this year.

Access to the internet is now recognised as a human right and on no account should it be shut down for educational, political or whatever reasons. There should be other methods to safeguard the integrity of exams. Shutting down the internet not only points to a willingness to stifle freedom of expression but also an admission of failure of government to tackle problems.

RWANDAN ELECTION COMMISSION TO VET SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGES OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

The Rwandan Election Commission has ruled that it must pre-approve all of the social media updates of Rwanda’s presidential candidates.

"We are asking (candidates) to present us their messages, their drafts to verify that they are not against the law," electoral commission head Kalisa Mbanda told AFP on Monday.

Social media messages by the presidential candidates will have to be submitted to the seven election commissioners at least 48 hours before their publication.

"If the message is not accepted it cannot be published," said Mbanda.

Perhaps spurred by reactions to Donald Trump’s unconventional use of twitter before and after the US elections, the measure will go into effect on the start of the official campaign on July 14 and concerns "messages, photographs and other campaign material" published on social networks.

Mbanda said the goal was to "prevent declarations, words, acts that can lead the population to acts of insecurity that could divide the Rwandan population."

Already political opponents, diplomats and human rights organisations have criticised this directive as a move to stifle political oppositions and censorship of freedom of expression. It is yet to be seen if Kagame will also have his social media messages vetted before publication.

Kagame has been in charge since taking power at the head of a rebel army in 1994 and has already served two seven-year terms as president.

Nigeria has the 7th biggest mobile subscription in Africa, Chinese smartphones top sales in Africa - Study

Nigeria is now the 7^th country with the largest mobile subscription. This means, more people are using phones to stay connected. Nigeria’s biggest online retailer, Jumia, revealed this in its second white paper on African Mobile Trends 2016 released on 25^th May 2016. Egypt  is ranked 11^th and South Africa is 14^th, all within the top 15 of the top countries in the world for number of mobile subscriptions

The study also shows that Asian brands are leading the pack in smartphone sales in Africa. Chinese brand Infinix is the biggest smartphone seller on Jumia in Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, Ivory Coast and Egypt. Other big sellers are Samsung and Xtouch in Egypt, InnJoo and Wiko in Kenya, Samsung in Morocco, Itel and Samsung in Ivory Coast and InnJoo in Nigeria. Even offline, Samsung remains the top smartphone brand sold in those 5 markets, monopolizing more than 50% of each market.

So for those of you who yab ‘chinco’ phones as being 2^nd class, you need to think again.  It seems they have brought variety and diversity thus making smart phones affordable in Africa.