An Egyptian actress is set to face trial next month for wearing a see-through dress at the Cairo film festival that showed her legs, a judicial source said on Saturday.

Rania Youssef appeared at the closing session on Thursday of the event wearing a black lacy dress that exposed what some commentators described as a swimsuit beneath it.

This prompted two lawyers to lodge a case against her accusing the actress of “inciting debauchery”, a charge that could land her in jail for up to five years if she is convicted, the source said.

The first legal case alleging obscenity was filed by lawyer Amro Abdelsalam and the second by Samir Sabri, another attorney known for taking celebrities to court.

Sabri told the AFP news agency that Youssef’s appearance “did not meet societal values, traditions and morals and therefore undermined the reputation of the festival and the reputation of Egyptian women in particular”.

Her trial is scheduled to begin on January 12. 

Pictures of the 44-year-old star left social media users divided, with some criticising her and others defending Youssef’s right to wear what she wants.

“This dress and design is called “I forgot my trousers while going to be honoured,” wrote one Twitter user, in Arabic. 

Others frowned upon the criticism, with one user, Estella Joyce, urging Egyptians to drag themselves “out of the dark ages”. 

Dear Egypt,

Re: Rania Youssef

Please drag yourself out of the dark ages,

Sincerely,

Contempt #Egypt https://t.co/QmMDh4boQV

— Estella Joyce (@LelJoyce) December 1, 2018

Wondering what’s happening in Egypt? Actress Rania Youssef wore this dress to the Cairo International Film Festival.

A group of lawyers then took it upon themselves to submit a legal complaint against Rania for what they have determined to be too revealing for a dress. pic.twitter.com/PPBezxd04E

— Mai El-Sadany (@maitelsadany) December 1, 2018

Normal person: sees rania youssef’s dress and moves on

Egyptian person: YaLaHwYy El SoUrA dI lAzEm TeB2a Me7WaR 7aYaTy

— Maryam (@MaryamBazar3a) December 1, 2018

The Egyptian Actors’ Syndicate also weighed in, without naming Youssef or any other celebrity.

“The appearance of some of the festival’s guests did not agree with the traditions and values of the society, and this has undermined the festival and the union which is responsible for its members behaviour,” it said in a statement.

Youssef, who is a member of the union, later issued an “apology” on her official Twitter account to the “many (people) angered” by her appearance.

“I probably miscalculated when I chose to wear this dress. It was the first time that I wore it and I did not realise it would spark so much anger,” she said.

“I reaffirm my commitment to the values upon which we were raised in Egyptian society,” she added.

Egypt is a largely conservative country with a Muslim majority.

Earlier this year, prosecutors detained a female singer for four days for “incitement to debauchery” after an online video clip which includes dances went viral.

Last year another female pop singer was sentenced to two years in prison on similar charges, also over a video deemed provocative. Her sentence was reduced to a year on appeal.

Kiev, Ukraine – More than 80,000 Russian soldiers are present at Ukraine‘s borders and the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, as well as the rebel-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to the Ukrainian president.

Petro Poroshenko’s remarks on Saturday came six days after a four-year-old conflict between Kiev and Moscow deepened when Russia seized three Ukrainian military vessels and arrested 24 crew members in the Black Sea near the Kerch Strait.

As he rallies for international support against Moscow, Poroshenko said Russia had about 1,400 artillery and rocket systems, 900 tanks, 2,300 armoured combat vehicles, more than 500 military planes and 300 helicopters in and around Ukraine.

Russia has more than 80 Russian military ships and eight submarines in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Aegean Sea, according to Poroshenko.

Igor Koziy, military expert at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, told Al Jazeera that the numbers Poroshenko gave seemed accurate if the navy and air force figures were added to the ground troops.

“If you look at the organisational structure of the Russian military, you will see that there are up to 6,000 people in each brigade. They have up to three brigades in Crimea alone.

“There is also navy and air force there. In the south of Russia that borders northern Ukraine, there have built up two whole military bases – three to five brigades each,” he said. 

“The possibility of the Russian invasion at the moment is between 70 to 80 percent, especially during the upcoming holiday season. For three to five days, nobody in the world would care about what is going on,” said Koziy.

He also said Moscow was just waiting for an excuse to justify the move. 

“[President Vladimir Putin] is still not ready for a very open traditional method because there is no psychological readiness for it inside the Russian army, but it is still on the table.” 

‘Russia continues to test the world’

Speaking at an unidentified location where Poroshenko transferred new and repaired fighter jets, helicopters and unmanned areal vehicles to the Ukrainian army, Poroshenko said that “Russia continues to test the world”.

He said that Moscow was trying to see whether it would get away with turning the Azov and Black seas into a “Russian lake”.

“This is a tremendous threat, to which we, together with our allies, are looking for a proper political and diplomatic response. But our internal correct answer is to strengthen the Ukrainian army, first of all the air force,” Poroshenko said.

The Kremlin has accused the president of playing up the conflict with Moscow to secure electoral support in the upcoming presidential poll on March 31 next year.

Olexiy Makeyev, the Ukrainian foreign ministry’s political director, told Al Jazeera that the world should be wary of the Russian militarisation of Crimea in particular.

“The occupation and subsequent militarisation of Crimea led to the expansion of the area of use of Russian warships and military aircraft in the Black Sea and far beyond, even the Mediterranean basin,” he said.

“Such militarisation has far-reaching consequences for security not only in the Black Sea area but in the whole southern Europe, as well as North Africa and Middle East.”

Russia condemned

Foreign ministers from the world’s seven biggest economies on Friday condemned Russia’s actions in Kerch Strait as they reaffirmed their “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” at the G20 summit.

The world leaders stood by Kiev verbally, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday called on Poroshenko “to be sensible” and said there was no military solution to the dispute with Moscow.

Merkel also spoke with Putin on Saturday about the conflict.

“We have talked about the situation in Syria and we have talked about the situation in the Sea of Azov, of course, because here any tensions must be avoided,” she told reporters. 

She also said access to the Sea of Azov must not be blocked by Russia, which must comply with international law.

Poroshenko initiated a martial law in 10 out of 27 regions of Ukraine following Sunday’s confrontation and called on NATO to send military vessels to the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine believes that after seizing Crimea and the eastern regions, Moscow is aiming to monopolise the Azov Sea before coming for the whole of the country.

The conflict in the east of Ukraine has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014. 

Follow Tamila Varshalomidze on Twitter: @tamila87v

Budapest, Hungary – A self-imposed deadline by a university founded by US billionaire George Soros to settle a legal dispute with the Hungarian government has passed, raising serious questions on academic freedom in the country.

Saturday marked the end of the embattled Central European University’s (CEU) deadline to remain in Budapest, with the university now set to move its activities and start the 2019-2020 academic year in Vienna.

The move has been seen by students and some European politicans as a serious blow to a liberal bastion in Hungary, led by far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ‘s Fidesz party since 2010.

Soros, who promotes liberal causes through his charities, has been the subject of a campaign by Orban.

Earlier this year, his charity, Open Society Foundations, was forced to leave Hungary.

The conflict with CEU is part of a wider crackdown by the Hungarian government on academic freedoms, including tighter budgetary and academic controls over its universities.

CEU, chartered in the US state of New York, was asked to meet the requirements of a law passed last year compelling foreign universities to have a campus in their home country. 

CEU offers diplomas accredited in both the United States and Hungary, but did not offer courses in the US at the time the law was passed.

The university has since opened a set of courses at Bard College in New York state, which was visited by delegates from the Hungarian government in April this year.

But the Hungarian government refused to sign an agreement with the New York state.

A government spokesperson last week called CEU’s operations at Bard College “something like a Potemkin campus” that fails to satisfy the law.

Academic freedom under attack

According to those involved in the struggle to keep CEU in Budapest, it is the first time an institution of higher education has been forced to leave a European Union (EU) country for political reasons.

But CEU students did not want to leave without a fight.

Last week, a group of its students, under a banner called Students4CEU, led a demonstration attended by thousands of people to the Kossuth Lajos square, seat of the Hungarian parliament.

The protesters set up tents to “occupy” the space and have stayed there since, hosting a “Free University”.

The protest involved CEU holding its classes in those tents, while professors and alumni have been seen delivering speeches at the site in English and Hungarian.

The group demanded that the Hungarian government sign the agreement with CEU, end “all censorship” of higher education and ensure accessible, independent and well-funded education and research. 

As the December 1 deadline expired, protesters marched with drums to the tent, where they held speeches and laid dirt on a coffin meant to symbolise the death of academic freedom.

The students at the “Free University” seemed resigned to CEU’s fate.

Max de Blank, one of the organisers, told Al Jazeera that the next move is to build a “sustainable coalition” to challenge the government’s policies.

“The December 1 deadline concerns CEU specifically, but the attacks on academic freedom aren’t only restricted to just one university,” De Blank said.

De Blank is enrolled in CEU’s Gender Studies programme, a field of study the Fidesz government effectively banned in October, citing low enrolment numbers and calling it an “ideology, not a science”.

The move forced Eotvos Lorant University’s (ELTE), the only other Hungarian university that offered a Gender Studies programme, to stop recruting students.

ELTE, founded in 1635, is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Hungary.

De Blank also pointed to the proposed privatisation of Corvinus University, a research-focused public institution that used to allow nearly 60 percent of its students to receive tuition-free education.

Students from ELTE and Corvinus have joined Students4CEU and planning their future strategy by building alliances with trade unions, who fear an increase in workhours over a proposed labour law.

A European ‘failure’

Though the deadline has passed, CEU said it will not make any official statement until the administrators and students meet on Sunday. 

CEU provost Liviu Matei told Al Jazeera that the university’s case is “symptomatic” of the political situation in Hungary, which also “raises questions on the EU as an institution”. 

The ruling Fidesz party is part of the European People’s Party (EPP), a transnational coalition of centre-right political parties that was instrumental in the founding  of the EU. 

EPP had warned Fidesz that expelling CEU would be a red line for its continued membership, but has seemingly changed its course since Orban endorsed Manfred Weber to head the group. 

“The EPP could have done more, could have done something, but they haven’t,” Matei said. “The EU has tried, they sued Hungary, but nothing is happening.” 

The EPP did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

However, Fidesz still has its critics in the EU parliament. The bloc initiated punitive actions against Hungary in September, citing the CEU case among a host of concerns.

Judith Sargentini, a Dutch member of European parliament belongng to the GreenLeft party, said she was “outraged” by the crackdown on CEU. 

I stand with the Central European University.

How is it possible that in Europe, in 2018, an academic institution is bullied into closing down?#IstandwithCEU pic.twitter.com/4eE3xQQ8sa

— Judith Sargentini (@judithineuropa) November 30, 2018

It is not expected the Hungarian government will be censured, however, since punitive measures require the consent of all EU member states.

Budapest’s allies – Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – are unlikely to agree to any action against Hungary.

CEU’s departure is “a failure of the European idea and ideals,” Matei said.

The Hungarian government did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment. 

Back at Kossuth Lajos square, students end their “occupation” with a symbolic burial of academic freedom and announcement of a “unified student movement”.

The students chanted “Szabad Orszag, Szabad Egyetem”, Hungarian for “Free Country, Free University” as they mourned the end of CEU’s time in Budapest. 

“Even if we leave the country and move to Vienna, the situation here will not be resolved and the attacks on academic freedoms will continue,” De Blank said.

Kabul, Afghanistan – It is a bright and chilly Sunday morning with barely any traffic in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and Abdul Waheed is already busy at work.

Two years ago, 30-year-old Waheed and 11 of his friends founded one of the first online shops in Afghanistan, Entekhab Man.

With most Afghans preferring to shop at local markets, many doubted it would be a success.

“We knew it was going to be difficult but never imagined how hard it was going to be,” he told Al Jazeera from their main shop in Kabul’s Taimani area.

“It took us one year to convince people that it is okay to buy things online, to reassure them that they did not have to come to the store to buy goods,” he said, as he prepared to ship orders placed that morning.

Realising the daunting task facing their business venture, Waheed and his partners placed advertisements on local radio and TV stations.

“Slowly after that, we started seeing more and more customers. We also started getting positive feedback from people,” he said.

With many young Afghans using Facebook, Waheed and his business partners opened an account on the social media site, created a website and launched an app.

Word spread and they started receiving phone calls from people living outside Kabul.

Waheed and friends came up with a solution – they sent goods by bus.

“We started sending orders to provinces outside Kabul. It was very difficult sending orders by bus. But it reached our customers within two to three days,” he said.

On a slow day, Entekhab Man receives at least 50 orders. 

The young entrepreneurs, who invested $300,000 in the business, say they were motivated by Amazon’s business model and have opened two more shops – one in the country’s third largest city, Herat, and another in Mazar-i Sharif – the fourth largest city.

Parwez Ahmadi, 28, ordered a watch from Entekhab Man. He says he could not be happier with the service he received, he is now a repeat customer.

“I got familiar with online shopping through the internet two years ago. It was winter and I bought a coat from them that was really warm,” Ahmadi told Al Jazeera.

“They sent me exactly what I saw on their website. Now I tell people to do online shopping. It is easy and you don’t have to leave your house,” he added.

The business now employs 20 people and has plans to expand. With the success of Entekhab Man, other online enterprises have flourished.

Afghan Mart opened its doors more than a year ago in Kabul, selling everything from utensils to beauty products in the Parwan 3 area.

“Most people place their orders through our Facebook page. We then deliver to them within two hours if it is in Kabul. We deliver everywhere. We deliver to the furthest places in our country within three days,” Ismatullah Azizi, who opened the shop with three other friends, told Al Jazeera.

Its clientele is young, tech-savvy and seeks convenience.

“Most of our customers are young. Sixty-five percent are under the age of 30 and have no time to come to the store,” the 27-year-old added.

Across the country, there are now at least six online businesses and the number is expected to grow in the coming years.

But there are plenty of challenges.

“There is no reliable online payment service here in Afghanistan. People only pay us after we deliver the items, which is not good. Also, unlike say America or Europe, there are no fixed addresses here, so it takes a bit longer finding the location and delivering the goods,” Azizi said.

And that’s not the only hurdle.

Afghanistan’s security situation is fragile, 17 years after the Taliban were pushed out of office.

“Many times, there are explosions and suicide bombings and that leads to roads being closed for a whole day. When that happens, we cannot deliver the goods and our customers call and complain,” Waheed said.

Analysts say the situation has boosted online shopping.

“Insecurity is one of the main driving forces behind this phenomena. It is safer than going out to do shopping. People receive what they ordered in a secure manner,” Taj Muhammad Talash, a Kabul-based economist, told Al Jazeera.

According to Talash, online shopping has a long way to go before it can fully compete with high street shopping.

But despite the challenges, the young entrepreneurs say they are just getting started.

“This is our country. We have to believe in it,” said Azizi, Afghan Mart‘s co-owner. “Only us the young people can improve our situation and that can only happen if we believe in our country and invest in it.”

Tashkent, Uzbekistan – Azima stood in front of a wooden board at a charity fair in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, tellingly named the Time of Miracles. The 16-year-old, dark-haired girl with azure blue eyes looked lost and uneasy. She knew that the event would change her life forever.

Amid dozens of passers-by, Azima anxiously awaited reactions to the statement she had just made. The piece of paper hanging behind her read: “I’m HIV positive. Hug me.”

In May 2017, Azima became the first person in Uzbekistan’s history to publicly come out as HIV positive. On World’s AIDS day on December 1 that year, she repeated her statement on national TV.  

In Uzbekistan, until recently one of the world’s most isolated country’s, HIV carries a huge social stigma. An HIV outbreak that began in the early 2000s was never publicly discussed.

There is no available data on the number of people infected and even medical professionals often lack basic knowledge of the ways the virus is transmitted. In classes devoted to HIV, medical students and teachers often tell pupils the virus is passed through breath or handshakes.

By many in Uzbekistan, HIV is viewed as a death sentence, inseparable from prostitution, drug abuse and crime.

“Many people in Uzbekistan lack awareness. Some know how HIV is transmitted and some associate it with ‘bad behaviour’”, Azima told Al Jazeera. “I went through this. I want people to know what HIV and AIDS are and change their perception.”

According to estimates, between 8,000 and 10,000 HIV positive persons in Uzbekistan are children. Many of them were infected in hospitals through blood transfusions, catheterisation, and reuse of needles and syringes.

The epidemic became visible only in 2007, when AIDS centres saw a rapid increase in the number of young patients. That year, the first day care centre for HIV positive minors opened to provide the children with adequate medical, psychological and social support. Currently, there are nine such centres in Uzbekistan.

‘Hospital children’ 

Azima is one of the so-called “hospital children”. She was born prematurely and the doctors gave her little chances to survive. Aware of her poor health, Azima’s parents abandoned her and she grew up raised by her grandmother.

From her early days, Azima was a diseased child, spending most of her time in hospitals on various forms of treatment. It was only when she was six that the doctors discovered she suffered from HIV.

The diagnosis was like a sentence. Lacking awareness of the illness, and to protect her granddaughter, Azima’s grandmother decided not to disclose the condition to the child. As the social stigma runs deep, most parents hide the diagnosis from their children and relatives.

Azima eventually found out she was HIV positive at the age of 11. “It was a nightmare. I separated from my friends and stopped taking medications,” she recalls. “It was like falling into a dark tunnel. The whole time I was searching for the light.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera on the condition of anonymity, one mother of an HIV positive child said: “We haven’t told anyone. Until now, no one knows. Our relatives are asking us why my daughter is taking so many pills. I even change the labels so that no one knows what kind of medicines she takes.”

According to Kamila Fatikhova, a UNICEF consultant and a volunteer psychologist at the Tashkent day care centre, the fear of other people finding out about the child’s condition is not without reason.

“If someone at school finds out that the child is HIV positive, the principal may inform the teacher and the teacher may inform the parents. It happens that the child is being threatened and pressure is put on the parents to remove the child from school,” Fatikhova told Al Jazeera. “First of all, it shows that parents are not aware of their rights.”

It was a nightmare. I separated from my friends and stopped taking medications.

Azima

For Azima, however, everything changed when she began attending group meetings organised by UNICEF at the day care centre, where HIV positive teenagers can meet one another, receive correct information about the virus and, most importantly, psychological and social support.

“A long time has passed, but I remember my first experience with the group vividly. There was a bright, nice room, with pieces of handicraft hanging on the walls, and lots of nice-looking girls. I was so happy to be among them”, Azima recalls. “When my grandma saw me, she started crying because she didn’t expect me to be so happy”.

UNICEF has also provided the group members with training, thanks to which, many of the teenagers began working as trainers themselves, supporting other HIV positive children.

Azima has been one of the most active and vocal leaders. She visits orphanages and supports those who, just like her, were abandoned by their parents. Her public coming out was the next step in her activism. It was also the beginning of gradual change.

The experiment at the “Time of Miracles” fair, filmed by UNICEF, saw passers-by queuing up to embrace Azima. “Many people supported me, which made me very happy. On that day I wasn’t as nervous, but when I saw the recording from the day at the centre, I couldn’t stop crying”, Azima said.

Azima’s coming out provoked mixed reactions. While her classmates supported her and wanted to find out more about HIV, some of the parents initially forbade their children to play with Azima. It took time and a question and answer session during the parents’ gathering at school to get rid of the fear in her community.

But Azima’s message sparked change among those affected by HIV, too. “I met a few mothers who did not want to inform their children of their status, but after watching Azima

on TV they decided to do that”, Fatikhova said. “They saw an HIV positive girl on TV and realised there is nothing to worry about”.

While eradicating the stigma and fear of HIV in Uzbekistan will be a long and challenging process, the change has begun. “I’ve had a peace of mind since I opened up about my status”, Azima said. “HIV has been part of my life: my medicines, my treatment, my friends, my group. I don’t even imagine what I would be like without it”.

Abuja, Nigeria – As Nigeria prepares for general elections in February, a series of attacks by Boko Haram has focused attention on the security situation in the country.

The armed group appears to have regained ground in the country’s northeast in 2018, pushing into towns and villages it had previously lost to the Nigerian military.

With an escalation of attacks in recent months, the Nigerian government’s claims of victory against Boko Haram appear premature.

The nine-year conflict with Boko Haram, that has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced two million others from their homes in Nigeria, has also spread to neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

As Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari embarks on a re-election bid, he has called for urgent measures to curtail the resurgence of Boko Haram attacks.

At an emergency meeting of leaders from the Lake Chad region on Thursday in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, Buhari urged them to not “cave in” to the attacks.

“The group’s renewed strategy of increasingly mining the area as well as its recent deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance have proved to be critical factors in the resurgence of attacks in the region,” Buhari said.

“These activities are aimed at weakening our collective resolve to eradicate them from the region,” he said.

Changed strategy

Nigerian troops have come under repeated attacks in recent months, resulting in multiple fatalities and the theft of their military equipment.

In one such attack, a Boko Haram faction attacked a military base on 18 November in the village of Metele in Borno state, northeast Nigeria.

Military authorities said 23 soldiers were killed and 31 others wounded. Military sources, who did not want to be identified, told Al Jazeera that about 100 soldiers were killed in the attack.

“In the last 2-3 months, we have noticed daring moves by the terrorists, increased use of drones against our positions and infusion of foreign fighters in their ranks,” Nigerian army spokesperson Sani Usman said in a statement from Abuja.

Fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction of Boko Haram have claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The attacks have focused more attention on security issues in Nigeria ahead of the presidential election in February.

“Protection is a right that citizens expect their government to fulfill. There is a need to improve security across Nigeria,” Isa Sanusi, spokesperson of rights group Amnesty International Nigeria, told Al Jazeera.

Broken promises?

For Buhari, insecurity has become a major electoral issue. The former army general had campaigned hard on security and vowed to defeat Boko Haram in the last election in 2015.

Shortly after his victory, the army made gains on Boko Haram, winning back territory, rescuing abductees and dislodging the fighters from their strongholds.

But in recent months, the fighters have returned, sacking communities, killing soldiers and kidnapping young girls and aid workers.

Hauwa Liman, a 24 year-old aid worker, was executed by Boko Haram in October after a deadline imposed by the group to release some of its imprisoned members expired.

Liman, a nurse with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), had been kidnapped by the armed group in March along with two other medical workers in Rann, Borno State.

Saifura Ahmed, a midwife with ICRC who was abducted at the same time, was executed by Boko Haram in September.

The armed group is still holding a 15-year-old schoolgirl, Leah Sharibu, who was abducted with 109 others in February from her school in the town of Dapchi, Yobe state.

“It’s obvious from the recent rampaging attacks on hard targets [military installations] that the Islamic sect is still a threat, contrary to the claims made by the Buhari administration that they have been technically defeated,” security consultant Don Okereke told Al Jazeera.

“Granted there are no quick fixes in fighting insurgency or terrorism, but many people didn’t expect this Boko Haram issue to last this long,” he said.

Increased military funds

In December 2017, Buhari secured the release of $1bn in additional funds to boost the fight against Boko Haram.

That push, however, could not save the Nigerian military from suffering embarrassing attacks and questions have been raised over the lack of equipment for troops on the front lines.

“It is embarrassing to hear that seemingly rag-tag band of Boko Haram insurgents outguns and outmaneuvers our soldiers,” Okereke said.

Buhari’s spokesperson Festus Keyamo told Al Jazeera that Boko Haram attacks do not undermine the government’s achievements.

“We must remember where we were in 2015 and where we are now to appreciate what has been done,” Keyamo said.

“Some progress has been made,” he said.

Meanwhile, a resurgence of violence in central and southern Nigerian regions between nomadic herdsmen poses another threat to Nigeria’s stability.

Fighting between farmers and nomads has killed more people this year than attacks carried out by Boko Haram, according to a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG).

At least 1,500 people have been killed in such clashes since September last year.

“If Boko Haram insurgents and so-called herdsmen continue to ramp up attacks till the presidential election, it will affect Buhari’s re-election bid,” Okereke said.

Fears of poll violence

Nigeria has a history of election-related violence.

In 2011, more than 800 people were killed in post-election violence after Buhari was defeated by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

As another election approaches, fears of violence have grown amid concerns over what analysts say will be a close race.

“But with or without election, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that lives are protected,” Sanusi said.

The government, meanwhile, has called for a political unity against violence.

“We are not fully secure as a nation and for that, we must be ready to close ranks, irrespective of party or ethnicity, to ensure we get to where we ought to be,” Keyamo said.