Libya’s PM-elect Abu Shagur Dismissed by Parliament

Tripoli Libya’s newly-elected Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagur has been dismissed from his post after parliament passed a no-confidence vote following his failure to secure a new cabinet.

Abu Shagur’s dismissal follows a rejection of his second list of 10 ministers by the General National Congress (GNC) on Sunday that saw the law makers vote 125 to 44 same day in favour of removing him. 17 members withheld from voting.

His first list of 29 ministers was earlier rejected for not being diverse enough and the premier had until Sunday to form a cabinet or risk losing his position. The original list said to be comprised of several members of the transitional authorities and many unknown figures, was snubbed for having no representatives of the main liberal coalition and was termed to be incompetent.

During his address before the vote, Abu Shagur told the GNC that his proposal of an “emergency government” was to lead Libya with no regionalism and was seeking people with merit to work with him.

"In face of the dangers threatening the country, I present to you a crisis government restricted to 10 ministers, rejecting all geographical considerations," Mr Shagur said.

He told the assembly that his earlier consultations with political parties resulted in some pursuing their own political agendas that saw them demand large number of seats.

Now the GNC has three to four weeks to elect a new prime minister who will head a transitional government for roughly a year until fresh elections are held after a new constitution has been instituted.

Abu Shagur won the seat on September 12 in a run-off vote, beating wartime premier Mahmud Jibril who leads the largest coalition of parties, by slight margin.

Mr Shagur returned to Libya in 2011 to become an adviser to the revolutionary National Transitional Council (NTC) that ousted slain leader Col Muammar Gaddafi following his years in the US where he earned his PhD and worked as an academic and optical engineer.

Abuja, Nigeria

30 Suspected Boko Haram Members Killed

Nigerian military has killed about 30 suspected members of the armed Islamist Boko Haram group following a gun battle in the north-eastern Yobe state, the army says.

Nigeria’s police and army joint task force is reported to have engaged in a heavy gun battle with the suspected militants during which a close associate of the group’s leader is said to have been killed.

Lieutenant Eli Lazarus said in a statement on Sunday that “about 30 suspected Boko Haram terrorists were killed in the battle which lasted several hours.” Other ten suspected members of the group were arrested during the raid and are assisting investigations to track senior members of the group.

Troops from the Joint Task Force (JTF) "engaged in a gun battle with the suspected terrorists" during a search-and-cordon operation on Boko Haram's hideout in Kandahar and around cemetery areas of Damataru, the state capital, the statement said.

Lazarus said that six rifles, 90 rounds of ammunitions and several telephone sets were seized during the raid, in which also knives, bows, daggers and improvised explosive devices were discovered.

Elsewhere police in Yobe state reportedly shot dead four suspected members of Boko Haram on Sunday following a raid in their hideout in Kandahar area in a different operation.

"We carried out the raid because of the incessant ambush on JTF patrol teams by Boko Haram gunmen in the area," Yobe State police chief Patrick Egbuniwe said.

Last month 35 suspected members of the armed were killed and 60 others arrested in Damataru following a fierce gunfire when the JFT troops went on a door-to-door operation in the area.

More than 640 people have died in the country so far in 2012 alone in attacks blamed on the group which the US has already designated as a terrorist organisation following its alleged ties with the global terror group, al-Qaeda.

Loosely modeled on Afghanistan’s Taliban, Boko Haram has been fighting to create an Islamic northern Nigeria state, carrying out militant attacks mainly on security installations and Christian churches in the northern Nigeria.

Nigeria, a multi-cultural nation with a population of 160 million people, is divided between the largely Muslim north and south, inhibited mainly by Christians and animists.