Crowds gathered in the Royal Square in Jersey to mark Africa Week in the island.

The charity Friends of Africa hosts events through the week to share the continent’s culture with the wider community.

As part of the campaign, Friends of Africa helps to set up food stalls, fashion displays and music performances for the public in St Helier.

One of the charity’s founders, Lainah Pentilla said: “We’re sharing my culture, we want to share Jersey’s culture as well and let the community be one.

The campaign Africa Week has been running in Jersey for the last 11 years and Pentilla said engagement had grown over the years.

“It’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger every year,” she said, adding: “Our aim is for people to know that Jersey is welcoming, Jersey is diverse, Jersey is willing to understand where people are coming from.”

Pentilla added: “My son is born here, he’s a Jersey boy and I just want our young children to be proud of their heritage and be proud to be from Jersey as well

“Jersey is a small island but it’s the most important to make sure that we’re all one and make sure that people are celebrating each other.”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that citizens’ right to strike is protected under a core International Labour Organization (ILO) convention.

The UN World Court, in a landmark advisory opinion of 10 votes to four, settled a long-running dispute between workers and employers worldwide.

Based in The Hague, the ICJ is the United Nations’ principal judicial organ and is composed of 15 judges elected by the UN General Assembly and Security Council.

ICJ ruled “the right to strike of workers and their organizations is protected” under the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No.

Convention 87 of 1948 guarantees workers and employers the right to establish and join organizations of their own choosing without prior authorization, ensuring they can operate freely without state interference.

The Court, however, stressed that its opinion did not define the exact scope of the right to strike.

Its conclusion, the judges held, “it does not entail any determination on the precise content, scope or conditions for the exercise of that right.”

The case was referred to the Court by the ILO’s Governing Body in November 2023, after years of disagreement among the agency’s core constituents – governments, employers and workers.

The disagreement bothered on whether Convention No. 87 protects the right to strike, even though the treaty does not explicitly mention strikes.

At the heart of the dispute was whether the right to organize under Convention No. 87 includes the right of workers and their organizations to take strike action.

Employers’ groups stress that the convention contains no provision whose ordinary meaning implies such a right, and that the treaty’s drafting history showed no intention to include strike action.

Workers’ representatives, by contrast, argue that the right to strike is inherent in freedom of association and has long been recognized by ILO supervisory bodies.

The ILO said its Governing Body is expected to consider the matter at its November session, including any follow-up.

The Court acknowledged that Convention No. 87 “does not contain an explicit reference to the right to strike”.

ICJ, however, said the absence of such a provision “does not necessarily mean that the issue is excluded” from the treaty.

The judges found that strike action could fall within the ordinary meaning of workers’ organizations’ “activities” under the Convention.

The judges added that strike action could also fall within provisions protecting the right of workers and employers to form organizations and defend their interests.

While the Court was unanimous that it had jurisdiction and should answer the ILO’s request, four judges dissented from the central conclusion.

The case was only the second time in ILO history that a question concerning interpretation of an international labour convention had been referred, and the first such request to the ICJ since its creation in 1945.

ICJ advisory opinions are not binding judgments but they carry significant legal and political weight, shaping debates and national and international law.

By Isaac Asabor

There are boundaries that should never be crossed, not by criminals, not by desperate men, and certainly not by institutions entrusted with protecting the public. Last week, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) crossed one of those boundaries.

In what may go down as one of the most troubling operations in its history, armed EFCC operatives reportedly stormed the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), not a criminal hideout, not a money-laundering hub, but a place of refuge for the sick, vulnerable, and poor across Akwa Ibom State.

To be clear, corruption is a serious national plague. It has stolen public wealth, crippled institutions, and left communities across Nigeria battling decayed infrastructure and abandoned promises. The EFCC was created to confront that reality. But when an agency loses sight of the human beings it exists to protect, it risks becoming dangerously indistinguishable from the abuse it was established to fight. That is the uncomfortable line the EFCC appeared to approach in Uyo.

Uyo is a city known for its warmth, resilience, and quiet dignity. For many residents of Akwa Ibom and neighbouring communities, the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital is more than a medical institution, it is often the last hope for survival.

Patients arrive there daily from Ikot Ekpene, Eket, Oron, and remote riverine communities where access to quality healthcare remains painfully limited. Mothers come seeking safe childbirth. Accident victims are rushed in from dangerous highways. Children battling severe malaria are carried in by exhausted parents who have already spent everything they have simply trying to get treatment.It was this sanctuary that armed operatives reportedly invaded.

Eyewitness accounts described scenes of confusion and panic: officers shouting orders through crowded wards, frightened patients clutching drips and oxygen lines, medical staff interrupted mid-treatment, and families thrown into distress as heavily armed men moved through sensitive hospital spaces. These were not statistics. They were human beings already fighting for their health and survival.

No reasonable person disputes the importance of holding financial criminals accountable. Reports suggest the EFCC was pursuing a suspect accused of financial crimes who allegedly sought hospital admission while evading arrest. If that is true, then the agency had every right to investigate and apprehend the individual within the bounds of the law.

But even legitimate law enforcement has limits. This is as the pursuit of one suspect cannot justify actions that place hundreds of vulnerable patients at risk. A hospital is not an ordinary operational environment. It is a place where fear, disruption, and panic can carry life-threatening consequences.

When armed operations interfere with emergency care, intimidate medical personnel, or create chaos around critically ill patients, the consequences may not always be immediately visible, but they can be devastating all the same.

One can only imagine the anxiety of an elderly hypertensive patient hearing armed officers shouting outside a ward, or the distress of a mother trying to shield a feverish child in the middle of confusion. These moments matter. In healthcare settings, even brief disruptions can carry dangerous implications. That is why restraint, planning, and discretion are not optional in such operations, they are essential.

What makes the incident even more troubling is that there were alternatives. The agency could have coordinated quietly with hospital management. It could have maintained surveillance outside the facility, monitored exits, or waited until the suspect was medically cleared. It could have executed its duties with professionalism and sensitivity, avoiding unnecessary panic among vulnerable patients and healthcare workers. Instead, the operation reportedly reflected excessive force and poor judgment. And in doing so, it sent a deeply disturbing message to ordinary Nigerians: that even hospitals are no longer safe from aggressive displays of state power.

That perception is dangerous for public trust. Law enforcement agencies derive legitimacy not merely from the authority they possess, but from the restraint and responsibility with which they exercise it. Once citizens begin to fear those meant to protect them, institutions lose moral credibility.

There will be those who defend the operation by insisting that criminals should find no refuge anywhere, including hospitals. But that argument misses the larger point entirely. A society does not strengthen justice by traumatizing the sick and vulnerable. It weakens it.

The EFCC owes the patients, staff, and families affected by this operation a sincere and unambiguous apology, not a carefully worded bureaucratic statement, but a genuine acknowledgement that the handling of the raid caused fear, distress, and public outrage.

The people inside UUTH were not collateral damage. They were citizens deserving of dignity, protection, and compassion.

Nigeria’s fight against corruption is necessary. But that fight must never come at the expense of humanity itself.

Because when patients lying in hospital beds begin to fear law enforcement more than illness, something has gone terribly wrong.