African press review 17 April 2012

Was there a plot to kill Raila Odinga? Will the NRM dare discuss Museveni's departure? Who's to blame for tension between Sudan, north and south? Malawians say goodbye to their late president. And Kenya struggles to maintain funding for the fight against Aids.

Firstly, a quick update on the story about the plot to assassinate Prime Minister Raila Odinga of Kenya. This is the story that an MP, Jakoyo Midiwo, made these allegations somewhat sensationally at a funeral and the details of this story are pretty murky.

The Daily Nation reports that Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and MP William Ruto have been questioned in relation to this affair, although police say that they were not being treated as suspects.

The plot was allegedly a final-hour solution in the upcoming presidential elections, but the president is not being treated as a suspect. So we will just have to wait for more details to emerge.

To neighbouring Uganda, where the Daily Monitor reports on President Yoweri Museveni’s claims that he would be ready to step down in 2016.

Museveni is now one of Africa’s longest-ruling leaders, having been in power since 1986.

His comments were actually made on CNN last Friday but the Daily Monitor takes a deeper look into these claims.

It says that Museveni has long defended his grip on power saying that he has been mandated to lead. In the past he has said that he would step down if his party, the National Resistance Movement, asked him to. But, points out the Daily Monitor, he still has a tight grip on the party.

The daily wonders whether the issue of Museveni’s leadership will be now be raised within the party, where is has always been a no-go area.

Expanding on the theme, Beti Kamya in the editorial, says that we must tackle the conditions which allow for dictators to come to power as opposed to fighting the offshoots of dictatorship.

She argues that Uganda must wake up to the new democratic order in Africa and the world through evoking article 255 which allows Ugandans to call for a referendum.

To Africa’s top story today, the heightening tensions between Sudan and South Sudan.

The South Sudanese paper The Citizen publishes an editorial urging the African Union and the UN not to be too hasty to jump to conclusions about the wrongdoers in the current situation.

The latest development is that South Sudanese troops have marched into the Sudanese city of Heglig in the oil-rich south. This is after several weeks of bombardment of South Sudan by Sudanese troops, with what The Citizen calls obsolete Cold War-era jets.

The Citizen calls to mind that people in this part of Africa have been fighting for independence for a long time.

The paper argues that the British who divided Sudan were aware that the South Sudanese would one day claim independence. It says that parts of the south cannot be cut and annexed to the north for the sake of economic gain as in the past.

Of course, it is an article written by journalists from South Sudan but it is useful to remember the historical details of how we reached this impasse between the Sudans, which looks increasingly likely to lead to civil war.

The Daily Nation reports from Malawi where President Joyce Banda yesterday led thousands of mourners in pay respects to the late President Bingu wa Mutharika who died earlier this month.

Appartently, about 3,000 Malawian citizens came to see the president's body, even those who opposed his heavy-handed style of government.

The paper says that, until now, few Malawians had shown any emotion over his death. Many accused him of mismanaging the economy, thus plunging the country into poverty and leading to food and fuel shortages.

A report in the Nairobi-based Daily Nation reveals that funding for Aids has become increasingly uncertain as donors change their priorities in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis.

The paper reports that the director of the National Aids Control Council worries that if funding dries up and the 1.2 million Kenyans who are HIV positive stop receiving antiretroviral drugs, there is a risk that the virus will become resistant to existing medicines.

Foreign donors currently provide 87 per cent of Kenya's Aids funding.

But, as this funding stops getting though, Kenya is toying with new ways of making up the shortfall, such as a levy on air tickets, mobile phone services and even levying remittance payments.