African press review 26 November 2013

Kenya is still negotiating with the ICC. Nigeria buys arms. Lagos's sexual violence centre is busy and Tanzania takes up the fight against gender-based violence. Thousands of Kenyans may lose their driving licences.

The Kenyan Daily Nation headlines with the ongoing debate at the International Criminal Court over whether or not President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto will be forced to attend their trial in The Hague.

Kenya is seeking the amendment of articles of the Rome statute to allow sitting heads of states to be absent from their trials by the International Criminal Court and attend certain session of the trials via video link.

Discussions on the proposal started last week, explains the Daily Nation, and the final decision should be known by Thursday.

The ICC charged Kenyatta and Ruto with crimes against humanity for their alleged roles in post-election violence that left more than 1,000 people dead in late 2007 and early 2008.

In Nigeria, the daily Leadership’s headline today reads, “Terrorism: Nigerian army acquires more arms to fight Boko Haram."

The daily reports that the Chief of the Nigerian Army Staff, Lieutenant General Azubuike Ihejirika, announced yesterday that the Nigerian army had acquired new arms and ammunitions to fight "terrorism".

Nigeria has embarked on a lot of military procurement lately, explains the paper, to enable the country to counter a growing terrorist activity in the region.

The Abuja-based Vanguard reports on a recently opened sexual-assault centre in Lagos.

Since the Mirabel Centre for Rape Victims - the first sexual violence and referral centre in Nigeria – opened five months ago, explains the paper, a total of 124 victims of sexual assault and domestic violence have been attended to.

The idea for such a centre was first mooted 10 years ago, explains the papers.

According to the centre’s director, most of the “patients” who come for assistance are young girls between the ages of 11 and 15, with some cases involving girls even younger than that, and an overall 80 per cent are minors.

Tanzania's government has embarked on an ambitious venture: to open one-stop centres (OSCs) across the country to facilitate timely service delivery to victims of gender-based violence (GBV).

The Tanzanian Daily News reports on the story, explaining that the new approach will intensify the ongoing fight against alarming growing social problem and hopefully encourage victims of such violence to report their aggressors.

These centres, explains DailyNews, come in response to a long unanswered call by human rights activists and international NGOs for active attention by the government to GBV-related cases.

And finally, in Kenya thousands of drivers may well lose their driving licences, as the government imposes mandatory retesting, explains the Nairobi-based Standard.

Tens of thousands of Kenyan drivers could lose their driving licences in 2014, once this reform, designed to make Kenyan roads safer, will dramatically change the way Kenyans drive, deal a blow to careless driving and stem the rising tide of road carnage, explains the Standard.

This new and strict measure is also expected to catch those who secured their licences under dubious circumstances and rogue drivers.