African press review 23 March 2017

President Kenyatta warns Kenyans to watch out for politicians are forming militia groups ahead of the August 8 elections. President Zuma's government battles allegations of complicity in strange robbery at the Constitutional Court.

We begin in Kenya where the Star newspaper highlights a warning by President Uhuru Kenyatta that politicians are forming militias to protect themselves, ensure victory and cause trouble for opponents during the August 8 General Elections.

According to the publication, Kenyatta who presides over the National Security Council, tabled a 43-page report prepared by the agency on the problem in Parliament last week.

The Star reports that there are also plans to recruit and deploy as many as 100,000 armed officers and conduct digital surveillance of key towns and cities before, during and after the polls.

South Africa, where the government is under mounting pressure to explain a strange robbery at the office of the country's Chief Justice last Saturday.

Mail and Guardian reports that on Wednesday the acting national police commissioner, Khomotso Phahlane, moved to dismiss suspicions that the government is behind the break-in calling the allegations “baseless”.

The robbers who broke into the building in Midrand, Johannesburg took fifteen computers containing personal information on 250 judges.

Mail and Guardian says the burglary came less than 24 hours after the Constitutional Court delivered a judgment indicting Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini for her role in the grants crisis.

The court found out that Dlamini had been responsible for the South African Social Security Agency’s failure to secure a delivery method to pay grants without an unlawful contract.

According to Mail and Guardian, shortly after the Constitutional court judgment, it also emerged that the former director general of the agency, Zane Dangor, had a break-in at his home. Dangor the paper explains resigned from the department of social development, citing a break of trust in Dlamini.

In Nigeria where the Tribune leads with an editorial commending the government's directive to oil companies to relocate their headquarters in the oil-producing Niger Delta region.

According to the newspaper, the decision announced during a recent fence-mending trip to the Niger Delta by acting President Yemi Osinbajo was met by sustained applause from the people of the strife torn region.

The Nigerian Tribune argues that relocation to the Niger Delta of oil firms currently based in Lagos and Abuja would enable native communities benefit from projects such as scholarships for indigent students, water supply , electification and road projects.

The Nigerian Tribune also claims that such benefits would give the communities a sense of belonging to the country and reduce restiveness in the region.

Also  from Nigeria, Punch shares the hilarious strategy put up by an Instagram user and her parents to recover her stolen phone after five days. According to the newspaper, Ify Ifezue's parents threatened the thief with death via text messages before he negotiated the return of the phone for N20, 000.

Punch quotes the victim of the theft as saying that the man who was in possession of her phone was so terrified that he came with four others, including two policemen.