Skip to main content

African press review 29 August 2017

Kenya's Supreme Court grants Odinga access to elections data as judicial battle over the August 8 polls rages on while the Pentagon okays Nigeria's plan to buysophisticated weapons to fight Boko Haram.

DR
Advertising

We begin with the raging court battle in Kenya where the Supreme Court began hearing litigations related to the August 8 Elections with opposition leader Raila Odinga seeking an invalidation of the Electoral commission's declaration of incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta as winner of the Presidential vote.

On Monday the Court handed Odinga a major victory allowing his agents "significant but read-only access to select IEBC data, including servers". This according to the Star.

Daily Nation lays out Raila Odinga's plan to unseat President Uhuru Kenyatta reporting that the opposition leader's lawyer mounted his legal offensive on the compilation of the results which he claims was flawed.

According to the newspaper, Odinga's defence team cited irregularities including claims that there were flawed and fabricated results, that the incumbent misused State resources, including Cabinet secretaries, in the campaigns.

Standard also leads with the four grounds raised by Raila's lawyers to invalidate Uhuru's election, his lawyers' plea focusing according to the publication on the 54,000 result sheets which were allegedly filed in the Supreme Court by Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission two days after Raila filed his case.

Standard also reports that the judges were also told that IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati announced the results without 10,438 forms 34A which according to Raila Odinga, translated to seven million votes being left out.

The Kenyan Star observes that the Supreme Court is to rule on Friday whether the election was valid and if not, order a rerun.

In Nigeria, Punch leads with news from Washington that the Pentagon, has informed the US Congress of the sale of sophisticated attack aircraft and weapons to Nigeria to fight the Boko Haram insurgency.

The paper says that the equipment includes 12 Super Tucano A-29, “an agile, propeller-driven plane with reconnaissance and surveillance as well as attack capabilities, to the tune of 492 million euros was agreed on in April.

According to the Sun, the sale originally agreed by the Obama administration will require US Government or private contractors to provide training and support, and will include instruction on rules of engagement and human rights to help prevent civilian casualties.

In South Africa, the Times reports from a KwaZulu-Natal township where five suspected cannibals appeared before a court to face charges of murder‚ conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder.

According to the paper, all the five men implicated in the grisly human flesh-eating court case were arrested last week in the Estcourt neighbourhood of the Province after a member of the syndicate walked into a local police station and said he was tired of eating human flesh.

The Times reports that the five men suspected of involvement in the stomach-churning secret practice tried to conceal their faces with hoodies or hats at their court appearance watched by hundreds of people outside the Estcourt Magistrate's Court premises.

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.