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African press review 19 September 2017

Kenya's Raila Odinga wants 12 election officials axed before rerun of the presidential elections. Biafran separatists challenge Nigeria to prove that Nnamdi Kanu is still alive. And South Africa's ruling ANC traces 4,000 fake party members in KwaZulu-Natal amid looming pre-election violence.

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We begin in Kenya, where uncertainty continues to hang over the repeat Presidential election scheduled on October 17.

Daily Nation reports that opposition leader Raila Odinga piled more pressure on the elections commission on Monday by calling for the dismissal and prosecution of 12 electoral officials it accuses of bungling the last month's polls.

According to the newspaper, they include the CEO of the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Ezra Chiloba, along with his two deputies and two commissioners.

Odinga, who made these demands at a press conference in the Nairobi suburb of Lavington, reiterated that the 12 must watch the next election from their prison cells, accusing them of "hurting the sovereign will of the people".

The Standard reports that, on top of Odinga's calls for the replacement of the French firm that provided the Integrated Elections Management System used during the election, Odinga has opened a new can of worms over the budget for a repeat presidential election set at the tune of 96 million euros.

The paper says that NASA, the coalition behind Odinga's presidential bid, wondered in a statement what the IEBC wanted to spend that kind of money when the electoral technology can be leased or hired for just 24 million euros according to their own estimates. Raila reportedly accuses Jubilee of inflating the figures so that they can get their cuts.

 

In Nigeria, Daily Post carries a statement from the Indigenous People of Biafra group, IPOB, accusing the Federal government and the military of withholding details about the whereabouts of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu.

According to the paper, IPOB said it was convinced that Kanu may have been killed, lamenting that he has not been seen or heard in the days after troops stormed his residence in a neighbourhood of Umuahia in Abia State last week.

IPOB reportedly challenges the Nigerian army and police to produce Nnamdi Kanu, alleging that he was arrested and taken away without the permission of the federal high court that has been handling the case in Abuja.

 

As South Africa's ruling African National Congress prepares for an explosive elective conference in December, a top official of the party revealed to the press the scale of the tensions, with claims that 4,000 illegal ANC members had been uncovered in KwaZulu-Natal province.

The Times reports that the official gave the details of the scam to the Moerane Commission, which is investigating political violence in the province in which at least 20 political figures, have been killed since last year.

The official told the commission that the fake members were linked to "certain branches" of the ANC Youth League who are locked in a 3-way leadership struggle as supporters of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Zweli Mkhize, the ANC's current Treasurer General.

According to the Times, the official reportedly warned the commission that there would be more killings in KwaZulu-Natal if a provincial elective conference was not called ahead of the December conference.

 

 

 

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