African press review 4 June 2018

Ugly face of Nigerian politics goes on show as police seek to question Senate President Saraki over bloody bank robbies by alleged accomplices. And South Africa is state of revulsion as police find a toddler playing alone near the bodies of his dead parents.

We begin with news from in Nigeria that Senate President Bukola Saraki is to be questioned by the police for suspected ties with gangsters who carried out bloody bank robberies in Offa, Kwara State in which 33 people were killed including nine policemen.

The Nation reports that the five suspects who raided five commercial banks, and a police station in April had confessed to police investigators that they were political thugs working for the senate president and Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed.

Punch carries a statement from Saraki's office describing the allegations as a plot that was concocted by the Inspector-General of Police, to embarrass him because of his insistence that he appear before the Senate to explain reasons for the rampant killings and violence across the country.

Meanwhile, Sahara Reporters reports that the Department of State Services on Sunday recalled half of its operatives assigned to the Senate President.

Premium Times for its part says that President Muhammadu Buhari met with Nigeria's police Chief Ibrahim Idris at the State House to discuss so-called homicide investigation documents relating to Saraki's involvement in at least 20 murders and allegedly raised no objections to any plan by the police to arrest him.

According to the newspaper, Bukola Saraki who is the country's third highest ranking personality could be arrested any day from now following the President's position that the law should run its course if  the detectives have sufficient facts to file charges.

In Kenya, the Standard investigates a scandal at Kenya Pipeline Company involving the loss of 70 billion Shillings in dubious dealings. According to the newspaper the investigation is centered on claims of hugely inflated prices for procurement deals undertaken in the parastatal.

The Standard claims that past and present officials of the firm have been lined up for questioning starting this week in the renewed fight against grand corruption in Government. The publication says it had learnt that a Cabinet secretary is among persons of interest in the investigations.

The Standard also reports that Police have already profiled the targeted deals in the institution that is flush with cash considering its near-monopoly in the transportation of petroleum fuels.

And in South Africa, Times Live leads with the shocking discovery at a crime scene in Limpopo province -- 4-month old baby playing next to the bodies of a man found hanging from a tree and a woman with bruises around her neck on Sunday morning.

The paper says the police who rushed to the scene near a national highway, after a call from a passer-by, adding that they weren't ruling out domestic violence as the cause of the gruesome case of homicide.