African Press Review 23 July 2018

Nigeria's main opposition PDP party holds a name change conclave to bring in allies into a larger movement.

We begin in Nigeria, where the respected Tribune newspaper says the main opposition People's Democratic Party may be bracing for a major revolution as its national leadership prepares to hold an emergency meeting of its National Executive Committee in Abuja this Monday.

The publication say that while he notice sent out by the PDP's National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus is silent about the agenda of the NEC meeting, it learnt from authoritative sources that the party had agreed to change its name ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Punch says the name change issue is at the demand of some political parties and associations with whom the PDP signed an agreement recently on how to wrest power from the All Progressives Congress in 2019.

In South Africa, the Sowetan leads with opposition calls for a probe into whether the ruling ANC party used proceeds of crime to fund their day-to-day and campaign operations.

According to the newspaper, the main Democratic Alliance made the urgent request to the Independent Electoral Commission following what it called disturbing confirmation that an ANC employee‚ stationed at Luthuli House‚ had been linked to three cash-in-transit heists.

Times Live which also leads with the story, says the DA also petitioned the elections body to probe other recent allegations‚ that a front company called Vele Investments‚ donated money to the ANC in exchange for support from 15 municipalities.

And in Kenya the Standard points to another red line that is about being crossed in the deepening rift within President Uhuru Kenyatta's Jubilee Party, after Vice President William Ruto rushed into a meeting on Sunday to prevent the planned replacement of one of his trusted aides as Senate majority leader.

The paper says that Kipchumba Murkomen a lawmaker from the Elgeyo Marakwet constituency had been on the verge of being replaced by at an emergency meeting of the party's National Management Committee.

The Standard relays charges by Murkomen that Government officials were working in cahoots with Opposition leader Raila Odinga to disparage the Deputy President's leadership by creating a 'Mau crisis' and blame it on Ruto in a bid to hurt his 2022 bid.

Daily Nation claims it was a last-minute call from President Uhuru Kenyatta that saved Kipchumba Murkomen from imminent removal from his lucrative parliamentary post and not Ruto's.

The newspaper explains that Murkomen almost got kicked out over comments he made about the so-called inhuman evictions from the Mau Forest evictions, a position that contradicts the government’s position.

More than 9,000 people have so far been evicted from Mau forest, since President Kenyatta ordered the operation, according to the Nation.