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African press review 25 October 2018

UNICEF challenges Nigeria to put 13 million of out of school children into the education system. And South Africa is to unveil a plan to crackdown on rogue pastors abusing their followers.

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We begin in Nigeria, where Premium Times leads with an appeal from the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF for a greater allocation of resources towards reducing the large number of out-of-school children in the country.

According to the publication, the latest official statistics show that the population of out of school children in Nigeria increased from 10.5 million to 13.2 million in 2015.

Premium Times quotes UNICEF education specialist Azuka Menkiti, who issued the appeal in Kano on Tuesday as saying that 69 per cent of the 6 to 14-years old out-of-school in Nigeria live in the northern part of the country.

In Kenya, the Standard revisits opposition leader Raila Odinga's political prospects as he prepares to take up his new job as the African Union's High Representative for Infrastructural Development in Africa.

The paper says that while his allies vow that he will not leave Kenyan politics his political opponents hope the job will slow down his 2022 presidential ambition.

According to the Standard, cronies to Deputy President William Ruto have been quick at pointing to Odinga’s heavy portfolio of running offices in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Abuja, Cairo and Addis Ababa, thereby calling on him to retire as he will be 77 in the 2022 when the next Kenyan general elections will be held.

“Raila would not wish to do a wishy-washy job that could dent his image as a performer, and, therefore, he will immerse himself in the job and inject considerable energy and time to have a satisfactory impact”. That’s the view upheld by former foreign minister Mukowa Anangwe, now a political science professor at the University of Dodoma.

 

And in South Africa, Times Live looks forward this Thursday's highly-awaited report by the Commission for the Protection of Cultural‚ Religious and Linguistic Communities.

The paper says the finding of the CRL due to be made public in Cape Town today comes at a time of wanton abuses of people’s religious beliefs by rogue evangelists.

Times claims that South Africans have seen it all, starting from controversial "snake pastor" Penuel Mnguni who fed snake and rat to his congregants before choosing dog meat for communion. It also recalls another controversial religious leader‚

Lethebo Rabalago who made headlines in 2016 for spraying his congregants with Doom‚ claiming it would heal them.

Times says it gone past time to weed out these so-called church leaders who claim they can turn Jik into the blood of Jesus‚ while others made congregants believe that petrol tastes like pineapple juice.

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