African press review 17 April 2014

The uncertain fate of Nigeria's abducted schoolgirls, Mugabe's record as Zimbabwe prepares to celebrate 34 years of independence, pay rises for Kenya's teachers and much more in today's African press ...

The front pages in Nigeria continue to be dominated by the fate of the schoolgirls abducted earlier this week by suspected Boko Haram militants.

According to The Guardian, which is based in Lagos, eighty of the girls were rescued on Wednesday morning by local people and soldiers.

A separate story in the same newspaper says mystery surrounds the fate of the teenage girls.

The military says all but eight of the 129 girls have escaped.

The governor of Borno state had said the vast majority of the girls are still missing.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government admitted that it had little information on the whereabouts of the remaining abducted students.

Another Nigerian daily paper, Punch, reports that soldiers, policemen, local vigilantes, hunters and volunteers spent Wednesday searching for the missing schoolgirls around Chibok, in Borno State.

The rescue teams, aided by helicopters, were combing the vast forest that extends into neighbouring Cameroon.

Punch reports that a total of 14 girls had managed to escape.

South African financial paper BusinessDay looks northwards on the eve of Zimbabwe’s 34th Independence Day celebrations,due to be held tomorrow.

President Robert Mugabe turned 90 in January and won a third presidential mandate last July.

Observers say the country’s economic challenges pose a threat to Mugabe's legacy. Over the years the president has cast himself as liberator, anti-colonialist, father figure and recently, black empowerment crusader.

But his credentials are undermined by an economy now trapped in a liquidity crunch, nationwide company closures, rampant corruption by state officials and rapidly rising unemployment. Last month the economy went into deflation for the first time since the country abandoned the Zimbabwe dollar in February 2009.

A recent World Bank report found Zimbabwe’s economy had become "informalised", with 46 per cent of the population of working age in the informal sector.

BusinessDay also reports that the internet company Google has launched an online service ahead of the May 7 general election in South Africa to help voters, journalists and campaigners.

The internet company will offer party and candidate data, information on where to vote, real-time election news, search trends and elections-related YouTube videos from political parties, the media and civil society.

The hub will also be accessible from mobile phones.

Since 2007, according to BusinessDay, Google has produced more than 40 editions of its elections platform, which has been used more than 500-million times by people around the world.

According to the front page of the Nairobi-based Standard newspaper, Kenyan teachers are embroiled in a new tussle with their employer, the Teachers Service Commission over promotions for 50,000 members.

The commission disputes the number of teachers who are entitled to the salary boost, payable to teaching staff who have completed additional studies, and says it doesn't have money to pay those who've already been approved for promotion.

6,923 teachers have so far been vetted but have not been promoted for lack of funds.

In The Daily Nation, it's reported that Kenya has just two weeks to tell the International Criminal Court what steps it has taken about submitting President Kenyatta‘s financial records.

Failure to comply would incur the risk of the country being cited for non-cooperation with the ICC.

This could, in turn, influence the conditions under which President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto will be tried on charges of complicity in the violence which followed the 2007 presidential election.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has already written to the Nairobi government seeking information on Kenyatta’s bank accounts, assets, ownership of companies and financial transactions in the lead-up to the 2007 elections and early 2008.

Bensouda hopes that evidence from the financial records will help prove her claim that Kenyatta raised funds to finance attacks by the outlawed Mungiki sect, against rival Orange Democratic Movement supporters in January 2008.

Also in The Nation, South Sudan's army yesterday admitted that rebels had regained control of the oil town of Bentiu.

The town, capital of oil-producing Unity state, is the first major settlement to have been retaken in a renewed offensive by forces of rebel leader Riek Machar, a formerSouth Sudanese vice-president.

Machar's rebels took Bentiu in December at the beginning of the conflict, but were chased out of the town a month later.

The conflict in South Sudan has left thousands dead and forced around a million people to flee their homes.