African press review 12 May 2014

There's confusion over the whereabouts of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls. SA's Democratic Alliance has parliamentary personnel problems. China is set to make tracks in east Africa. And Uganda's army is accused of using cluster bombs in South Sudan.

It's hard to know exactly what is going on in Nigeria's Borno State.

Every news agency in the world is carrying the same story this morning, indicating that the state governor Kashim Shettima has passed on information to the military on the whereabouts of the 200 schoolgirls kidnapped last month by armed Islamist group Boko Haram.

Without giving any details, Shettima added that he did not think the girls had been taken across the border to Chad or Cameroon.

Shettima has been under increasing pressure to find the girls and First Lady Patience Jonathan has threatened to lead a protest march to Maiduguri, the state capital, to demand their whereabouts from the governor.

The All Progressives Congress on Sunday asked President Goodluck Jonathan to stop blaming Kashim Shettima for the abduction.

Speaking during a news conference in Lagos, the interim national chairman of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande, said Jonathan must take full responsibility for the safety of lives and property in the country, especially in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, all under emergency rule.

On the same sad story, the Daily Trust reports that the United States military, units of which are being dispatched by the Pentagon to assist in the search and rescue of the kidnapped girls, will screen Nigerian soldiers with whom they will operate, citing former assistant secretary of state for African affairs Johnnie Carson, speaking at the weekend in Abuja.

According to Carson, the US military will have to vet the Nigerian units they work with to ensure they meet US human rights standards.

The Pentagon is to send 10 military personnel as part of a broader US contingent. The United States has also offered satellite surveillance and drones.

In its ongoing analysis of the fallout from last week's South African elections, Johannesburg-based financial paper BusinessDay reports that the opposition Democratic Alliance is heading for a major reshuffle of the leadership of its parliamentary group. And that could result in party leader and Western Cape Premier Helen Zille returning to the National Assembly.

News that outgoing parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko, who has served in that capacity for two and a half years, would not return to the National Assembly rocked the party at the weekend. Mazibuko has decided to pursue a master’s degree in public administration at Harvard University’s JF Kennedy School of Government in the US.

Mazibuko said she took the decision while recovering from the surgery she underwent last month but kept it a secret from everyone, including Helen Zille, to preserve party unity.

The Democratic Alliance received 22.1 per cent of votes cast last Wednesday, compared with the 16.7 per cent the party gained in the 2009 elections.

East African leaders and China formally signed agreements on Sunday for the construction of a new multi-billion-dollar railway linking the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Nairobi and running on to neighbouring states.

The deals were signed in Nairobi on the last stage of an Africa tour by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, although Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta had already signed up to the deal during his state visit to Beijing last year.

The new standard-gauge line will supplement the slower narrow-gauge network that curently runs to Uganda. The new line will continue to Rwanda and South Sudan, part of an effort to cut the hefty costs of trade between east African nations which relies on poor roads and the narrow-gauge line built in the 19th century.

The China Road and Bridge Corporation has been appointed to construct the initial Kenyan leg of the new line, despite widespread criticism that there was no competitive tendering for the work.

According to the Kampala-based Monitor, a United Nations report on the atrocities of war committed by both South Sudan government forces and rebels loyal to former vice-president Riek Machar has implicated the Ugandan People's Defence Forces, the national army, in the use of cluster bombs.

The United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan says it had “found physical evidence” on the use of cluster munitions in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army /UPDF-controlled Malek area of Bor County, going on to describe "several instances of aerial bombardments by Ugandan forces in areas south of Bor".

Both Uganda and South Sudan have denied the use of cluster bombs, designed to cause multiple explosions in the target area.

Uganda is one of the 94 states which have signed a convention against the use of cluster ammunition.