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African press review 20 June 2015

Did President Jacob Zuma and ministers plot Sudan's Omar al-Bashir's escape?  Zimbabwean albino spinster finds a God-sent husband in a church shrine and Nigerian armed robbers invent "lion roar" to subdue their victims.

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Fresh details have emerged in the South African press about the circumstances surrounding last week’s flight from the country by Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir. This was after a Johannesburg high court ordered his detention pending a decision by the International Criminal Court at The Hague which indicted him for atrocities committed in Darfur. The tribunal had reportedly made it known to Pretoria that there was no ambiguity in the law and that the Republic of South Africa was under the obligation to arrest and surrender Omar al-Bashir to the court.

Mail and Guardian reports that the plan to allow al-Bashir to evade justice was hatched between Zuma and four ministers. According to the paper, Bashir’s official aircraft was flown from OR Tambo International Airport on Sunday evening to the Waterkloof Air Force Base, which is controlled by the South African National Defence Force. Zuma is the commander-in-chief of all armed forces.

Al-Bashir was then escorted by South Africa’s VIP protection unit to Waterkloof and his plane took off just before midday. Mail and Guardian says government representatives in court had denied the presence of the Sudanese leader on the aircraft, despite the fact that the flight was codenamed Sudan01, indicating that a president was on board.
Uganda deserves a pat on the back for worrying about the erosion of African cultural values.

The Daily Monitor sheds light on a new report which found that only three out of 10 children interviewed in Primary Seven can read and comprehend in their mother tongue.
According to the newspaper, the 2014 Uwezo report released on Thursday further paints a gloomy picture of Uganda’s basic education with only two pupils out of 10 in primary seven, the last cycle of primary education, able to solve primary two numeracy questions.

A confession by a notorious Nigerian gang shines light on the cynicism with which arm robbers operate. Members of a 7-man gang unleashing mayhem on residents of Lagos and Ogun States told Vanguard that they confronted their victims roaring like lions. Crime Guard which met the gang after their arrest by the anti-robbery squad was shocked to find out that group which could easily pass for harmless, malnourished individuals subjected their victims to severe beatings and shot dead those who tried to defy their orders before robbing them of cash and other valuables.

And a happy story making headlines in Zimbabwe, a wedding between a 32 year-old albino marrying a man with full skin pigmentation. The woman told the Herald newspaper that her family had banished her into spinsterhood and started calling her the village aunt – a title generally given to women gone past the age of marriage.

According to the paper, marrying an albino is taboo in the groom’s clan and some of his relatives though he had lost his sanity. But fate had other plans for Everson Mujuru and Loice Sanyangore. Their love affair, the Herald reports began three years ago when they met at their church shrine near Gwandura stadium in the high-density suburb of Highfield Harare. Theirs, according to the newspaper is love made in heaven, one that both say was God sent.

The proud bride Sanyangore recalled to the paper how God gave her true love after everyone had lost hope in her. Above all the ridicule she pointed out her “lobola” or dowry was the highest ever paid in the history of her clan.

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