African press review 1 September 2015

Nigeria's first test tube baby is reunited with her doctor at her birthplace. Ugandan politicians are engaged in a dramatic comedy show during the election year. And, the high cost of South Africa's special relationship with China. It's 3 million euros and counting.

We start in South Africa, where the press is raising eyebrows at revelations about the high cost of the special relationship between President Jacob Zuma’s government and China. City Press reports that South African taxpayers spent 3 million euros to fund 40 trips to Beijing by government officials and civil servants last year alone.

According to the Johannesburg newspaper the figures may still increase because not all of the ministers had answered parliamentary questions asked by Democratic Alliance MPs about trips to China. The revelations come against the backdrop of President Zuma’s visit to China this week, to participate in the 70th anniversary of the end of the occupation of China and the Second World War on Thursday. City Press says he also visited the country late last year. The presidency’s reply to the parliamentary questions has not yet been received.

The hectic run-up to the 2016 Ugandan elections inspires a fascinating column in the Daily Monitor focused on how the country’s politicians have transformed into dramatic comedians.

The strange times, according to the publication, are marked lately by comedians and politicians alike doing their best to capture the fascination of the public and hopefully their vote too. The newspaper highlights an incident involving Tororo County MP Geoffrey Ekanya who stood up in parliament and told the honourable speaker he felt like committing suicide on this floor.

According to the paper, Ekanya was threatening to take his life because his country had not been accorded the status of a district as he expected. The Monitor says that many legislators looked on agape as the MP continued to tug at his tie, some laughing out loud while others were concerned with this zeal. The journal explains that it was not until Kitgum's female MP, Beatrice Anywar, and Budadiri West MP Nandala Mafabi stepped in to usher him back to his seat that the fracas ended.

Former Ugandan prime minister Amama Mbabazi is now challenging his former boss Yuweri Museveni for the presidency, and that is also the subject of scorn in the article. This was after he vowed at a press conference to jump over any armoured vehicle deployed in front of his home to prevent him from honouring his campaign engagements.

As the Monitor states, the image of the former premier jumping over the vehicles, known in Uganda as mambas, twice his height would be quite a sight. It adds that within days of the pronouncement Mbabazi was arrested. There were no super-human stunts to save him, writes the journal   no jumping of mambas, except for a calm man being ushered into an old police van.

And from Nigeria, Punch tells the happy story of Nigeria’s first test tube baby admitted in a Hungarian university to study medicine. Miss Hannatu Kupchi has just turned 17 and was the product of a pioneer experience of Nigerian doctor Ibrahim Wada at Nisa Premier Hospital in Abuja, on 11 February 1988.

The doctor, his grown-up test tube baby and her parents were reunited at an award ceremony at the hospital where the Hannatu was delivered. In a brief farewell statement Miss Kupchi spoke about her passion for medicine, saying she “wanted God to use her to help families who suffer what her parents went through”.

In his remarks, Hannatu’s father Hosea Kupchi recalled his 13 years of marriage without a child and all the unorthodox methods they endured in the search for a baby until his sister-in-law introduced them to Wada.