African press review 18 September 2018

Boko Haram kills abducted Red Cross worker in blood message to the Government.

We begin in Nigeria where the Boko Haram terrorists says they have executed one of three health workers kidnapped from Kala-Balge town in Borno State.

The Online Cable News says it had seen a video of Saifura Khorsa, a midwife with the International Committee of Red Cross wearing a white hijab as she was shot from behind.

The electronic publication also reports that it was reached by a spokesman for the insurgents who claimed they wrote and sent audio messages to the government about the captives but were ignored.

Punch reports that the sect also threatened to kill two other women abducted alongside Khorsa in March, 2018, as well as Leah Sharibu, the remaining Dapchi schoolgirl still in Boko Haram captivity.

According to the newspaper at least four soldiers, policemen and three humanitarian workers were killed in the attack which occurred in March.

Also in Nigeria, Sahara Reporters leads with the death of more than 100 people in floods across several Nigerian states following heavy rains which caused the Rivers Niger and Benue to overflow their banks.

The newspaper reports that on Monday, the country's emergency management body NEMA, declared a national disaster in the affected states of Kogi, Niger, Anambra and Delta.

Sahara Reporters says 30 people went missing in Katsina State with Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency warning that the water level at the Benue and Niger rivers were close to the 2012 levels when more than 360 people were killed and more than two million displaced across 30 of Nigeria's 36 States.

Today's Daily Post has a big splash on the heavy sentence handed down on Monday to two accomplices of billionaire kidnapper Chukwudimeme Onwuamadike alias Evans by an Ikeja High court sitting in Lagos State on Monday.

The paper says that Kelvin Emenike Ukoh and Emeka Obasi, both in their thirties were jailed for 41 years for their role around the former kidnap kingpin, arrested at his mansion in Magodo area of Lagos in 2017.

Evans faces charges for a series of high-profile kidnappings, armed robberies and murders across the country.

Vanguard says his trial has been delayed by procedural wrangling and death threats against his lawyers.

In Kenya, the standoff between President Uhuru Kenyatta and lawmakers over tax increases in petroleum products worsened on Monday as more MPs joined the rebellion against the Presidential measure.

The Standard reports that three more MPs joined house members who want the eight percent  VAT hike either suspended for two years or scrapped altogether, so aas not to further punish Kenyans already struggling with the high cost of living.

According to the newspaper, opposition leader Raila Odinga and leaders of parties affiliated ti his National Super Alliance have backed President Uhuru's plan to sign the amended 2018 Finance Bill as he seeks money to fund his affordable housing project, which is part of his Big Four development agenda.

Odinga and Kenyatta are reportedly due to meet their respective party members today to try to dissuade MPs from vetoing the Presidential recommendation when the House takes a final vote on Thursday.

Lawmakers will need at least two-thirds majority - 233 members - to veto the President’s memorandum.

Daily Nation for its part reports that a section NASA and Jubilee MPs have vowed to shoot down the president’s tax plan ahead of their parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday.

According to the newspaper lawmakers are fired up and ready demonstrate that the National Assembly is an independent institution and not just an appendage of State House.

And in South Africa, The Sowetan takes up the recent controversy about the country's alarming crime rate in the wake of finding by the country's statistics agency that 56 people are murdered each day and the figures may have been doctored at times by the police for convenience.

In an editorial, the paper note the interesting development that Police Minister Beki Cele appeared clueless about the reason for the upsurge.

As it points out, the minister blamed the souring crime wave on a lack of policing, which he said was not on par with UN standards which urges countries to have one policeman to 220 citizens.

According to the Sowetan, Beki Cele sounded helpless when he spoke about failure in systems or glitches by law enforcement and described escalating violence as the result of poverty, with women at the receiving end of that barbed stick.