African press review 13 November 2014

Nigerians react to a suicide-bombing at a college. The SA oppostion wants Zuma fired, despite a parliamentary committee clearing him of blame for his home improvement bill. The judge in the Marikana massacre inquiry is not pleased with police testimony. Is the White Widow dead?

The Guardian in Nigeria carries news of reactions to yesterday's suicide bomb attack at the Federal College of Education, Kontagora, in Niger State.

The bomber is the only person to have died in the blast, which appears to have detonated prematurely. At least two people were seriously injured.

The Lagos-based paper says the Senate has summoned all the armed services chiefs to a meeting today. The military are expected to brief the lawmakers on the security situation in the north-east and the effectiveness of the state of emergency in the three states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.

The Guardian also reports that the service chiefs will be asked to account for the money earmarked to fight the insurgency.

Condemning the latest attack, Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu warned that the 2015 general election may not be credible unless a solution is found to the prevailing security crisis in the north-east.

Another Nigerian daily, Punch, reports that the Lagos State Government yesterday gave clearance for the repatriation of the bodies of 54 South Africans who were among the 116 victims that died in the Synagogue Church of All Nations building collapse in September.

Governor Babatunde Fashola gave the approval during a meeting with delegates of the South African government following complaints that the bodies had been held for too long.

In South Africa itself, Johannesburg-based financial paper BusinessDay reports that seven opposition parties have demanded that President Jacob Zuma be removed from office.

They say the president was fully aware that the rand equivalent of 18 million euros of public money was being used to upgrade his private home in Nkandla, Kwa-Zulu Natal.

A parliamentary committee on Tuesday decided to absolve Zuma of any responsibility in corruption and overpricing in the Nkandla project. The committee rejected Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s finding that the president unduly benefited and should repay some of the money.

All the opposition parties withdrew from the committee at its second meeting in September in protest over the ruling African National Congress’s inflexible attitude to getting a legal opinion on the status of the public protector’s order that Zuma should pay.

Also in BusinessDay, news that the judge heading the Marikana Commission of Inquiry yesterday described as "unsatisfactory" the evidence about what happened at a meeting of top police officials the night before the Marikana massacre.

Why the police decided to implement its operation to disarm and disperse the strikers - an operation which led to 34 deaths - on Thursday 16 August 2012 instead of Friday, which would have been less risky because many strikers would have left for home for the weekend, has been the focus of much scrutiny at the commission.

Despite pointed questions by the commission, witnesses who attended the police meeting were evasive or said they could not recall what had been said there. When national police commissioner Riah Phiyega was repeatedly asked whether anyone had raised the risk of bloodshed, she said that she could not recall that kind of "pedantic detail".

Lawyers for the injured and arrested mineworkers say the police went into action on the Thursday in order to prevent Julius Malema, who had just been expelled from the ANC, coming in to mediate a resolution of the standoff.

Kenyan daily the Standard carries a front-page report claiming that Samantha Lewthwaite, the British woman known as the "White Widow"  alleged to be a member of the Somali group al Shebab and involved in Islamist violence in Kenya, has been shot dead by a Russian sniper in Ukraine.

According to the unconfirmed report, 30-year-old Lewthwaite, was gunned down by a Russian sniper two weeks ago, according to Moscow news agency Regnum.

One of Britain's most wanted people, she was reported last month as fighting alongside the Islamic State armed group in Syria.

Her father, Andrew Lewthwaite, says he has no information about his daughter's health or whereabouts.

Over at the Daily Nation a report that Kenya has written to the Assembly of State Parties, the international body which supervises the International Criminal Court, asking to have President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy exempted from prosecution at the ICC.

Kenya’s representative at the United Nations, Macharia Kamau, has requested an amendment to the Rome Statute provision that denies presidents immunity from prosecution at the international court.

He wants the provision changed to exempt serving heads of state, their deputies and acting presidents.

Kenya also wants Kenyatta’s case at the ICC dismissed, arguing that the crimes he allegedly committed occurred before he was elected president.

Kenyatta is accused of complicity in organising the violence which followed the disputed presidential election in December 2007.