African press review 8 May 2015

Burundi continues to dominate continental front pages, with the African Union warning that current conditions are not conducive to the holding of the elections scheduled to take place later this month. The judge who fled Burundi earlier this week says he left in fear for his life.

Yesterday's warning from the African Union (AU) against holding elections in Burundi makes the front pages of several African papers.

The Johannesburg-based BusinessDay says that at least 15 people have been killed and scores wounded in Burundi since late April, when the ruling CNDD-FDD nominated incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza to stand for reelection. Opponents say that move infringes the national constitution.

Yesterday AU Commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma warned that the situation, with almost daily violence and thousands of refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries, was not conducive to the holding of elections.

East African leaders are to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the Burundi crisis on 13 May in Tanzania.

The Daily Nation in Kenya quotes Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as wondering how African Union election observers could be sent to Burundi under the current circumstances.

And Burundi opposition leader Agathon Rwasa told the Nation in Bujumbura that a meaningful election could not be held while protests rocked the country. Rwasa says only the president and the ruling party are preparing for the polls, due to be held at the end of this month and in June.

The exiled vice-president of the Burundian constitutional court, Sylvère Nimpagaritse, has finally spoken out about the circumstances under which he fled the country. He's interviewed by regional paper The East African.

Nimpagaritse, who fled into exile in Rwanda on Monday last, said he and other judges of the constitutional court came under pressure to legitimise President Pierre Nkurunziza’s plans to seek another term in office.

The Burundian judge said he felt his life was threatened because the constitutional court had been ordered to make a ruling in favour of Nkurunziza.

BusinessDay reports that South Africa has climbed the rankings of the world’s most tourist-friendly countries, coming 48th out of 141 countries on the World Economic Forum’s travel and tourism competitiveness index.

The report warns that that the proposed tightening of visa policy and immigration laws could harm South Africa’s position in the global tourism industry.

BusinessDay also reports that the city of Cape Town and the South African Municipal Workers’ Union have agreed to set up a task team after thousands of striking workers went on the rampage earlier this week.

Separately, tyres were set alight and streets barricaded in Orlando West, Soweto, as residents took to the streets to protest against the installation of prepaid electricity meters by the national power supplier, Eskom.

The main story in the Nairobi-based Standard says that Kenyans have demanded the government restores security following the massacre of over 200 people in the past month in the attack in Garissa and ethnic conflict in the Turkana-Pokot belt.

The Standard reports that police officers were attacked yesterday when they were airlifted into the isolated region where at least 56 Pokot people died in a cattle raid on Monday.

Yesterday MPs, professionals and other leaders demanded an end to the senseless killings. The National Assembly Committee on Administration and National Security expressed similar discontent with a declaration that the committee was "frustrated" with persistent insecurity.

There's a spot of confusion on the front page of this morning's Cairo-based daily The Egypt Independent.

A group of Ethiopians arrived at Cairo airport yesterday after Egyptian army forces rescued them when they were kidnapped in Libya, state media quoted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as saying.

But one Ethiopian in the rescued group and a Libyan source appeared to cast doubt on that version of events, saying the men had been held up by Libyan immigration.

Unwilling to let the facts get in the way of a good story, Egyptian state TV broadcast live footage of Sisi greeting about 30 Ethiopians who arrived in Cairo on an Egyptian government plane.

Security sources told the Reuters news agency that Egyptian intelligence services had provided Libyan authorities with information that helped them free the Ethiopians who had been held by armed groups in the cities of Derna and Misrata.

One of the freed Ethiopians said they had been held by Libyan immigration authorities.

The main story in the Nigerian Guardian reports that the Supreme Court yesterday barred the National Assembly from taking any steps to pass into law the Fourth Alteration Act which seeks to amend the federal constitution.

Central to the dispute is the question of the presidential veto, which some parliamentarians want to abolish.

Yesterday's court decision specifically restrains the lawmakers from taking any further step towards passing the bill.