African press review 11 May 2015

"Soweto nice guy" Mmusi Maimane shrugs off racial logjam after his election as South Africa's new opposition leader. South Africans press Pretoria to end the "rape" of democracy in Burundi, Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan fears prosecution when he leaves office, and there is more evidence of Boko Haram barbarism as pregnant women and starving children are rescued from Sambisa Forest. 

Nigeria's Punch reports that the latest group of 250 hostages freed by the army from the terrorists lair included 63 unaccompanied children and six pregnant women. Humanitarian officials told the paper that most of the rescued children were severely malnourished and had eye infections.

And outgoing Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan made a moving confession at a thanksgiving and farewell service in his honour at an Abuja church on Sunday. Vanguard reports that he lamented to fellow parishioners that his so-called friends had deserted him ever since he lost the last presidential election to the opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari.

According to the paper Jonathan told fellow parishioners that he expected more of his friends to leave him, pointing out that he was ready to pay the price for his refusal to rig the election, despite pressure from people within his party. "I’m leaving office as a happy and fulfilled man," said Jonathan, adding on a lighter note that he hopes his wife will not divorce him.

In South Africa, the papers welcome the election of a black man as the new leader of the country’s main opposition Democratic Alliance Party. Mmusi Maimane is aged 34, and was the party's parliamentary leader prior to election to replace Helen Zille in the election.

Sunday Times claims in an editorial that the “Soweto nice guy” and the DA’s new king now stands out as “the party’s chance to help break the racial logjam facing the movement”. In his victory speech Maimane did not hesitate to address the issue of race dogging the party. Having been accused in the past of being a lackey of the country’s whites by members of the ruling African National Congress‚ Maimane said: “If you don’t see that I am a black man‚ then you don’t know me at all.”

City Press puts to rest the controversy about young Maimane’s legitimacy to lead the party. It reports that a massive 93 per cent of delegates took part in the vote, adding that all candidates signed off the results.

The Johannesburg Star says there are sufficient reasons why South Africa must help save Burundi. The small Great Lakes nation is rocked by a crisis sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s plan to secure a third term of office, despite being barred by an internationally drafted constitution.

According to the Star, South Africa must intervene because the instability in Burundi’s capital Bujumbura threatens to escalate into a harsher government clampdown with the ultimate risks of the crisis taking on an ethnic tone with far more nefarious consequences.