African press review 20 October 2015

The arrest of Radio Biafra chief exposes Buhari government's unease with the separatist anxieties of Nigeria's ethnic Igbos. Water problem on a Kenyan university campus forces students to fetch water from a distant river and South Africa closes key universities as fee protests spreads.

Vanguard publishes details about the arrest and detention of Radio Biafra director Nnamdi Kalu as he returned home from the United Kingdom. The newspaper reports that he was picked up at a hotel in Lagos by agents working for the Department of State Service, and transferred to the capital Abuja where he is currently being held.

A lawyer claiming to be the legal counsel for the Indigenous People of Biafra told the newspaper that “Nnamdi" was put in the same cell with terrorists.

Vanguard reports that during its correspondent’s chat with the lawyer he received a call informing him that the Radio Biafra boss had been granted bail in the sum of N2 million or with surety of N2 million with a civil servant of grade level 16.

Meantime, the arrest of Nnamdi Kalu by Nigeria’s secret service has sparked a wave of condemnations by Igbo organizations in the Diaspora. Vanguard says their outcry hinges on the alleged violation of Kalu’s rights to freedom of expression enshrined in the constitution.

The associations argue that Radio Biafra’s cause of being the mouth piece of ethnic Igbo separatists trying to break away from Nigeria is no different from that waged by Niger Delta militants.

According to Vanguard, the so-called “political gladiators” are appealing to the Federal Government to “douse the tension instead of using political brigandage and executive lawlessness”.

Also in Nigeria, Punch takes up the case of a lawyer who has filed an injunction at the Federal high Court in Lagos to compel President Muhammadu Buhari to fix all the petroleum refineries in the country. The plaintiff, Kabir Akingbolu, also wants the court to order the President to ensure adequate production and availability of Premium Motor Spirit at a regulated price across the country.

Akingbolu, a lawyer, claimed in his suit filed in June that Buhari had failed to address the problem of fuel scarcity which resulted in long queues and selling of the products at varying and exorbitant prices in petrol stations across the country. The trial judge, Justice John Tsoho, adjourned the case on Monday, after the plaintiff failed to show up in court, according to Punch.

Meanwhile, the fee protests that have shut down a number of South African campuses continue to receive front-page attention from the papers.

City Press, reports that Rhodes and Wits universities have announced the indefinite suspension of lectures, while the University of Cape Town managed to obtain a ban against protesting students.

Mail and Guardian says the university council's meeting on the weekend simply did not give in to protesting students’ demands for 0% increases. The question now according to the newspaper is “how universities should balance fee increases with their other obligations".

The Johannesburg-based publication carries the ruling party’s reaction to the spreading fee protests. The ANC, says it remains committed to the goal of free education at all levels, adding that it waits to see the resolutions of the government’s meeting with university chiefs to ensure that the proposed fee increases will not become a form of exclusion.

In Kenya, Daily Nation narrates the nightmare experienced by some Chuka University students who are forced to fetch water from a river. The paper says that 10,000 students are affected by the water shortage in the fast-growing university town.

A local council official told Daily Nation that a project designed 20 years ago to supply water for 400 hostels in Ndagani is now the only source of portable water for 25,000 students. Daily Nation relays a warning by a student's leader about the risks of an outbreak of diseases as “learners are forced to go to as far as Tungu River to fetch water”.