African press review 17 August 2016

Released Chibok schoolgirl dreams of returning home, South Africa coalitions will firm up today in the wake of municipal elections, Nigeria's corrupt land-grabbers outlawed and Africa's marginalised women set for the country's rooftop peak.

The Star newspaper of South Africa reports on a rescued Chibok girl who just "dreams of going home" after her release from Nigeria's Boko Haram abductors.

The first of more than 200 abducted girls to be saved from the armed Islamist group after two years in captivity in north-east Nigeria said on Tuesday in her first interview she can't wait to head home from the Nigerian capital Abuja.

Amina Ali and her four-month-old baby were freed in May near Damboa in Borno state by soldiers and a civilian vigilante group.

South Africa's coalitions to firm up 

South Africa's Mail & Guardian says the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Democratic Alliance will announce today their coalition plans for 27 hung municipalities currently waiting to see who their leaders will be after this month's local elections.

South Africa entered a new era of coalition politics after the ruling ANC suffered its worst election defeat since the end of apartheid, failing to win an outright grip in key electorates including the capital‚ Pretoria, Tshwane and the city of Johannesburg.

Will the two parties have a tighter relationship after this round of elections? asks the paper.

Despite rumours that the EFF would not talk with the ANC, the party has made it clear it is willing to speak with anyone in South Africa’s political landscape, the paper reports, although it adds that one of its preconditions to a coalition with the ANC is President Jacob Zuma’s, which is judged unlikely.

South Africa's parliament on the move?

The Mail & Guardian also reports on the likely relocation of the national parliament under the title "Treasury does the maths on shifting Parliament to Pretoria – as Cape Town fumes".

According to government sources, it says, “Cape Town has awakened too late to prevent the likely move of parliament to Pretoria over the next few years" because "22 years on Cape Town continues to slumber with Parliament at the heart of the city".

Although Capetonians greet such a proposition with rolling eyes, it reports, the move, mooted by President Jacob Zuma in February, is probable, making Pretoria the administrative capital and Cape Town the legislative one.

The mooted seven-billion-rand (500,000-euro) move will be costly yet save the equivalent of some 30 million euros a year.

Nigeria's 'land grabbers" officially outlawed

Nigeria's Guardian reports that relief is on its way for victims of "land grabbers", as Lagos enacts a property protection law.

"Notoriously known as Omonile", land grabbers are "a group of hoodlums who claim to be members of legal or illegal family-owners" yet have "a penchant for extortion at construction sites", the paper says.

Their menace "is an unending nightmare for Lagos property buyers and developers", the paper writes.

Now the government has moved to "do away with this group of monsters" with the new law.

Marginalised women to tackle Kilimanjaro

And finally The Namibian reports that over 250 marginalised women in Africa will climb Mount Kilimanjaro later this year.

Along the way to Africa's highest peak - the highest free-standing mountain in the world - the group will advocate women's right to access natural resources.

Grace Kisetu, a spokesperson for the Kilimanjaro Initiative, says the endeavour will see women from all walks of life on the continent brave freezing conditions and the rough terrains of the mountain as they push for their rights.

The three-day expedition to Africa's 5,895-metre rooftop she says "signals the women's determination towards the full realisation of their rights, especially the right to land ownership".