African press review 15 November 2013

The kidnapping of a French priest makes the headlines in Cameroon. Nigeria is gripped by election fever. Kenyatta prefers Kuwait to Colombo. Kenyan MPs want cash for cars and houses. And a Kenyan granny goes back to school.

Cameroon,'s press is digging into the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping of a French priest in the northern part of the country by suspected Boko Haram Islamists from Nigeria.

Le Jour and several other outlets headline on the abduction of Georges Vandenbeusch from his Nguetchewe Parish residence in the Far North region. The prominent online newspaper Camer.be quotes eyewitnesses in the small town as saying that the kidnappers were 15 in number.

The paper claims that they stormed the Catholic mission on motorbikes on Wednesday and ransacked the church compound before taking the priest away. Cameroon Tribune reports that elements of the elite Rapid Intervention Force (BIR) were immediately rushed to the region in a desperate attempt to find the hostage before his abductors cross the border into Nigeria.

Nigeria is meanwhile gripped by election fever.

Vanguard reports an unprecedented three-day restriction of movement across Anamba state ahead of a gubernatorial election in the state on Saturday. The paper says the restrictions were in furtherance of strategies designed to prevent electoral fraud and violence during and after the polls.

In Kenya the Nation breaks news that President Uhuru Kenyatta will skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka. He is instead due to attend a conference in Kuwait, where investment in the energy sector is one of the issues on the agenda.

The decision comes as a new survey showed that most Kenyans would like Kenyatta to attend his trial at the ICC after the court allowed him to be absent for some of the sessions

Standard Digital takes up reports that lawmakers want 71.4 million euros more to buy houses and cars. Parliament moved a motion for the process on Thursday and the paper warns that it is taxpayers' money that will be squandered for the bloated scheme.

According to the Nairobi paper, MPs already have access to a mortgage facility of up to 172,000 euros and a car loan of 60,200 euros repayable on or before the end of their term.

Age is just a number, holds Standard Digital as it tells the fantastic story of a grand mother who is sitting the Kenyan certificate of primary education exam at the age of 75. The paper found out that Rachael Muthoni eloped with her boyfriend and got married while in Standard Seven.

A Nigerian mother has confessed that her husband of four years does not know that she is undergoing treatment for HIV/Aids, which she contracted before they got married.  Grace Brume, 22, from the southern Bayelsa state told the Punch newspaper she contracted the virus during an affair with a secondary school classmate after which she became pregnant.

Brume says her husband has become the foster-father of the baby since then and has put her in the family way again ignoring that she is undergoing a special mother-to-child transmission prevention programme at a local hospital.