African press review 29 September 2015

Kenya laments the suicide of a college girl blackmailed by a Facebook tormentor; Cabinet fever grips Nigeria; and the press welcomes Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's UN appeal for fiscal havens to return stolen assets.

We start in Nigeria and the robust coverage of President Muhammadu Buhari’s first address to the UN General Assembly.

Punch paid special attention to Buhari’s appeal on Monday to world leaders, in whose domain stolen funds and assets are being kept by corrupt individuals. Buhari called on such countries to help return the billions to their countries of origin.

The Nigerian leader also took advantage of his speaking time in front of the 70th annual gathering to denounce countries that have turned themselves into safe havens for the proceeds of corruption, according to the Nigerian Tribune. President Buhari reaffirmed his administration's determination to frontally confront the twin evils of corruption and illicit financial outflows.

The president named graft, cross-border financial crimes, cyber crimes and human trafficking as the major challenges of the 21st century, which he said the international community must work together to overcome.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian press is abuzz over President Buhari’s nominees for cabinet. This, as the 30 September deadline he set for the appointment of his government closes in.

Vanguard publishes a list of 27 politicians and technocrats whose names it claims have been sent by President Buhari to the Senate for the traditional confirmation hearings. It includes household names such as Kayode Fayemi, Femi Falana and Engineer Segun Oni.

The three are all from Ekiti State, which is why Vanguard opted for caution as to the veracity of the list considering that all of Nigeria’s 36 states must be represented in the government under the provisions of the constitution.

In South Africa, Mail and Guardian reacts to the sentencing of long jail terms for two Rwandan rebel leaders by a German court.

Ignace Murwanashyaka, head of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, received 13 years in prison, while his deputy Straton Musoni was given eight years for masterminding massacres in eastern DRC from their homes in Germany.

Mail and Guardian reports that at the opening of the case four years ago, federal prosecutor Christian Ritscher said Murwanashyaka ordered more than 200 killings and “large numbers” of rapes by his militias, had them use civilians as human shields and sent child soldiers into battle in eastern DR Congo.

The two men were initially accused of 26 counts of crimes against humanity and 39 counts of war crimes.

The United Nations had hailed the trial as a breakthrough after repeated calls by the UN Security Council to bring FDLR commanders living abroad to justice, according to the Johannesburg-based newspaper.

And in Kenya, Daily Nation mourns for a young girl who killed herself over a Facebook tormentor. Nakuru College student Mercy Bundi, 19, committed suicide after a foreigner lured her through Facebook to a meeting in Mombasa where he assaulted her, and threatened to post her nude pictures on the internet.

According to the newspaper, she left a suicide note in which she named the man identified as a German, gave details of where he assaulted her and the reasons she took her life.
Police are investigating the incident amid reports that there is an increase in insidious crimes that have left thousands of Kenyans suffering in silence, according to the Nation.