African press review 3 December 2015

Africa is the wrong place to wage the war on terror in Africa; Transparency International places Nigeria in new basket of graft-devastated nations; Kenya slumps into new low of pessimism as details of a giant 140 billion shillings scandal emerged; And an icon of Nigeria's pre-independence football goalkeeper Sam Ibiam dies at the age of 91.

We start in South Africa where Mail and Guardian contemplates on whether the war on terror can be won in Africa.

This, as French President Francois Hollande continues to lobby world leaders gathered in Paris for the Climate summit in a diplomatic drive to secure a global coalition against the Islamic State armed group which carried out the Paris attacks as well as the killing of 21 people at the Radisson Blu Hotel in the capital, Bamako, last Friday.

Mail and Guardian actually borrows remarks by French Minister of Defence Jean-Yves Le Drian at a conference in Senegal to substantiate its motion. He noted that to inspect every corner of the vast Sahara Desert and root out Islamic terrorist groups once and for all is near impossible.

It could take “centuries” and hundreds of thousands of troops to cover the entire area, which includes the north of Mali, where terror groups might be hiding.

According to the newspaper, the hostage crisis in Bamako came as a stark reminder that just a handful of armed extremists can wreak havoc, despite concerted military action.

In Nigeria, the papers are reacting to Transparency International’s latest Afrobarometer.
In the report titled, ‘People and Corruption: Africa Survey 2015’; released on Tuesday, the global anti-corruption organisation, claims that 75 million Africans paid bribes in the past year.

Punch underlines for the record that Transparency International ranked Nigeria in sixth position among African countries not doing enough to tackle corruption. Top on the list are Madagascar, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Benin and South Africa.

According to the newspaper, in terms of citizens' perception of corruption, TI’s AfroBarometer rated Nigeria as one of the three worst performers, the highest number of respondents believing that graft has worsened in the country.

Best performers in this category are Burkina Faso, Mali and Cote d’Ivoire.
The TI, Afrobarometer is a pan-African, non-partisan research network that conducts public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, economic conditions, and related issues across more than 30 countries in Africa.

In its latest report TI names the police, business executives, government officials, tax officials, judges and magistrates and members of parliament in the upper rungs of the gangrene eating up African societies.

In Kenya, Standard Digital has its eyes glued on what it terms the biggest corruption scandal in the country's history, claims by the opposition that about Sh140 billion cannot be accounted for in the Sh250 billion Eurobond saga.

The paper says that the prime suspects are custodians of the nation's purse in President Uhuru's administration. It reports that on Wednesday, the Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko gave investigators 10 days to file evidence, if any, of graft.

The Standard holds that the optimism that swept the country last year after Kenya's success in raising capital from European and American investors has since degenerated into pessimism after the outbreak of the scandal.

In Nigeria, The Sun pays tribute to football legend Sam Ibian the national team’s pioneer goalkeeper. Ibiam passed away on Wednesday at the age of 91 in the Abia State capital of Umuahia.

The Sun recalls that the great goal tender hailed from Unwana, in Ebonyi State, the same town where the late nationalist, Ezeogo Akanu Ibiam had a flourishing football career that spanned three decades, fifteen with the national team. Ibiam’s football skill was identinfied at the Church of Scotland Mission School Unwana before he proceeded to Hope Waddel Institute, Calabar.

In 1949, he was the goalkeeper of the first national football team that toured the United Kingdom; playing notable English teams like Liverpool. Sam Ibian last manned the Nigerian goal posts in 1962 ending a 13 year career shortly after the national squad metamorphosed to Green Eagles on Nigeria’s accession to Independence.