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African press review 26 May 2017

Nigeria battles persistent rumours of a "coup" despite the army's expressed loyalty to President Buhari. Kenya's electoral body effects sweeping changes ahead of the August 8 General Elections and Johannesburg's mayor backs down on the fat salary of his Chief of Staff.

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We begin in Nigeria where some newspapers look at allegations about secret moves within the military to stage a coup in the country.

According to Vanguard the high command on Thursday announced they had put a machinery in motion to investigate so-called allegations of a romance between its personnel and some politicians in the country after pledging their loyalty to President Muhammadu Buhari.

The paper reports that the Director of Defence Information, Major General John Enenche, accompanied by the spokesmen of the army, the Air force and the Navy held a media briefing in Abuja on Thursday to reassure the general public that there was nothing like coup being contemplated in any area in the country.

However, Vanguard insists it gathered that a panel secretly was constituted, last week by the military authorities, and handed the mandate to interrogate suspected officers, with a view to ascertaining their levels of culpability or otherwise in the alleged action.

In Kenya, The Standard leads with a major shakeup at the country's electoral body ahead of the August 8 General Elections.

The paper says that on Thursday the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission scrapped the position of regional coordinators and appointed 47 county managers in the sweeping changes, while 290 constituencies will have new returning officers.

The Standard also says that the IEBCā€™s CEO Ezra Chiloba has retrained 17 regional coordinators as election managers. Another 30 officials have been promoted to make the 47 county managers according to the Nairobi-based publication.

And in South Africa the gathering storm over the indecent salary Johannesburg's new Mayor awarded his chief of staff has forced him to scrap it.

BusinessDay reports that Democratic Alliance's Herman Mashaba who seized the city from the fangs of the ANC in a deal brokered with small opposition parties had had handed his COS an annual increase of almost R500,000 (more than 34,000 euros) during his probation period, pushing his salary from 93,000 euros to over 126 000 euros.

According to the economic newspaper, opposition parties in the city council expressed unhappiness about the increase during the presentation of the metroā€™s budget on Thursday with the Economic Freedom Fighters and the ANC demanding a reversal of the decision.

Also from Kenya, Daily Nation says the country's citizens may have to dig deeper into their pockets to buy second-hand cars popular with the majority if proposals to lower the age limit for used-vehicle imports are implemented.

According to the newspaper, a report produced by the East African Community has recommended the slashing of the age limit for imported cars to five years by 2021, in a raft of measures intended to promote local assembly in the region.

Daily Nation says that only Kenya allows imports of second-hand cars not older than eight years while Tanzania has set its limit at 10 years. Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan do not have any such limits, according to the publication which holds that on average, cars in the region are 15 to 20 years old.

The Nation says imported used cars make up about 85 per cent of the 2.2 million on the road in the East African region
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