African press review 18 September 2017

Kenya's elections body meets to discuss a possible delay of the repeat Presidential poll. Nigeria slams "treasury looters for 'bankrolling" ethnic Igbo separatists. And Chinese syndicates are accused of running a new black market on rhino horns from Johannesburg.

We begin in Kenya, where the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission is holding a plenary this Monday to consider the possibility to push back the election re-run. This is currently scheduled for October 17.

According to The Star, the delay is at the request of the French firm that supplied the electronic vote management system, to allow it to upgrade the system

The Standard leads with charges made by incumbent Deputy President William Ruto that opposition candidate Raila Odinga is either plotting a coup or chaos to disrupt the October 17 presidential elections.

The publication reports that Ruto issued the warning at a campaign rally in Nairobi’s Kasarani area on Sunday.

Daily Nation says that Raila Odinga and the NASA coalition backing his bid reiterated their stance that there will be no repeat presidential election on October 17. This is unless officials of the elections’ commission accused of bungling August 8 polls are removed.

The paper says Odinga and the commission are also demanding far-reaching reforms to seal loopholes that they claim were used to rig the General Election.

In Nigeria, the federal government has accused so-called "disgruntled politicians, and treasury looters" of sponsoring the Indigenous People of Biafra. This is an organisation campaigning for the creation of a separatist state for ethnic Igbos, the ethnic group native to the present-day south-central and southeastern Nigeria.

Premium Times reports that the charge was made by the country's Information and culture minister Lai Mohammed at a conference in Lagos on Sunday. The Federal government official stated that IPOB was not set up to fight for the rights of any person or group but as a tool by opposition to destabilize the country.

According to the publication, Lai Mohammed warned Nigerians that IPOB was trying to mislead the public and international community into believing that its members were the victims of state-sponsored violence.

And, from South Africa, The Times reports the uncovering of a sophisticated smuggling network set up in the country by Chinese syndicates. Apparently, they are chopping up rhino horns into smaller pieces in order to beat security measures.

The paper says the new black market has seen the setting up of small workshops in Johannesburg and elsewhere, where horns are sawn up into beads, bracelets and other small trinkets - and in some cases into powder.

According to The Times, the revelations are contained in a new report released on Monday by TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring network set up by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the World Wildlife Fund.

South Africa's Institute for Security Studies has ranked wildlife crime fourth on the list of the most lucrative forms of organized crime globally.The Times quotes other experts as asserting that some 7,000 rhinos were slaughtered by poaching gangs in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent in the past decade.

The report also throws new light on the rapidly changing smuggling routes that criminal syndicates are using to move horns from Africa to the East.

The Times reports that customs officials, airline staff and airport police are bribed to facilitate luggage switches or provide false documents. In some cases, the smugglers fly at peak times to take advantage of the rush, or when airports and harbours are short-staffed.