African press review 3 November 2018

President Buhari wrong-foots opposition by producing certificate his opponents said he never earned. And a South African school apologizes for chasing away its first black teacher.

We start in Nigeria where President Muhammadu Buhari is on all the front pages after presenting his West African School leaving certificate to the press.

Vanguard publishes a photograph of Buhari holding a copy of the document which had just been handed to him by the Registrar of the West African Examination Council, Iyi Uwadiae, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Friday.

Uwadiae reportedly travelled all the way from his Accra office to deliver the document, which has been at the center of a political battle over Buhari's academic qualification to rule Nigeria.

The secondary school leaving certificate is the minimum qualification set by Nigeria's elections body for candates seeking to run for the country's highest office.

Punch reports that the 42-party Coalition of United Political Parties which includes the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party quickly described the photo op  as an attempt to stall a lawsuit seeking to disqualify Buhari from seeking a second term in the 2019 presidential election.

Uganda's New Vision leads with news from South Sudan that the country's authorities on Friday released a former spokesman of rebel leader Riek Machar's as well as a South African adviser, a move seen as a gesture of goodwill in an ongoing peace process.

The paper reports that the top Machar aide James Gatdet and retired South African colonel William John Endley were sentenced to death earlier this year by President Salva Kiir's regime for treason and conspiracy.

Reich Machar who fled the country after an outbreak of clashes between his forces and President Salva Kiir's army returned to Juba on Monday to take back his position as Vice President after a peace deal brokered by South Sudan's neighbours.

And in South Africa, Times Lives takes up an apology presented by a top Cape Town school which chased away its first black teacher.

The paper reports that authorities at the Di Berry School in Rondebosch told the 26 year-old university graduate to resign or face disciplinary action that would “ruin her reputation”.

The 26-year-old woman Nozipho Mthembu‚ who was to be the first black class teacher in the school’s 125-year history.

Mthembu reportedly told South Africa's Commission for Conciliation‚ Mediation and Arbitration that after her expulsion in September the school simply told parents she had left for personal reasons.

Times reports that the school only apologized to the young woman and pledged to review its diversity culture after the arbitration commission began a disciplinary process against the establishment.

In Kenya, today's Daily Nation publishes the findings of a new survey exposing the perils to which Kenyan families are exposed.

The paper says in the study conducted in the Coast, Nairobi, Nyanza and Western regions, domestic violence was identified as the biggest challenge facing couples.

About 64 per cent of its readers who reportedly responded to the survey, blamed promiscuity for transforming the nature of marriages, with spouses claiming to be in monogamous relationship when in reality they embrace polygamy or polyandry in secret.

Financial constraints are also a big challenge in urban and rural families, followed closely by a breakdown in communication between spouses, Daily Nation concluded.