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Speculation about the whereabouts of Uhuru Kenyatta highlights the divisions in his ruling Jubilee Party as he works on his political heritage in his final term as President.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is determined not to follow predecessors Mwai Kibaki and Daniel Arap Moi in becoming lame duck presidents in their second terms.

He’s working on his four-part programme  of ensuring food security, affordable housing, health care and boosting manufacturing.

But his Jubilee Party remain split after his rapprochement more than a year ago with Opposition leader Raila Odinga.

The party –  Kenya’s electorate generally – are disappointed at his inability to keep his promise to eradicate corruption.

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The country’s independent electoral commission announces he won four million votes more than he main opponent Atiku Abubaker who has rejected this result.

Muhammadu Buhari has his work cut out in his second term as Nigeria’s president .

He has to restore the country’s faltering economy that has still not recovered from a 2016 recession.

This will mean a more equitable distribution of Nigeria’s oil wealth

And he has urgently to address the Islamist insurgency that has made large parts of North East Nigeria ungovernable.

He has to keep his promise to fight corruption that has become endemic.

He also has to deal with growing rural violence between farmers and cattle herders they accuse of  destroying their land.

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The US President’s envoy to Harare has, meanwhile, spelled out how to end sanctions Washington slapped on Zimbabwe 16 years ago.

In New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Zimbabwe’s President  Emmerson Mnangagwa tells reporters he’s repeated his offer to his US counterpart Donald Trump of land at Victoria Falls to build a golf course.

He says he first made the offer at the Davos summit earlier this year.

Trump’s made no sign of taking it up.

However his ambassador to Harare Brian Nichols is adamant the new Zimbabwe administration is all talk and not action and US sanctions slapped on Zimbabwe for gross human rights violations and corruption  in 2002 will stay in place until there is a demonstrable change in in approach.  

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The watchdog’s open letter to the President says Home Affairs is in crisis, operating in flagrant disregard of constitutional values, cripplingly inefficient and poorly managed, with reports of widespread bribery and corruption. 

Lawyers for Human Rights says South Africa has the longest backlog in the world for dealing with hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers that have come here. 96% of asylum applications are rejected

The organization says asylum seekers are  subject to police corruption and routine, systematic physical abuse.

It says Home Affairs in not transparent and does not have a complaints  mechanism.

Only Africans are arrested, says LHR, pointing out that there are no white people held at the Lindela repatriation facility.

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They’ll certainly have a new president replacing Ernest Bai Koroma who’s constitutional term has expired.

And they’ll probably have a more diversified parliament.

There are sixteen presidential candidates contest this election, with the ruling All People’s Congress that run Sierra Leone since independence from Britain in 1961 under threat.

Violence during political rallies has forced former Ghanaian President John Mahama, who is heading the Commonwealth observer team, to play a mediation role.

Poverty, corruption and poor health services are the main issues in this election.

Sierra Leone, which has 150 doctors tending to the population of seven-and-a-half million is still recovering from the devastating Ebola outbreak and a killer mudslide.

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Essid, who’d been in power for a year and a half, was expected the result after several ruling coalition MPs withdrew their support.

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Habib Essid ’s the sixth prime minister to fall since the 2011 Arab Spring brought democracy to Tunisia.

Negotiations to find his replacement start today.

Corruption, security, unemployment and growth are the yardstick he will be measured on.

Tunisia’s vital tourism industry been by lacerated

by two high-profile attacks in Tunisia, killing 59 foreign tourists last year.

The country has been in a state of emergency since November 2015, when a suicide bombing  claimed by ISIL, killed 12 presidential guards in central Tunis.

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An official crackdown has nearly halved the amount of ivory poached in Kenya, however corruption in the country makes it a route for the illegal trade.

ends intro

Four bodyguards and a driver from Kenyan police’s  ministerial protection unit were expecting to pocket five-and-a-half-thousand dollars from their illegal ivory deal.

The Kenyan Wildlife Service has redoubled efforts to stop the trade.

30 000 elephants are killed in Africa every year by poachers.

Kenya’s  planning to torch 120 tonnes of Ivory seized from poachers and smugglers.

It will be the biggest Ivory bonfire  Kenya’s ever staged.

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President Jacob Zuma is among leaders from across the world who’ve flow in to witness the inauguration of Muhammadu Buhari a former military dictator turned democrat.

The sense of history in Nigeria is heightened by the prospect of both the incoming and outgoing presidents being together at Eagle Square in Abuja today.

But it’s the sense of expectation that will drive President Muhammadu Buhari once he’s taken the oath of office.

The former military leader’s expected to get a grip on the security situation in Africa’s most populous country.

And he has to tackle endemic corruption.

When he took some handover notes from outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday, he was urged to show no fear or favour in waging this battle.

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