‘It is a shame for the c

‘It is a shame for the country to continue to feed prisoners. All the prisons have fields, inmates must cultivate them.’

– Tanzania’s President John Magufuli speaking at the inauguration of new prisons chief Faustine Martin Kasike

‘Nothing can stop the ongoing reforms in Ethiopia.  But we need to protect the democratic rights we are regaining now.’

– Ethiopia’s reformist new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaking at a concert yesterday to celebrate peace with Eritrea

‘I want to dispel this notion that when a Nigerian loses his or her life in SA, it is as a result of an intentional action by South Africans against Nigerians.’

– South  African President Cyril Ramaphosa speaking in Nigeria during a courtesy visit to discuss economic relations with his counterpart, Muhammadu Buhari. He blamed the ‘pervasive crime’ in South Africa on high unemployment rates, poverty and inequality.

‘We were in exile ourselves. Our own South Africans were abroad. We were not allowed to occupy the cities of those countries and then push the citizens out.’

– Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota saying if he formed part of a coalition after South Africa’s elections next year, he would put refugees in camps

‘The children have a right to a birth certificate, and the father has a right to register his child. You cannot punish the mother through the child.’

– Liesl Muller, a lawyer at Lawyers for Human Rights, on a scathing judgment by Judge Moses Maphaga on SA’s Department of Home Affairs that he found relied on an ‘internal policy’ adopted in 2014 to block registration of children born from undocumented mothers