Zambia's incumbent President Edgar Lungu has been re-elected with more than 50% of the vote, the electoral commission says.

Zambia's electoral commission is currently announcing the final set of results from Thursday's presidential election.

You can watch the announcement on the commission's Facebook page, external.

The two leading candidates, incumbent President Edgar Lungu and Hakiende Hichilema, are in a close race.

To avoid a run-off election, the winner needs more than 50% of the valid votes cast.

An election monitoring group is tweeting pictures and the figures from the results centre as the votes are being read out.

Abdourahmane Dia
BBC Afrique

Head of the West African regional bloc Ecowas Marcel Alain de Souza is heading to Guinea-Bissau to try to unlock a political crisis which has been going on for months following the sacking of Domingos Simoes Pereira as prime minister a year ago. 

Ecowas, which has 500 troops in the country, has appointed a special envoy who will reside in Bissau. 

As the head of the ruling PAIGC party, Mr Pereira is accused by President Jose Mario Vaz of causing the political deadlock. 

Mr de Souza has called on politicians in Guinea-Bissau to solve their issues by dialogue. 

He is due to meet leading members of the government today.

Guinea-Bissau has experienced several military coups since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974 following a liberation war.

Image source, AP

South Africa's Wayde van Niekerk continues to amaze. He's not only celebrating breaking the 400m world record but also another first. 

He's now the first athlete, external to clock sub-10 seconds for 100m, sub-20 for 200m and sub-44 for 400m.

Van Niekerk is also a student at the University of Free State in South Africa, the Vice Chancellor Jonathan Jansen, who knows him well, spoke to the BBC's Newsday programme.

The Zambian electoral commission has been broadcasting scenes inside the results centre on its Facebook page, external.

It shows a lot of journalists waiting.

We spotted this poster on the wall urging people to: "Maintain peace before, during and after the elections."

Image source, ZEC

Two candidates have alleged that there have been problems with the vote counting process.

Zambians are eagerly waiting for the election results, so are journalists who have camped at the election results centre in Lusaka. 

The BBC's Meluse Kapatamoyo has sent us this picture of Edith Nawakwi, the only female candidate in the presidential race, at the venue where she is also waiting for the results. 

She's told our reporter that some results have been altered and described the outcome of the elections as "predetermined". 

The main opposition candidate - Hakainde Hichilema - has also alleged that there are problems.

The electoral commission has urged people to be patient as they wait for the results.

Nigerian journalist Ahmad Salkida, who is wanted by the military over alleged links to the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, has released a statement saying he is willing to be questioned by the army.

He has previously denied links with the group.

Mr Salkida - who is currently in Dubai - says:

Pumza Fihlani
BBC News, Johannesburg

It’s a story that has gripped South Africa but one that finally has closure. 

The 52-year old woman convicted on kidnapping Zephany Nurse back in 1997 was stone-faced as Judge John Hlophe handed down his sentence. 

Members of the Nurse family and the accused’s family packed the Cape Town courthouse. Delivering his ruling, Judge Hlope – a seasoned no-nonsense judge - slammed the woman for lying to the court during the trial. 

She has been sentenced to 10 years direct imprisonment – the judge said the steep sentence was also motivated by her continued lack of remorse. 

She denied stealing Zephany saying she was handed to her by a woman at a railway station – but this testimony was dismissed as a fairy tale. 

The soft-spoken seamstress has raised Zephany as her own very close to her biological parents lived. 

This day may help to bring closure to the Nurse family but it has been a bitter-sweet victory for them because they've been unable to form a bond with their long lost daughter, who still lives with the man who brought her up as her father.

Image source, AP

Ibrahim Haithar
BBC Monitoring, Nairobi

South Sudan President Salva Kiir has officially opened and addressed the Transitional National Legislative Assembly. 

It is the first session of the parliament since the signing of the agreement in August 2015 which was aimed at ending the country's civil war. 

The UN's Radio Miraya has been tweeting on the proceedings: 

Mr Kiir also addressed the UN Security Council resolution to send a 4,000-strong African Union protection force troops to the country.

This came after fighting broke out in the capital, Juba, last month, which led to hundreds of deaths: 

The South Sudan government has said it will refer the UN resolution to parliament.

Image source, AFP

We reported earlier about the sentencing of a South African woman who was found guilty of stealing Zephany Nurse, then a three-day-old baby, 19 years ago. 

We now have details of the judgement. 

The accused has been found guilty on three separate charges of kidnapping, fraud and contravention of the children's act.

She got a 14 year sentence for kidnapping, four of those were suspended. She was also sentenced for the other crimes and will serve that time concurrently - making, in effect, a 10-year sentence.

The judge said the accused was not remorseful and he took that into account when considering the sentence. He told the accused that "one day when you have served your sentence, you will not be broken but that you will be rehabilitated".

The Nurse family had mixed reactions about the sentence. 

Zephany's grandmother said she was not happy with the guilty woman only serving 10 years in priosn but was glad that the accused will be behind bars. She hoped that now they will have the opportunity to form a relationship with Zephany.

Her biological father, Morne, said he was happy with the sentence but felt she should have got more time for the pain she had caused them.

Read more about the case.

A Zambian election monitoring site has shared a short video showing journalists at the results centre in the capital, Lusaka, as they wait for the final announcement.

The election commission has promised that it is coming soon:

Nigeria's army has said that a  journalist is wanted for alleged links to Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

This comes in the wake of a video that was released showing some of the schoolgirls they abducted from the north-eastern town of Chibok.

An army statement, external names Ahmad Salkida and it says that he has "information on the conditions and the exact location of these girls".

It also wants to speak to Ahmed Bolori and Aisha Wakil 

The statement adds that: "There is no doubt that these individuals have links with Boko Haram terrorists and have contacts with them."

Mr Salkida is based in Dubai and is believed to be the person who publicises Boko Haram videos - he has made no comment.

In an interview with the BBC Mr Bolari said he only heard of his being wanted on social media and he had already contacted the military.

He denied the allegations.

Ms Wakil has not commented.

Image source, AFP

After the men's 100m Olympic final the headlines have rightly gone to Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, after he took the gold medal, making it his third in a row in the event.

Africa's only representative in the final, Ben Youssef Meite of Ivory Coast, came sixth.

An Ivorian sprinter was also in the women's 100m final on Saturday night.

Marie-Josee Ta Lou narrowly missed out on a medal - she came fourth, just a seven thousandths of a second behind third-placed Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

A Zambian election monitoring group has a simple message as people wait for the final results from Thursday's presidential election (see earlier post):

People are tweeting about the situation where they are in the country:

The Democratic Republic of Congo is observing three days of national mourning starting today following the killings of at least 30 civilians on Saturday. 

The military blamed Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels for the deaths in the village of Rwangoma near the town of Beni in North Kivu province.

The government and the United Nations have blamed the group for repeated violence in the region.

Dozens of protesters gathered in Beni after the Saturday night attack.

Carrying the body of one of those killed, they chanted anti-government slogans, witnesses told AFP news agency. Read the full story. 

Image source, AFP

The South African woman who was found guilty of kidnapping a baby 19 years ago has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, News24 is reporting, external.

The South African woman who was found guilty earlier this year of kidnapping a baby 19 years ago is to be sentenced later today.

She took Zephany Nurse, who was just a few days old at the time, from the hospital and brought her up as her own child.

Her biological parents discovered that she was still alive when she started going to the same school as one of their other daughters and people noticed a similarity.

Read more about Zephany Nurse.

Kenyans are relieved that the country has finally made world headlines for the right reasons after a series of negative stories from Rio. 

Jemima Sumgong became the first Kenyan woman to win the Olympic marathon in a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes, 4 seconds.

The Standard, one of the country's largest newspapers, captures the pride and relief of the nation. 

Image source, The Standard

Image source, AFP

The leading opposition presidential candidate in Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema, has accused the country's electoral commission of colluding with the governing Patriotic Front to steal Thursday's vote from him.

He is calling for a recount of some of the votes cast in the capital, Lusaka. 

The results from the presidential election in Zambia are gradually coming in.

The slow progress is causing anxiety for some as people wait for the final figures.

Zambia's electoral commission, external says that with 132 out of 156 constituencies declared incumbent President Edgar Lungu has a slender lead:

• Edgar Lungu 1,454,165
• Hakainde Hichilema 1,383,594

There are seven other candidates and the key thing is in fact whether Mr Lungu will get over 50% of the valid votes cast. If he does that he will avoid a run-off election.

Here's the full table of the votes counted so far:

Image source, ECZ

It's no surprise that people are still talking about South Africa's Wayde van Niekerk stunning performance at the men's 400m where he broke former US athlete Michael Johnson's 17-year-old record - winning his country the first gold medal at the Olympics. 

He not only broke the world record but also became the first athlete in the world to do it from the less favoured lane eight.

Van Niekerk shared this image on his Twitter account after the race:  

South African online newspaper Daily Maverick has been reflecting on Van Niekerk's performance. 

In an interview with the athlete's mother, she reveals how Van Niekerk overcame greatest odds as a child; he was born prematurely at 29 weeks-old and weighed just 1kg.

She says doctors feared that he could end up being disabled. But he beat all the odds, his mother saying he was “fast from the start", external.

People have been reacting to the result: