That's all from the BBC Africa Live page this week. Keep up-to-date with what's happening across the continent by listening to the Africa Today podcast or checking the BBC News website.  

A reminder of our African proverb of the day: 

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Image source, Reuters

And we leave you with picture of dancers and singers taking part in New Year celebrations in Nigeria's commercial city of Lagos. 

See this week's full gallery of Africa's top shots

Kenya's government says it will recruit foreign doctors to end the ongoing crisis in the health sector, local media report.

A pay offer it offered to striking doctors on Tuesday was rejected. 

Public hospitals have been paralysed for a month as doctors push the government to implement a deal signed in 2013 to improve their salaries and working conditions. 

Image source, Reuters

The government of Ivory Coast has appealed for calm after troops mutinied in three cities. It has asked soldiers to return to barracks and says talks have begun with the mutineers. The soldiers are said to have complained about salaries and the non-payment of bonuses. 

Many businesses and schools have closed in Bouake, Korhogo and Daloa, the three cities where soldiers took to the streets. In Bouake and Daloa they have been driving around firing shots into the air. 

A Bouake MP told the BBC that most of the mutineers were former members of the Forces Nouvelles rebel group who had been integrated into the army after the civil war in Ivory Coast ended in 2011.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Nigeria's presidency says a "major decision" would be taken this weekend on the crisis in The Gambia, where veteran strongman Yahya Jammeh is refusing to step down after losing an election last month. 

President Muhammadu Buhari's spokesman Garba Shehu said African leaders would meet in Accra on Saturday after the inauguration of Ghana's new president, Nana Akufo-Addo.

Regional leaders including Mr Buhari were unable to persuade Mr Jammeh to step down on a visit to The Gambia last month. 

A court case filed by Mr Jammeh seeking to annul the results of the December 1 poll has been adjourned at Gambia's top court until next week.   

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has said it could use force to make Mr Jammeh quit if he does not do so voluntarily when his mandate ends on 18 January.

The Gambia's army chief has pledged his loyalty to Mr Jammeh and there have been reports he has been attempting to recruit mercenaries from Liberia and Ivory Coast.

Image source, EPA

Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel has left premier league club Chelsea to ply his trade in the Chinese Super League. 

He tweeted a sentence in Mandarin Chinese and a greeting to former Chelsea teammate Oscar, who left for Shanghai SIPG in December.

He also shared a post thanking the west London club for the 10 years he has spent there. 

Listing his achievements, he said: "I say goodbye as a champion of England, champion of Europe and a proud captain of my national team." 

The Nigerian said he was leaving because he had not had playing opportunities this season and was taking an offer from Chinese club Tianjin TEDA. 

He thanked the club's owner Roman Abramovich and the coaches he played under but he reserved his greatest praise and gratitude for the Chelsea fans: 

Mikel will be joining former team mate Oscar, who joined Shanghai SIPG. 

Here is his full farewell post, so far retweeted more than 16,000 times.

According to local officials in northern Tanzania more than 800 girls were subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) last month, despite a government crackdown. 

In the northwestern region of Tarime, close to the Kenyan border, girls are hiding from their parents after refusing to undergo FGM.  

Valerian Mgani from the "Association of Termination of Female Genital Mutilation” is sheltering them.

He spoke to BBC Outside Source presenter Nuala McGovern: 

The US embassy in The Gambia has advised US citizens to leave the country amid tension over whether President Yahya Jammeh will step down later this month, the BBC has been told.

Jeffrey Smith, a Gambia-focused analyst, says the advice was given during a town hall-style meeting with the ambassador earlier today: 

A tweet by the US Overseas Advisory Council on Tuesday had asked its citizens to attend a meeting at the ambassador's residence:

The Gambia is tense and heading towards a constitutional crisis following the refusal of President Yayha Jammeh to step down after he was defeated in the 1 December election by opposition candidate Amana Barrow. 

Mr Jammeh had initially conceded and congratulated Mr Barrow but he went back on his word by claiming there had been fraud in the election.

His party has since submitted a challenge of the results at the Supreme Court. 

The west African regional body Ecowas has warned that it would use force if Mr Jammeh does not leave office at the end of his term on 18 January. 

Ibrahim Haithar
BBC Monitoring, Nairobi

Kenya's Communications Authority (CA) is to implement tough measures governing the use of mobile phones in the country ahead of the 2017 general elections, the Standard newspaper reports. 

The CA says the use of an unregistered SIM card carries a fine of Sh100,000 ($100; £80) or six months in jail.  

Other offenses attracting similar penalty include buying sim cards from hawkers and failure to report a lost sim card to a police station.  

The new regulation will also apply to people allowing strangers to use their sim cards, the report says.

Naziru Mikailu
BBC Abuja editor

Airline operators in Nigeria have protested the government's decision to close the Abuja airport for six weeks in a bid to repair its badly damaged runway, saying the rehabilitation work should be done at midnight to minimise its impact on their operations. 

They also argued that the Kaduna airport might not be ready to carry out the volume of traffic that hits Abuja on a daily basis.

Kaduna is about 180 km (110 miles) to the north of Abuja. The Nigerian authorities said there would be additional security provided for shuttle buses travelling along a highway that has been the scene of high-profile kidnappings. Helicopter transfer services would also be available, they said.

Announcing the closure, Junior Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika said the “entire structure of the runway has failed” and was “unsafe for operation”.

Image source, Google

Before embarking on a controversial land reform programme, Zimbabwe was one of the top horticultural exporters to the European Union, supplying fresh fruit and flowers to some of the world's leading supermarket chains.

Today, the once flourishing horticulture sector is in a sorry state. But there are some farmers who have managed to keep their exports going, despite the high costs of production and political instability.

The BBC's Taurai Maduna travelled to Marondera, to the east of Harare, to find out more for Africa Business Report:

Alex Duval Smith
BBC News, Abidjan

The mutiny currently looks like a genuine pay dispute, as opposed to a threat to the government of President Alassane Ouattara.

After a crisis meeting between defence chiefs and President Alassane Ouattara, the government issued a communiqué listing what it says are the demands of the mutineers.

These include the payment of bonuses, salary increases and a revision of promotion prospects.

However, given that no leader has emerged from the mutiny, we do not have confirmation that these demands represent the sum total of the soldiers' demands.

A rank-and-file miltary source told the BBC the grievances date back to ''unkept promises from the government'' after a previous mutiny over pay in 2014.

Bouaké has a large number of soldiers who are former rebels and were integrated into the mainstream army after 2011 when the civil war ended.

Image source, Pius Utome Expei

Gabon striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has explained why he attended the Confederation of African Football awards on Thursday in casual clothes.

Aubameyang drew criticism on Twitter for wearing a sports cap and t-shirt.

"When you arrive for the ceremony.... and they lost our baggage!! So that's how we dress tonight. Thanks Lufthansa," he wrote on Instagram., external

Read the full story here

Alex Duval Smith
BBC News, Abidjan

A leader has yet to emerge for the mutinying soldiers, making it difficult to assess their demands. 

The Ivorian government has not yet explained what it knows about their motives.

The fact that the mutiny began in Bouaké may provide clues. Its barracks have a restive history. They were the starting point of a pay revolt in 2014.

Bouaké has a large number of soldiers who are former rebels and were integrated into the mainstream army after 2011 when the civil war ended.

They are generally seen as loyal to former New Forces leader Guillaume Soro who was a key player in the rebellion against ex-President Laurent Gbagbo. 

Mr Soro is currently speaker of the National Assembly and is standing for re-election to the role.

Image source, AF

Descendants of the Herero and Nama ethnic communities in Namibia have sued Germany for allegations of genocide for the killing of more than 100,000 people in the early 1900s, Reuters reports, external

The lawsuit was filed in the US district court in Manhattan, New York city. 

The plaintiffs say that Germany has sidelined them from talks regarding what occurred and has publicly said that any settlement will not include reparations to the victims. 

Germany has been talking to the Namibian government about an aid package which the plaintiff's lawyer Ken McCallion said cannot be agreed without his clients' involvement: 

“There is no assurance that any of the proposed foreign aid by Germany will actually reach or assist the minority indigenous communities that were directly harmed,” lawyer Ken McCallion said in an email. 

“There can be no negotiations or settlement about them that is made without them,“ he added. 

German soldiers reportedly subjected the victims to harsh conditions in concentration camps, and some had their skulls sent to Germany for scientific experiments.

In 1985 a UN report said the “massacre” of Hereros qualified as a genocide.  

Germany has made payments to victims of the Holocaust that took place during the Second World War.

Algerian midfielder Riyad Mahrez was last night crowned the African footballer of the year by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). 

The Leicester City midfielder played a pivotal role last season in his club's historical win of the English Premier League. 

CAF also named 10 other players in its Africa's finest list: 

1.       Denis Onyango ( Uganda) 

2.       Serge Aurier ( Ivory Coast) 

3.       Joyce Lomalisa ( DR Congo) 

4.       Eric Bailly ( Ivory Coast) 

5.       Aymen Abdennour (Tunisia) 

6.       Keegan Dolly (South Africa) 

7.       Khama Billiat (Zimbabwe) 

8.       Rainford Kalaba (Zambia) 

9.       Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ( Gabon) 

10.     Riyad Mahrez ( Algeria) 

11.     Sadio Mane (Senegal) 

When she was pregnant with her first child, Saffron Jackson Kerr sought out, but failed to find, any dolls that would represent her child's Jamaican heritage. 

So she created her own. Saffron and 'Zuree' came in to the BBC studios.  

Listen below: 

Two thousand displaced people live in Durumi camp - on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital, Abuja. 

They once led normal lives as teachers, traders, mechanics but now struggle to access water, education and their most basic needs.  

The BBC's Bola Mosuro visited the camp with Tokunbo Ifaturoti, who left a job as a lawyer in London to set up a charity called the "Children, Youth & Women Empowerment Initiative".

Listen to her report below: 

Andrew Harding
BBC News, Johannesburg

Image source, .

Africa’s richest woman has added another slice of Angola’s economy to her portfolio. 

Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the country’s president, has just secured a controlling stake in the oil-rich nation’s largest bank. 

The precise details may seem unremarkable. A few shares are traded... and one company’s stake in an Angolan bank edges over the fifty percent mark.

But the result is that Africa’s richest woman is now reported to have taken control of another key piece of Angola’s economy.

The move has left observers pondering whether to applaud a savvy female entrepreneur or to bemoan the enduring power of the continent’s entrenched elites.

Isabel dos Santos is 43, ambitious, successful and unusual in a region where men still rule most boardrooms.

But Mrs dos Santos is also the oldest daughter of Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, a man who has run the country since 1979.

Angola is one of the world’s least developed nations. In recent years it has benefited from an oil boom and Chinese investment. But corruption and poverty remain huge challenges.

The president’s daughter has repeatedly tried to shrug off allegations of nepotism, of the first family looking to form an economic and political dynasty that will live on after the President steps down, as he’s recently promised to do.

But Mrs dos Santos already controls Angola’s state oil company, and it’s largest telephone company. Now, with those extra shares, she’s added the country’s largest bank - BFA. The family’s dominant role in the country seems likely to endure.

Soldiers - many of them former rebels - who have taken to the streets of three major Ivory Coast cities are reportedly demanding to be provided with about $8,000 in cash and a home.

These benefits are said to have been agreed as part of a deal to end the country's civil war but never delivered.

Reuters news agency also reports that a facility in Bouake housing about 200 former soldiers, who were initially brought into the army before later being demobilised, was closed in November.

A similar uprising occurred in 2014 when hundreds of soldiers barricaded roads in several cities and towns across the country demanding payment of owed wages. The government agreed to a financial settlement with the soldiers, who returned to the barracks.

AFP news agency has filed some photos from Bouake, where soldiers have reportedly mutinied and taken up positions in the town.

Image source, AFP/Getty

Image source, AFP/Getty

Image source, AFP/Getty