That's all from the BBC Africa Live page today. 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 proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this picture of a little girl showing off her party goggles in Ivory Coast's economic capital, Abidjan. 

Image source, AFP/Getty

New Gambian President Adama Barrow’s spokesman has denied that any money is missing from Gambian state coffers following allegations by an adviser to Mr Barrow that about $11m had disappeared.

Halifa Sallah told the BBC's Alastair Leithead that The Gambia's central bank and all other banks in the country were "functioning normally".

Earlier Mai Ahmad Fatty had said the coffers were "virtually empty" and financial experts were trying to evaluate the exact loss.

Speaking at a news conference in Banjul, Mr Sallah said:

Image source, AFP

Former world football player of the year George Weah will lead a coalition of three political parties in his second attempt to became the president of Liberia in the 10 October election.

Mr Weah has chosen Jewel Taylor, the ex-wife of former President Charles Taylor who is serving a 50-year sentence in a UK prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity charges, to run as his deputy.

Mr Weah lost to the current President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in 2005 and in 2011 when he was the running mate of opposition leader Winston Tubman. 

He's currently a senator of the northwestern region of Montserrado.

Image source, Getty Images

A Nigerian diaspora official has told migrants to avoid Libya because, he says, they could face execution if they are caught.

Abike Dabiri-Erewa, an assistant to President Buhari on foreign affair and diaspora matters, said he was issuing the warning after seeing a video puporting to show the killing of black migrants in Libya.

He said Libya had been executing alleged illegal black immigrants "for years".

The Nigerian authorities evacuated 2,000 Nigerians from Libya two months ago, he said.

Mr Dabiri-Erewa said:

Protests broke out in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan over an ongoing teachers' strike which has led schools to shut down. 

Veteran soldiers joined students to protest the closure of schools, they barricaded a major northbound highway as fishermen blocked another major road blocking access to the east of the country, the AFP news agency reports. 

Most of the schools in the city remained closed as teachers took part in the two-week long strike aiming to push for better pay and pensions. 

Student leader Amadou Soto said some students supported the teachers' demands.

"We urge our government to settle the teachers' demands so our classes can restart," AFP quoted him as saying. 

The strike comes days after the government quelled protests by soldiers who were pushing for better housing. 

Civil servants and firefighters are also on strike in the country.

A second day of "ghost town" protests has been called for Cameroon's English-speaking regions in the Northwest and Southwest of the country amid a continuing internet blackout there.

Today's ghost town action left cities such as Bamenda and Buea deserted, local TV reported. Shops and businesses were shut and schools did not open.  

Activists are tweeting under the hashtag #BringBackOurInternet after services were cut last week. Business owners say it is hurting the local economy.

The government has not commented on the blackout but the communications minister warned in November that such a measure was possible to stop people spreading anti-government messages, VOA reported.

Meanwhile the authorities have been sending out text messages warning that people found spreading such messages could face punishment.

Also last week, the government banned two Anglophone pressure groups, the Southern Cameroons National Council and the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), QZ reported.

Two consortium leaders, Nkongho Felix Agbor and Fontem Neba, were arrested in Buea and taken to the capital Yaounde.

Protests over proposals to use French in schools and courtrooms in English-speaking regions have been ongoing for months. 

English speakers have long complained of discrimination in Cameroon.  

They say they are often excluded from top civil service jobs and that many government documents are published only in French, even though English is an official language.  

The discontent has intensified to the point where some observers say civil conflict could erupt:

Cameroon was colonised by Germany in the 19th Century and then split into British and French areas after World War One.

Later, areas controlled by Britain and France joined to form Cameroon after the colonial powers withdrew in the 1960s.

Our colleagues from BBC Focus on Africa TV and its sister swahili station Dira Ya Dunia are rehearsing for the launch of a week-long broadcast in Uganda's capital, Kampala. 

The English programme will broadcast at 17:30 GMT on BBC World News. 

Equatorial Guinea's opposition has denounced the government's decision to welcome former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, who flew to the Central African nation over the weekend after 22 years in power, AP reported.

President Teodoro Obiang will be held responsible "for what might occur" as a result of Mr Jammeh's presence on the country's soil, the opposition Convergence for Social Democracy said in a statement.

Meanwhile the Democratic Opposition Front said Mr Jammeh should not qualify for asylum because he had refused to step down after losing December's election.

"We are not against Pan-Africanism, but we are in favour of a more objective Pan-Africanism that does not consist in just bringing over the waste of Africa," the group said.

Mr Obiang's government has not yet commented on Mr Jammeh's presence there. 

Mr Obiang is Africa's longest-serving ruler, having assumed power in 1979. He won re-election last year with 93% percent of the vote. Rights groups said the poll was not free and fair and accuse him of stifling dissent and torturing opponents. 

His son is currently on trial for corruption in France, charged with spending millions in state funds to feed an opulent lifestyle of fast cars, designer clothes, works of art and high-end real estate.  

Millions of dollars in funds raised to fight the deadly virus in Sierra Leone have still not been accounted for.

See earlier post for more details.

Members of Kenya's doctors union, who have been leading a strike that has paralysed operations at public hospitals for close to two months, are running a digital campaign to highlight six members of the union who are facing time in jail. 

The Employment and Labour Relations Court ordered six members of the union on 12 January to end the strike and finalise negotiations with the government within the next two weeks. If they do not do so they face being jailed on 26 January. 

Several attempts to end the strike have failed as the doctors want the full implementation of a deal signed in 2013 to improve the doctors' pay and working conditions. 

The social media campaign includes portraits of the six doctors and a brief bio. 

Here's a sample: 

Image source, Gabriel Bouys

The Confederation of African Football has taken action to protect its website after it appeared to be hacked.

A Russian group called New World Hackers claims it took down the website, telling the BBC it was done "in protest" against Gabon, the host of this year's Africa Cup of Nations.

"Gabon is a country of dictatorship," a member of the group told BBC Sport.

Caf has added a five-second process that screens all visitors, called a Cloudflare, to alleviate the problem.

"Caf has taken action but we can't certify 100% it will not happen again," Junior Binyam, the governing body's communications director, told BBC Sport.

"Even CIA servers are hacked."

The African football body's website, external was shut down for around five hours on Saturday, leading officials from African football's ruling body to investigate a technical fault prior to deciding the issue lay elsewhere.

Read the full story here

Prime Ndikumagenge
BBC Africa, Bujumbura

Image source, Getty Images

Hundreds of prisoners have been released in Burundi in a symbolic ceremony to mark the implementation of a presidential pardon announced at the end of the year.

The released prisoners include members of an opposition party who were arrested nearly three years ago during a police crackdown on their demonstration in the capital Bujumbura.

One of them called for the release of all political prisoners saying it was ‘’unfair to spend unjustly three years in jail’’.

Thousands of people have been arrested since April 2015 in the wake of protests against a third term for Burundi’s president Pierre NKurunziza.

In total about 2,500 of them should regain their freedom in the move that began on Monday.

Image source, .

Togo goalkeeper Kossi Agassa can miss their must-win Africa Cup of Nations match against DR Congo on Wednesday after the goalkeeper's house was vandalised, said coach Claude LeRoy.

Agassa's home in Togo's capital was placed under police protection after it was attacked on Friday by fans blaming Agassi for the 3-1 loss to Morocco.

"He was really affected when he heard the news," said LeRoy.

"Whether he wants to play or not, I will respect his decision."

Togo are bottom of Group C going into the final round of matches and have to defeat DR Congo to make it into the quarter-finals of the tournament in Gabon.

Read the full story here

Abdinoor Aden
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Image source, AFP

A Kenyan report on the country’s criminal Justice has revealed that the system is biased against poor people and the youth. 

The audit report also exposed that 75% of pre-trial detainees were discovered to be aged below 35. 

According to the findings of a government body, the National Council on the Administration of Justice, hundreds of Kenyan children were detained in prisons instead of children's remand homes. 

The reports further disclosed that that Kenyan police cells and prisons were overcrowded with petty offenders, mostly young people. 

Chief Justice David Maraga said young people were victims because the legal framework was not sensitive to the youth. 

The report further revealed this had led to the overcrowding of Kenyan prisons, which accommodate 57,000 inmates more than its capacity of 26,000 prisoners. 

Other shocking outcomes include lack of disability-friendly prison services for persons with special needs. 

Human rights groups have called for the introduction of community service to petty offenders as part of punishment to reduce overcrowding in Kenyan prisons. 

Image source, AFP

Nearly three years after Ebola hit Sierra Leone, millions of dollars in funds raised to fight the deadly virus have still not been accounted for.  

An internal audit of the first six months of the outbreak said at least $14m (£11m) had been misappropriated or was unaccounted for.

The audit also said that no proof existed that payments of high-risk health workers' hazard allowances, amounting to more than $4m, had been paid. During the outbreak it was commonplace for payment of such allowances to be delayed.

This led to dramatic strike action in late 2014 at the Kenema hospital. Members of the specialist burial teams brought out corpses from the morgue and placed them at the hospital entry points, demanding unpaid allowances.

Read the full story here

Image source, AFP

Residents in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri say they are being priced out of the local property market by NGO staff who have arrived to assist victims of the Boko Haram insurgency, reports say.

Istifanus Zira, a local painter, who has been refurbishing properties in a most sought after estate says rents have become "unbelievable", the Daily Trust newspaper reports, external. 

A worker for a humanitarian organisation, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the paper that NGOs "go for big property as offices for convenience and also for their sponsor to have a good place to stay and work when they visit".

It follows accusations made earlier this month by the Borno state governor that aid agencies were spending a large quantity of their funds on "flashy" bulletproof vehicles and other facilities for their staff.

Read more here

Image source, AFP

A top Gambian army commander serving with the regional troops in the country has told the BBC that they have not found the reported heavy weapons at State House where ousted President Yayha Jammeh had been staying. 

There are concerns they may have been hidden.

"We don't know for what - but they may have taken them to Kanilai - Jammeh's home town - for future sinister use or to give to the MFDC rebels in Senegal's Casamance," he said. 

He said they only found rifles there. "We are searching" he said. 

In addition to the millions of dollars said to have been looted by Mr Jammeh and the luxury cars, many other state vehicles and office items are said to have been carted away. 

Meanwhile, offices have reopened and some civil servant have reported for work. 

Senegalese armoured cars are occasionally patrolling the streets of the capital, Banjul.  

James Copnall
Africa editor, BBC World Service

The Prime Minister of Mauritius, Anerood Jugnauth, 86, has handed over power to his son, saying it was time for younger leadership. 

Pravind Jugnauth, 56, who was previously the finance minister, is the head of the governing party. 

Constitutionally he was the right person to take over once the prime minister resigned, but the opposition says a father giving way for his son is nepotism. 

The former prime minister, now an an opposition leader, Paul Berenger said the Mauritian people should be able to vote on whether to accept the deal.  

More than $11 million (£8.8m; €10.3m) is reportedly missing from The Gambia's state coffers following the departure of long-time leader Yahya Jammeh, who clung to power for nearly two months despite losing the presidential election in December.

Mr Jammeh, thought to now be in Equatorial Guinea, is not the first leader accused of lining his own pockets with state funds. In fact, many have taken far more. Here are some of the worst offenders.

Read full story

Image source, Reuters

Former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh treated the world to a spectacle after he lost December's election. 

He initially conceded to his opponent in a phone call broadcast on state TV, then he rejected the results and refused to relinquish power. 

Kenya's top cartoonist Gaddo has chosen to mock Mr Jammeh's inglorious exit from the country by caricaturing him with his famous words that he would "rule for a billion years if God wills" .