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 today's proverb: 

Click here to send us your African proverbs

We leave you with this photo of a horse being transported by boat in the Nigerian city of Lagos:

Image source, AFP

The president of Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara, has named a new cabinet a day after appointing Amadou Gon Coulibaly as prime minister. 

The cabinet will have 28 ministers, compared with 35 in the previous administration. 

It includes seven fresh members and despite the recent mutiny which rocked barracks across the country, the defence and interior ministers have been retained. 

The mutiny, mainly involving former rebels who are now integrated into the army, was the second such army uprising in less than three years.  

New PM Mr Coulibaly is from President Ouattara's party, but many ministers come from other parts of the coalition that helped Mr Ouattara win the last two elections. 

On Tuesday, Mr Coulibaly's predecessor, Daniel Kablan Duncan, was named vice president - a new post created in the constitution voters approved in last October's referendum.

Image source, AFP

A political deal in the Democratic Republic of Congo which was brokered by the Catholic Church to prevent the country descending into chaos over an electoral calendar has been rejected by a senior ally of President Joseph Kabila. 

According to the deal signed on New Year's Eve, President Kabila, whose second and last term ended last month, should stay on as president with a prime minister picked from the main opposition coalition to lead a transition with the aim of organising a presidential election by the end of the year.

Now, a former senior MP, Sami Badibanga, appointed last month as prime minister by Mr Kabila under a previous unilateral agreement says he rejects the deal as unfit for purpose. 

Mr Badibanga argues there is no point in replacing an unpopular deal by another one just because this time the main opposition coalition is in favour of it. 

Several allies of Mr Kabila have previously expressed a similar view and Mr Badinbanga's public stand is likely to resonate with them. 

Jose Tembe
BBC Africa, Maputo

Image source, Getty Images

The Mozambican authorities have expressed concern over the continuous theft of fuel, particularly from fuel tankers in the country’s central region.

In November a tanker in the western Mozambican province of Tete exploded killing more than 100 people and injured others, some of whom are still in hospital with severe burns. 

The explosion happened when the Malawian driver turned off the main road to sell fuel to villagers.

Criminal gangs were reported to be looting fuel and merchandise from trucks leaving the central Mozambican port of Beira.

Privately-owned Mozambican STV said the criminals keep the stolen fuel in informal deposits at their homes. 

The sense of impunity is such that some of the thieves in the Beira theft had no problem being filmed by STV and boasted openly of their crimes.

One youth admitted attacking vehicles and said it was the only thing they could do for survival.

The BBC has been speaking to students and lecturers at the University of The Gambia, who have launched an exam boycott until President Jammeh steps down.

One student said his parents were worried:

A lecturer said the action was representing the Gambian people:

The Nigerian army has recovered the bodies of 16 soldiers who had been declared missing in action after an operation against Boko Haram militants in Borno state on 16 October last year, the Daily Trust reports.

"The corpses were recovered along Kamadugou River line area in Maiduguri," the newspaper quoted Maj-Gen Lucky Irabor as saying.

For more details, follow the link below.  

The mayor of Kisangani in DR Congo says inhabitants of the town beat 16 suspected criminals to death between October last year and the beginning of this year, Radio Okapi has reported.

The latest was a man aged about 30 who was beaten to death on Sunday night after being accused of trying to steal a motorcycle.

Mayor Augustin Osumaka told his employees to refrain from violence, while the local police chief told residents to call the police when they identified a suspect.

Image source, Google

AP news agency has a report from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on the difficulties being caused by a doctors' strike, which has entered its second month. 

Reporter Tom Odula talks to Sharon Andisi, 23, who was turned away from Kenya's only public maternity hospital when she was about to give birth. 

She was driven to a private hospital where she gave birth in the reception area.

Others have not been so lucky - local media followed another woman who was turned away from the same hospital, Pumwani hospital, and whose baby subsequently died.

About 350 women give birth at Pumwani hospital every week when it is staffed.

The doctors are demanding that the government honour a 2013 agreement to raise their salaries by 180%.

The strike has caused a near-total paralysis in the health sector and dozens are believed to have died from a lack of emergency services, AP says. 

For more, follow the link above. 

Abdullahi Yusuf Osman
BBC Monitoring, Nairobi

Image source, AFP

Somalia's al-Shabab Islamist group has introduced a new unit of police to monitor people's mobile phones to see what they watch, privately-owned Dhacdo website reports.

The new police unit will monitor and arrest people who watch "inappropriate" films on their phones, according to Sheikh Abu Osama, al-Shabab's leader in the southern region of Lower Shabelle.

Abu Osama urged locals to work with the police, saying they would "not harass people but will advise them on what is right and wrong".

The new unit operates in all al-Shabab-controlled areas. 

In 2013, the al-Qaeda-linked group banned the sale and use of smartphones in areas under its control in the south of the country.

Watching satellite television is also not allowed in al-Shahab areas.

Read more: Who are Somalia's al-Shabab?

Image source, AFP

The authorities in Cameroon say they have exposed and dismantled a network of unscrupulous civil servants who defrauded the government out of more than CFA 1bn (£1.3m, $1.5m) in 2016.

The scammers were said to number about 700, with some working for the Ministry of Finance.

A BBC reporter in Cameroon says they operated the fraud by tampering with payslips, pay grades and other payroll details in order to channel cash into their own accounts.

An internal probe revealed that fraudsters in the Finance Ministry were in charge of masking traces of the scam in the government computer system.

All those involved are now being prosecuted, our reporter says.

Transparency International's corruption index has persistently suggested that Cameroon has a serious fraud problem.

In 2006, under pressure from foreign investors, the government launched Operation Hawk, an anti-corruption drive, which has led to several high-profile court cases.

Image source, Ahmed Adan

MPs in Somalia have elected a speaker for the country's new parliament, a key step toward the forthcoming presidential election. 

The vote by 259 MPs amid tight security around the police academy building saw the re-election of Mohamed Osman Jawari to the role, AP news agency reported.

The country's clan-based system means that the re-election of Mr Jawari, a member of the Digil and Mirifle clan, means that his fellow clansman, the president of Somalia's federal South West state, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, will be forced to withdraw from the presidential race, AFP news agency reported. 

The remaining frontrunners are from two of the major clans, the Hawiye and Darod.

The election has been delayed several times amid allegations of fraud and intimidation. No official date for the vote has been set, but officials say it will be in late January.

MPs elect Somalia's president, who is not chosen directly by popular vote. 

The country is trying to rebuild after decades of chaos. The country is riven by clan rivalries and threatened by al-Shabab Islamist extremists opposed to Western-style democracy. 

Read more: Somalia's rocky road to democracy

Image source, Ahmed Adan

Image source, Ahmed Adan

Image source, think

Angola has reported its first two cases of Zika virus, Reuters reports. 

"Up until two months ago, we didn´t have any detected case, but, now, we have two cases of Zika," the news agency reported Health Minister José Luis Gomes Sambo as saying.

"We have to take preventable measures, especially in the anti-vectorial fight against the mosquitoes."

Zika is a viral disease carried by mosquitoes and has spread to dozens of countries since an outbreak in Brazil in 2015. The disease is believed to cause the birth defect microcephaly. 

For more, follow the link below.

Wanyama wa Chebusiri
BBC Africa

Image source, Abdinoor Aden

The Kenyan opposition has unveiled an alliance in a bid to defeat President Uhuru Kenyatta in the forthcoming general elections scheduled for August. 

The announcement of the opposition parties unity, which was made in Nairobi and attended by 4,000 people, brought together President Kenyatta’s bitter rival Raila Odinga and former Vice Presidents Kalonzo Musyoka and Musalia Mudavadi. 

The opposition chiefs however did not name their torch-bearer, saying they will do so “in the next few weeks”. 

They also announced that they have shelved street protests against the controversial electoral laws favoured by Kenyatta’s ruling Jubilee coalition. 

Today’s opposition meeting is akin to the 2002 popular National Rainbow Alliance (NARC) that defeated Uhuru Kenyatta when President Daniel arap Moi preferred him as a presidential flag-bearer for the then ruling party KANU.

Image source, Abdinoor Aden

Image source, Abdinoor Aden

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

Image source, Getty Images

South Africa’s transport minister wants to make drink driving as serious an offence as murder and rape after more than 1,700 people died in drink driving incidents over the December holiday period.

The figures are up 5% from the previous year.

Visibly agitated, Dipuo Peters said:

Ms Peters said that consultations with the Justice Department were underway to finalise and introduce minimum sentences for negligent and reckless driving, external.

Some 5,943 motorists were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, which accounted for 65% of all traffic violations arrests.

The announcement comes just a week after the release on parole of the hip-hop musician and rapper Molemo "Jub Jub" Maarohanye. He had been serving an eight-year sentence for culpable homicide or manslaughter after killing four pupils who were walking from school while he was drag racing with a friend in Soweto back in 2010.

Some say it will be hard for the transport minister to achieve her goal because Jub Jub was initially convicted of murder but a separate court reduced this to culpable homicide on appeal.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of road fatalities in the world with more than 10,000 deaths recorded annually. This is in spite of having the most advanced national road network on the African continent.

Abdullahi Abdi
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Image source, AP

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has appointed Ahmed Hussen - a former refugee from Somalia - as the minister for immigration, refugees and citizenship

Just over a year ago, Mr Hussen was celebrating becoming the first ethnic Somali MP in Canada. 

Now he has even risen further, by becoming the country's first ethnic Somali minister. He came to Canada as refugee from Mogadishu two decades ago aged 16.

He is a strong supporter of welcoming migrants and will now be in charge of government policy on the matter.

Canada already has a refugee-friendly policy and offered a new home to almost 40,000 Syrian refugees last year.

Read more: The unique programme that brings refugees to Canada

The Guardian has a piece on the footballers of Guinea-Bissau, the "intrepid outsiders" who will be playing in their first major tournament in this year's African Cup of Nations. 

Here's how the reporter, Nick Ames, external, introduces their achievement in qualifying: 

Stephanie Hegarty
BBC Africa, Lagos

In some ways the Borno governor's gripe may be legitimate. In the last six months his city of Maiduguri has been transformed. Whereas before it was rare to see foreign aid workers, now the tiny airport in Maiduguri is full of staff from non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

It is a struggle to get a booking in the city's few hotels and armoured vehicles - each costing about $500,000 - are visible all around. The UN in particular has a policy of using them, many other NGOs do not. But they have reason - last July a UN convoy returning from a camp in rural Borno was attacked by Boko Haram fighters; Unicef staff survived direct gunfire thanks to their armoured vehicle.

It is not the first time the UN has been criticised for wasting money, but the idea that Unicef is profiting from the crisis is probably a step too far. It is involved in various nutrition programmes in camps around Borno state that are undoubtedly contributing to feeding the thousands at risk of starving to death.

Read the story here

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

South Africa has granted one of its last remaining struggle prisoners, Kenny Motsamai, full parole after he served 27 years in prison for the murder of a white traffic officer in 1989 in the town of Rustenburg, north-west of Johannesburg.

The announcement by the prison authorities comes after a campaign by the Pan African Congress (PAC), of which Motsamai was a member, and civil rights organisations to have him released after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission denied him amnesty.

Correctional service department spokesman Singabakho Nxumalo confirmed Motsamai's day parole was lapsing, but could only say the prisoner would be released pending the parole board's decision.

"I'll be free on the 11th," Motsamai said last week.

The PAC said his release was a bittersweet moment as it reminded them of the many fighters still behind bars.

It said the release proved how little was being done by the governing African National Congress (ANC) to ensure all those who fought for freedom were recognised.

Its spokesperson Kenneth Mokgatlhe said: “So we’re saying to the ANC that they must go back as they did during the government of President Thabo Mbeki because in that period we saw lots of our cadres being released and the issue was taken more seriously.”

He said it was shocking that 133 prisoners were still behind bars.

PAC supporters met at the Boksburg Correctional Services Centre, east of Johannesburg, for Motsamai’s release.

At the time of his arrest, then 26-year-old Motsamai was a member of the PAC’s armed wing, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA).

Image source, Getty Images

The BBC's North Africa correspondent recommends this account, external by AFP's bureau chief in Tripoli, Imed Lamloum, external, in which he explains the difficulties of reporting from Libya.

Here's a taster: 

Image source, Getty Images

Ghana's former Foreign Minister Hanna Tetteh has tweeted a picture of a letter sent by former President John Mahama on Tuesday in which he tells his successor that he is withdrawing his request to remain in his official residence. The letter also says he is withdrawing a request for an office.

Mr Mahama's failure to vacate the house when his term ended on Saturday has caused huge controversy in Ghana. Critics say his continued presence there is unlawful and has also left incoming Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia without an official residence. Officials have insisted that Mr Mahama's request to stay on, and also receive an office, were not approved.

Read more about the row here.