That's all from BBC Africa Live today. Keep up-to-date with events from Liberia, where a landmark court ruling is due to determine whether there will be a run-off or re-run of the presidential election, by listening to the Africa Today podcast or check the BBC News website.

A reminder of today's wise words:

Click here and scroll to the bottom to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this photo of one of Dakar's public minibuses, known as car rapides:

There's been a lot of talk about what was meant by a Nigerian governor when he created the the job title "commissioner for happiness and purpose fulfillment".

Rochas Okorocha created a new role for his sister.

The BBC's Jimeh Saleh explains that the term purpose fulfillment is something you hear very often from inspirational speakers and some preachers in Nigeria.

"It is very common to come across a handbill or a banner saying ‘join us if you want to fulfill your purpose in life'."

It was originally reported that the full job title was " Commissioner of Happiness and Couples' fulfilment". This provoked ridicule on social media.

But Ogechi Ololo, the woman with the new job, told the BBC that the "couples' fulfillment" was a mistake:

A spokesman told Sahara Reporters, external that it was "a typographic" error.

Laeila Adjovi
BBC Africa, Dakar

Image source, AFP

Senegal’s new international airport has opened ten years after construction began.

It is hoped Blaise Diagne International airport will become a regional hub with a capacity for three million passengers per year, up from 1.9 million.

The $600m (£447m) airport is in the town of Diass, 29 miles (47 km) from the Senegalese capital Dakar.

It is named after the first African to be elected as an MP in France, in 1914.

Senegal's President Macky Sall cut the ribbon of the new airport at noon and called it a "source of satisfaction and legitimate pride", before officials visited the control tower and watched the first take off.

Image source, AFP

Image source, AFP

The work was completed by a Turkish consortium after a dispute with the Saudi firm that started the building.

There is hope this new infrastructure will help expand the tourism sector in the country and boost the economy.

The airport is part of the "Emerging Senegal" plan, which includes a regional railway, and building the new city of Diamnadio on the outskirts of Dakar.

Image source, AFP

Abdinasir Ahmed Bashir
BBC Somali, Nairobi

Image source, Cumar Seerbiya/ Facebook

Somalia's first female music star has died at the age of 82.

Shamis Abokor Ismail, better known by her stage name Guduudo Carwo, began recording songs for radio as a teenager in the 1950s, after a group of musicians visiting her home in Hargeisa discovered her magnetic voice.

For many Somalis, the icon is remembered for her bravery in being the female voice to appear mainstream media which was then a taboo. She became a regular vocalist for Radio Hargeisa.

She was given the stage name Gududo Carwo to conceal her identity from her conservative family, but she would became very popular among Somalis in 1960s and 1970s when theater and songs became accepted cultural norms.

"Gududo Carwo is one of the greatest products of Somali stage history," says Omar Serbia, a Somali journalist specialising in the arts.

Her death is seen as a blow to Somalia's musical canon, which has already suffered significantly since the fall of central government in 1991. Since then stage acting has stopped, and legendary singers like Halimo Khalif Magol and Mohamed Saleban Tubec has passed away with few talents to replace them.

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

The South African police have summoned investigative journalist and author Jacques Pauw for questioning.

Mr Pauw recently published a book containing corruption allegations against president Jacob Zuma titled The President’s Keepers:

The South African National Editor’s Forum deputy chairperson Katy Katopodis told me that this is an intimidation tactic by the police.

She told me: “The work that these journalists are doing is not criminal.”

The book alleged that Mr Zuma had for four months received a "salary" from a businessman - over and above his government-paid presidential salary - and had failed to declare it to the tax collection agency, the South African Revenue Services.

After excerpts of the book were published in newspapers, Mr Zuma's spokesman issued a statement, denying any wrongdoing by the president and saying he was the victim of a "smear campaign".

"The tax matters of the president are in order," the statement added.

Mr Pauw says he stands by his work.

A Moroccan war dance and folk music from Botswana have been added to the UN's list of intangible cultural practices which face dying out.

This year, the Unesco List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding features six new entries -from Botswana, Colombia and Venezuela, Mongolia, Morocco, Turkey and the UAE. Their new status will help them attract international support to preserve their heritage.

People in Botswana are reviving Dikopelo - folk music which features singing and patterned choreography - by "competing with groups from other districts". Here is a performance:

Young people's disdain for tradition is blamed for the decline of the Moroccan war dance, Taskiwin, which is practised by communities in the Atlas mountains.

It involves shaking one’s shoulders to the rhythm of tambourines and flutes.

Image source, Unesco

Image source, Unesco

Image source, Stimmen Afrikas

The wife of prominent Cameroonian writer Patrice Nganang says he was arrested as he tried to board a flight out of the country and is now being held by the police.

This week, Mr Nganang, who is a professor at an American university, published an article in Jeune Afrique magazine in which he strongly criticised the government's response to the crisis in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon.

His wife, Naysha Bakare, told the BBC's Focus on Africa radio programme that she believed he had been detained because of the article.

Cameroonian police have not yet commented.

Image source, Reuters

Zimbabwe has taken steps towards ending its economic isolation in its first budget since the end of Robert Mugabe's 37-year authoritarian rule.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced a package of measures aimed at wooing international investors, including new curbs on laws that require firms to be 51% locally owned.

The Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, a flagship policy of Mr Mugabe's government, would apply only to the platinum and diamond sectors from now on, Mr Chinamasa said.

At the same time, export taxes on processed platinum would be deferred until 2019.

Privatisation of some state firms was also being considered, the minister added.

He also announced plans to cut spending as the government aims for a 2018 budget deficit of below 4% of GDP.

See earlier post for details

Abdulmalik Fahd Abdulmalik
BBC Pidgin

Mabel Emmanuel and Steven Ekhiator began a romance in a most unlikely place – detention camp for African migrants in Libya.

Theirs is a story of hope amidst the chaos.

It all started when Mabel asked to use Steven’s mobile phone to call her mother. She needed to urgently get money.

Upon hearing from a tearful Mabel that her mother could not send the money, he paid off her debts.

He told the BBC News Pidgin: “I must confess – I fell in love.”

Skip forward a good few months and Mabel gave birth to the couple’s son, David, in the detention camp.

The couple are among 401 Nigerians who returned home on two government-sponsored flights, overnight, on 5 December.

Speaking with the BBC News Pidgin shortly after they arrived Nigeria on 5 December, she said she was happy to be back home and looking towards a bright future raising her son with her partner.

“Libya is a terrible country, I won’t advise anyone to think about the place, or talk about going,” Steven added.

In the last ten months, over 4,000 citizens have been repatriated to Nigeria from Libya.

Many West Africans risk their lives on flimsy boats, trekking through the Sahara to get to Europe in search of greener pastures.

It’s a journey that neither Steven nor Mabel ever sees themselves embarking on again.

But Steven now has no regrets because he met Mabel.

“You can’t determine your wife-to-be, where you can find her, it can just happen suddenly,” he says.

Chris Ewokor
BBC Africa, Abuja

A prominent member of the Nigerian opposition has been abducted in central Nigeria.

Damishi Sango and his son were allegedly kidnapped, alongside three others on their way to Abuja to attend the party’s convention.

They were on their way to attend the People’s Democratic Party's national convention, which is happening this weekend.

The abduction on Wednesday is the latest in the wave of kidnapping across the country.

In November last year former Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bagudu Hirse, was kidnapped in Kaduna state.

Two months ago four Britons on missionary work were kidnapped in the Niger Delta. One of them, a medical doctor, was killed by the captors before they were set free three weeks later.

Andrew Harding
BBC News, Harare

Image source, Getty Images

In South Africa, the governing ANC party has warned members not to be influenced by bribery, as the party prepares to pick a successor to President Jacob Zuma.

Party spokesperson Zizi Kodwa acknowledged the danger, but tried to make light of it, telling a local radio station “if somebody... runs around with bags of money, take the money,” but don’t change your vote.

The race will be settled at the end of next week, when thousands of delegates vote in a secret ballot here in Johannesburg.

The party is bitterly divided between the two leading candidates Cyril Ramaphosa, and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Regional branches have already made their nominations - but the secret ballot means their delegates could be persuaded to change their minds.

Read more:

- Can Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma succeed her ex-husband as South Africa's president?

- Cyril Ramaphosa - the man who wants to make South Africa great

Chris Ewokor
BBC Africa, Abuja

Nigeria's customs authorities say they have seized 55 elephant tusks at the Cameroon border which were being smuggled into Nigeria.

It is not clear where the elephant tusks were headed.

The comptroller of the border area told the BBC that the tusks were of different sizes and weights but could not say how much they weighed.

Analysts believe the international price of tusks vary between $750 and $1,500 per kg.

In 2011, the Nigerian government introduced strict legislation to clamp down on the ivory trade, making it illegal to display, advertise, buy or sell ivory.

Image source, Getty Images

Zimbabwe's finance minister Patrick Chinamasa says his budget reflects a "new economic order”.

Our reporter Shingai Nyoka says Mr Chinamasa has announced sweeping cost-cutting measures in government to curb expenditure.

Others policies announced include:

• Retirement of those over 65
• End of first-class travel except for the president and vice-president
• Cutting down international travel
• Reducing embassies
• Abolishing Mugabe-era youth officers.

“Some of the measures are to restore market confidence to instill and uphold discipline policy consistency, clarity and predictably," Mr Chinamasa has said.

Armed police have been deployed to secure Liberia's Supreme Court ahead of a landmark ruling later today to determine whether there will be a run-off or re-run of the presidential election.

Our reporter, Jonathan Paye-Layleh, has sent this photo from outside the court in the capital Monrovia.

Image source, Jonathan Paye-Layleh/ BBC

See our earlier post for more details about the ruling expected today.

BBC World Service

Image source, Getty Images

The African Union says it now plans to repatriate 20,000 African migrants in detention centres in government-controlled parts of Libya in the next six weeks - an increase on previous plans.

African governments are under pressure to act after TV reports showed sub-Saharan Africans being sold as slaves in the country.

The AU said it was working to organise consular services for stranded migrants and landing rights for planes to fly them out of Libya.

Some countries have already begun flying their citizens back home.

Eden Habtemichael was one of the few female football referees in Eritrea, before she was forced to flee in fear of her life.

Now living in the UK, she has started a team to help young asylum seekers.

For more special content linked to this year's BBC African Footballer of the Year award, head tobbc.com/africanfootball. The winner will be revealed on Monday 11 December.

Bukayo Atiba
BBC News

Controversy has erupted in Nigeria over the arrest of campaigner Moses Motoni.

Mr Motoni is a member of BudgIT NG, a civil society group that encourages Nigerians to monitor government spending and was arrested and detained in Kaduna on Tuesday.

He was granted bail the next day.

According to a statement released on the Nigerian Police Force Facebook page, Mr Motoni was arrested on charges of "inciting public disturbance".

He claims he was helping locals in Niger state to monitor spending on a solar project commissioned by the government.

Mr Motoni also claimed the arrest was ordered by a Nigerian senator and told BBC Pidgin that he was arrested by the Intelligence Response Unit.

Image source, AFP

Surveillance software from an Israeli company has been used to spy on Ethiopian dissidents living abroad, says a Canadian research group.

Citizen Lab, based at the University of Toronto, says it has seen evidence that Ethiopian dissidents living in the UK, US and other countries had been sent emails containing malicious software with the intention of infecting their computers with surveillance tools.

Those tools, it says, are created by an Israeli defense contractor called Elbit Systems Ltd.

In its report, Citizen Lab says, external:

Elbit Systems Ltd has denied the report findings, saying in a statement: “The intelligence and defences agencies that purchase these products are obligated to use them in accordance with the applicable law."

The Ethiopian government has not commented on the report by Citizen Lab which lists a number of Oromo people and groups it says the government targeted.

Oromo people, who make up a third of Ethiopia's population, have long complained of being excluded from the country's political process and economic development.

Widespread anti-government protests by Oromo people began in 2015.

What's it like growing up gay in Nigeria? Lives of Great Men, by Chike Frankie Edozien, is the first memoir of its kind from the country.

"As a writer, this story was nagging at me," Edozien tells BBC Focus on Africa radio.

He noticed "a rush of anti-gay sentiment" in 2013, sensing "a shift in the gentle way that we as Africans acknowledged each others differences". The next year, Nigeria introduced a law prohibiting same-sex marriage.

Western narratives suggest that "gay people in Africa are under threat", he says, and on the continent the narrative is "this is something that was imported by the white man". He wants to debunk both ideas.

As well as telling the story of his life, the book tells the stories of other Africans who are gay, bi-sexual or somehow 'other' on the sexual spectrum.

A retired French doctor, Patrick Silberstein, has taken up the task of highlighting his country's colonial and slave-trading past by co-writing a book called A Guide to Colonial Paris.

"It's an insult to people who have conquered and brutally involved in our story", he says of the 200-plus streets in the French capital which are named after colonial figures and events.

He speaks to our colleagues at BBC Newsday in the clip below, who first gauged opinions from people on the streets of Paris: