Image source, Reuters

The father of a Christian girl being held by Boko Haram Islamist militants since February has told the BBC he is relieved to have heard her voice in a recently released audio recording.

Leah Sharibu was one of more than 100 girls kidnapped from the town of Dapchi, in the north-eastern state of Yobe. But unlike the others, she was not released in March, a month after their capture, as she reportedly refused to convert to Islam. Five other girls died in captivity.

Her father, Nathan Sharibu, has told BBC Pidgin that the recording has given the family hope:

In the 35-second audio recording, published by Nigeria’s Cable newspaper on Monday, the 15-year-old calls on the government to help her.

It is not clear when the recording was made and how the paper got hold of it, but the Cable says it may be part of attempts to renew negotiations.

Miss Sharibu is being held by a Boko Haram faction known as the Islamic State's West Africa Province (Iswap).

The Nigerian authorities said the secret service was analysing the recording.

Mr Sharibu said the whole family was pleading for the government to do more – as were “Christians and some Muslims that are praying for my daughter”.

Read more: Islamic State and the capture of Dapchi girls

Image source, AFP

A top jihadist leader from the Islamic State group’s West Africa affiliate has been killed in an airstrike in Mali, France’s military has said.

Commandos deployed to the ground after the airstrike confirmed the death of Mohamed Ag Almouner and one of his bodyguards, the army statement said.

It regretted that a woman and a teenager had also been killed in the strike that took place overnight on Sunday into Monday, it said.

Almouner belonged to the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) group, the army said.

Military spokesman Col Patrik Steiger told the AFP news agency that Almouner had been "a lieutenant to the ISGS chief".

According to AFP, ISGS is based on Mali's border with Burkina Faso and is also active in Niger.

It is led by Adnan Abu Walid Sahrawi, who was formerly a member of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and also co-led Mujao, a Malian Islamist group, AFP said.

French troops are currently in Mali leading counter-terrorism operations.

France has encouraged five regional countries to contribute troops to the 5,000-strong G5 Sahel Joint Force to take on terror groups, drug smuggling and human trafficking across the Sahara.

Read more: Why the Sahara is terror's new front line

Pumza Fihlani
BBC News, Johannesburg

Image source, Reuters

UK Prime Minister Theresa May is on a charm offensive. Addressing a forum of business leaders in Cape Town, she announced plans for a new partnership with many African countries - one which would be strongly focused on growth.

She gave assurances that it would not be a “lopsided dependence”.

This is the first visit by a UK prime minister to South Africa in five years - the last visit was by David Cameron when he came for Nelson Mandela’s memorial.

This visit was prompted by Brexit - with the UK leaving the European Union next year it needs to strengthen its trade agreements around the world, and Africa is a growing market.

Mrs May’s address was peppered with flattery about the continent’s potential as well as noting concerns about challenges around security and poverty. She promised a mutually beneficial relationship.

Some say the UK is late to the trade party, with countries like China already having firm trade partnerships across Africa.

If indeed the prime minister’s undertakings are realised, the renewed relationship would create some much-needed jobs here.

Africa is changing, re-imagining itself and rejecting the label of the “dark continent”. Many in South Africa, and indeed across the continent, will be keen to see how the UK, which has at times been criticised for being too focused on aid rather than trade, demonstrates its shift to seeing the continent as an equal partner at the table.

After her speech in Cape Town, British Prime Minister Theresa May was asked by a journalist about land reform in South Africa.

Last month, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government would go ahead with plans to amend the constitution, allowing land to be expropriated without compensation.

It prompted a tweet on Friday from US President Donald Trump, referring to land seizures and the killing of farmers, which South Africa’s government said was “misinformed”.

Mrs May said she welcomed Mr Ramaphosa’s assurances that there would not be land grabbing and that any land reform would be done in legal way.

Read more: Is land reform an election gimmick?

Theresa May, the UK prime minister, has given her speech in Cape Town, saying that she regards the countries she’s visiting this week – South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya - as key partners and thriving democracies, typical of 21st Century Africa.

She pointed to the fact that five of the fast-growing economies were in Africa and the GDP of the continent was set to double between 2015 and 2030.

By 2050 a quarter of the world’s population and the world’s consumers would live on the continent, she said.

However, some of world’s poorest people were in Africa too, so achieving inclusive growth was a challenge, she added.

African leaders have told her the greatest challenge they face is creating jobs.

She says she’s proposing a new partnership with African, one built around shared prosperity.

She announced plans for a £4bn ($5.1bn) programme of UK investment in Africa's economies – to be matched by a similar amount by the private sector.

She also said:

• The UK would be back getting a permanent presence for Africa on the UN Security Council
• The UK would give back huge sums of money illegally taken from Kenya
• The UK would be opening new embassies in Chad and Niger.

The main thrust of her speech was that the UK’s investment on the continent, while not as big as other nations, would be over the long-term.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has started a tour of Africa with her dancing shoes on.

South Africa's foreign ministry has tweeted this photo of her dancing with secondary school students in Gugulethu in Cape Town:

During her visit Mrs May will announce plans to boost investment on the continent.

In a speech in Cape Town, she's expected to say that the UK should be the biggest G7 investor across Africa within four years, overtaking the United States.

The trip aims to expand trade with the continent as the UK prepares to leave the European Union next year.

Mrs May's first trip to Africa as prime minister will also take her to Kenya and Nigeria.

Read the BBC News story for more

Image source, AFP

A group supporting Nigeria’s 75-year-old President Muhammadu Buhari has rubbished a claim by his US counterpart Donald Trump who reportedly described him as “lifeless”.

The Buhari Media Organisation said in a statement:

“President Muhammadu Buhari is fit and capable to run for the 2019 elections and oversee the affairs of the country for four more years President Donald Trump's hate speech notwithstanding."

It added that it was not unusual for the US president to make derogatory remarks at the expense of other leaders.

"We are aware that President Trump's disrespect for world leaders is not new; his comments on Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, calling him 'meek and mild'; his reference to Germany's leader, Angela Merkel's actions as 'insane', or his outlandish tweet at the UK's Theresa May, and more recently, the alleged remarks he made after meeting President Buhari.”

An unnamed person in contact with US and Kenyan officials told the Financial Times in an artile that Mr Trump told his aides he never again wanted to meet someone so lifeless as Nigeria's president.

Read more: How Trump stirred controversy in Nigeria

Kenya’ President Uhuru Kenyatta says he asked President Donald Trump for more US investment in Africa during talks at the White House.

He tweeted photographs of his visit and said the two men discussed security and the fight against terrorism as well as trade ties.

Mr Trump also tweeted of his welcome to his Kenyan counterpart:

Mr Kenyatta said the two leaders also discussed the direct flights between Nairobi to New York by Kenya Airways, external that are set to commence in October.

“The flights are set to boost tourism and trade for the mutual benefit of our two countries,” he tweeted.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) - a duty-free arrangement between the US and some African countries - would be one of the main areas that is set to benefit from the direct flights, he said.

China has overtaken the US in recent years as Kenya's largest foreign investor.

Earlier on Monday, Mr Kenyatta announced that he had overseen the signing of deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars with American organisations.

Later this week, he will host the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, before travelling to Beijing for the China-Africa summit.

Our proverb of the day:

Image source, Getty Images

Click here to send in your African proverbs.

Welcome back to BBC Africa Live where we'll be bringing you latest news and views from around the continent.

BBC Africa Live
Farouk Chothia

That's all from BBC Africa Live for now. Don't forget to join us on Tuesday. Until then, 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 Monday's wise words:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with a photo from our gallery of the annual Chale Wote street art festival in Ghana:

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Police in Ethiopia have arrested the former president of the country's Somali region. Abdi Mohammed Omar is expected to be charged with human rights violations, including instigating ethnic and religious violence.

He was forced to step down earlier this month after the federal government deployed troops to the Somali region. The standoff left dozens of people dead.

Human rights groups have long condemned the ex-president's role in commanding a notorious police unit accused of carrying out killings, torture and other violations.

In recent months the unit was implicated in ethnic clashes between Somalis and Oromos, which caused hundreds of thousands to be displaced.

Read: What is behind the clashes?

BBC Sport

Image source, Getty Images

Liverpool and Egypt forward Mohamed Salah has accused the Egyptian Football Association of ignoring his complaints over image rights.

Salah, 26, was upset his image was used in April to promote official sponsor WE when he had a deal with rival telecommunications company Vodafone.

The EFA denied suggestions that Salah has refused to play against Niger next month because of the row.

Read the full BBC story here

Zimbabwe's opposition MDC Alliance is trying to raise $129,000 (£100,000) to pay legal fees after the country's highest court dismissed its application to annul President Emmerson Mnangagwa's victory in heavily disputed elections in July.

The Constitutional Court's ruling was "against overwhelming public opinion", and "worse still, it carried a punitive condition requiring [MDC Alliance candidate] Nelson Chamisa to foot the legal costs of everyone involved", its fund-raising page says.

More than £9,000 had been raised in the first day.

Mr Chamisa's spokesman has tweeted about it:

Mr Chamisa boycotted Mr Mnangagwa's inauguration in the capital, Harare, on Sunday.

He maintains that the result was rigged to give Mr Mnangagwa outright victory.

Ousted President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace were also absent from the inauguration. However, their daughter, Bona, and her husband, Simba Chikore, were present.

Mr Mugabe had backed Mr Chamisa in the election, despite the fact that he once saw him as an "enemy" and a "puppet" of the West.

In his inauguration speech, Mr Mnangagwa read out a letter from Mr Mugabe amid cheers from the crowd, the state-linked Herald newspaper reported.

“Your Excellency, thank you for your invitation to me and my wife to attend the inauguration ceremony. My wife is not well in Singapore and also I am not well. So I am sending my daughter and her husband to represent us. Hearty Congratulations,” the letter said.

The military forced Mr Mugabe, 94, to resign in November, opening the way for Mr Mnangagwa to take power.

The wife of Ugandan pop star and MP Bobi Wine, who has been charged with treason, has written a moving tribute to her husband on their seventh wedding anniversary.

In a Facebook post written before he was freed on bail, Barbie Kyagulanyi said:

Alhassan Sillah
BBC Africa, Conakry

Three youths in Guinea, who were arrested after trying to give Prime Minister Kassory Fofana a black cockerel as a gift, have been released from police custody.

Image source, Getty Images

The prime minister had gone at the weekend to the eastern town of Kankan, a stronghold of the governing party, the Rally of the Guinean People (RPG).

He was addressing party supporters in the town's youth centre when the three men attempted to present him with the cockerel, eyewitnesses said.

Black cocks are seen as a bad omen in many local cultures here so it seems the intended gift was interpreted as malicious.

The three were arrested by the prime minister's bodyguards with the help of police.

Sources in Kankan say they have now been freed without charge.

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

The Ethiopian government has terminated its contract with a military-linked company to help build a controversial $4bn (£3.11bn) dam on the River Nile.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accused the Ethiopian company of lacking the relevant experience to work on the Grand Renaissance Dam project, which is mainly being built by an Italian firm.

The move is the latest in a raft of reforms carried out by Mr Abiy since he came to power in April.

Mr Abiy said the Metals and Engineering Corporation (Metec) had not even seen a piece of infrastructure like the Grand Renaissance Dam, let alone built one.

Metec, which comes under the ministry of defence, has now lost the contract to install the vast turbines for the delayed project.

The move against a firm which for years was run by retired military personnel is another sign that Mr Abiy is not afraid to shake up the status quo with radical reforms.

The military has long been involved in Ethiopia's tightly controlled economy but the prime minister is changing that.

He has already replaced members of the Metec board and several of its industrial contracts have been cancelled.

Read: The 'water war' brewing over the new dam

Image source, Getty Images

Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa must beat Guinea's Horoya at home on Tuesday to reach the quarter-finals of this season's African Champions League.

Sundowns are three points behind Horoya in Group C which means they have to win this final group fixture to reach the last eight along with holders Wydad Casablanca who lead the group.

Two other quarter-final places are also up for grabs from the final round of group matches with only group winners and runners-up qualifying.

Pitso Mosimane, who coached Sundowns to the 2016 Champions League title, is optimistic despite his team failing to score in their past three matches in all competitions.

"We will win against Horoya," he insists. "We are a good team and playing at home, where we are very strong."

Read the full BBC story here

Georgie Ndirangu
BBC Africa

Image source, Getty Images

South Sudan has announced that it will resume pumping oil next month in areas where it was suspended in 2013 because of the civil war.

Production is expected to return to its normal average of 375,000 barrels per day in three years, with an anticipated 210,000 barrels by the end of this year.

South Sudan’s output currently stands at 130,000 barrels per day.

The areas where production is to resume are in Unity State.

The country's economy is heavily dependent on crude oil production and expects to meet these targets following the completion of maintenance work by the end of the year.

The move to increase production is part of a ceasefire agreement reached by President Salva Kiir, rebel leader Riek Machar and other armed groups to end years of civil war.

The conflict has led to the killing of tens of thousands and the displacement of many more.

Ugandan pop star has walked out of police cells in the northern town of Gulu after a court granted him bail, a leading privately owned television station station reports: