The spread of misinformation and fake news is the biggest threat to Nigeria’s 2019 elections, according to the country’s information minister Lai Mohammed.

Fake stories have ranged from claims that opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar wants corruption to work in Nigeria to a rumour that President Muhammadu Buhari has been replaced by a clone from Sudan.

Ahead of the BBC's conference aimed at tackling fake news, the BBC's Mayeni Jones spoke to three first-time voters in Abuja about how they navigate a complicated landscape of information.

Listen to their interview on BBC Newsday:

Speaking at the conference, Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka said the social networking site Facebook also had to take responsibility for the spread of fake news, as the BBC's Yemesi Adegoke tweets:

To find out about the latest debates, follow Yemisi on Twitter, as she will be tweeting throughout the conference.

And the whole conference is being live-streamed on Facebook:

Ferdinand Omondi
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Hundreds of protesters have marched in Sudan’s capital Khartoum in support of President Omar al-Bashir.

Sudan’s ruling party organised the pro-Bashir demonstration after weeks of sustained anti-government protests throughout the country in which at least 10 people have been killed.

State-owned Sudan TV has been showing images of the rally in support of President Omar al-Bashir at the Green Square in the capital, Khartoum.

People at the rally waving Sudanese flags are said to have been expressing the need for unity in the country.

But anti-government protesters were also expected to march to the National Assembly to hand over a memorandum to the Speaker calling on the government to resign.

President Omar al-Bashir is under pressure from activists to stand down over the spiralling cost of living.

The protests were triggered last month by a sharp rise in the price of bread, but have now turned into a clamour for regime change.

They are seen as the biggest threat yet to President Bashir’s nearly 30-year rule.

Emmanuel Igunza
BBC Africa, Addis Ababa

Image source, Getty Images

Residents of the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia have blocked military trucks that have been withdrawing from the border with Eritrea.

It is the second time they have prevented the armoured military vehicles from leaving the border areas.

Last month Ethiopia announced it had started withdrawing its troops from disputed territories along the border with Eritrea as part of the peace deal signed last July between the two countries.

The agreement ended two decades of a bitter border dispute that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people between 1998 and 2000.

Angry youth in Tigray region have questioned the movement of troops saying they need clarity about regional security once the military leaves.

They blocked the military trucks from leaving Shire and Zalambessa areas where they had been stationed.

But, addressing media in the state capital Mekelle, regional president Dr Debretsion Gebremichael urged residents not to block the military's movements, saying it could lead to conflict.

The incidents are the latest stand-off between residents and leaders of the region and the new government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Tigray is run by the once-powerful Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), whose leaders accuse Mr Abiy’s administration of targeting their community.

Louise Dewast
Kinshasa, DR Congo

Image source, AFP

Tension is growing in the Democratic Republic of Congo where results of recent presidential elections are expected in the coming days.

The electoral commission was to publish results last Sunday but said they needed more time.

Its officials are currently deliberating and evaluating presidential election results - after which they will announce a winner.

Their meeting started on Tuesday evening and could last two or three days.

A spokesperson for the electoral commission has told BBC News that deliberations usually take between 24 and 48 hours, however they said that there are no limitations and the board will announce provisional results when they are ready.

A heavy riot police presence was seen in the capital, blocking access to the electoral commission office.

There are widespread concerns that a contested result could spark unrest.

The country's powerful Catholic church has called on the authorities to reflect the will of the people in the results.

Image source, AFP

Sudan-born telecoms billionaire Mo Ibrahim has told the BBC that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should drop charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir if he agrees to step down.

He was talking in reaction to protests in Sudan demanding Mr Bashir to resign:

President Bashir is accused by the ICC of organising war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur - allegations he denies.

Theoretically it means he could be arrested in any country which is a member of the ICC.

Mr Ibrahim founded a $5m (£3.2m) prize that is awarded each year to an African leader who governed well, raised living standards and then left office.

When asked if Mr Bashir would ever be considered for the prize Mr Ibrahim told BBC Focus on Africa, "You must be joking."

Our proverb of the day:

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

Welcome back to BBC Africa Live where we will bring you the latest news from around the continent.

Dickens Olewe
BBC Africa

That's all from BBC Africa Live for now. You can 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 Tuesday's wise words:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

We leave with this picture of a man weaving baskets in a market in Senegal's capital, Dakar.

Kenyan schoolgirls are not forced to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM) inspections, Kenyan authorities said on Tuesday, according to news agency Reuters.

The commissioner for Narok county proposed compulsory tests on Friday and sparked an outrage.

George Natembeya said girls returning to school after the Christmas break were being screened for FGM in order to prosecute their parents and cutters, according to Reuters.

Kenya's Anti-FGM Board said they had conducted an investigation in Narok after Mr Natembeya's statement and found no evidence of girls being tested.

An estimated 200 million girls and women worldwide have undergone FGM, which usually involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia, according to the UN.

The Senegal team which beat France at the 2002 World Cup faced off against a team of African legends on Monday evening.

It was part of the programme for the 2019 CAF awards which are being held in the Senegalese capital Dakar on Tuesday.

Kennedy Gondwe
BBC News, Lusaka

Image source, AFP

Zambia’s President Edgar Lungu is travelling to South Africa for a meeting with his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, over the political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A statement issued by Amos Chanda, Mr Lungu's spokesman, says the meeting is “urgent”.

DR Congo’s electoral commission had planned to release provisional results of the 30 December presidential election on Sunday.

However, it has not yet done so. Electoral officials cited delays in the delivery of voting ballots.

DR Congo's influential Catholic church says it knows the winner of the poll and urged the electoral body to release results that will be a true reflection of how people voted.

Zambia is currently home to more than 60,000 DR Congo refugees who have fled conflict.

The presidency also said that Mr Lungu would undergo his annual medical review while in South Africa.

Houari Manar, one of the most popular singers of Algerian folk music rai, has died aged 38, Algerian media report.

He died of a heart attack in a clinic in Algiers where he was undergoing plastic surgery.

An investigation has been opened to know the exact circumstances of his death, French investigative website Médiapart reports., external

The announcement of his death has created a stir on social media.

Manar had a large fan-base in North Africa and France. Some fans quickly travelled to the clinic where their idol died, HuffPost Maghreb reports., external

The controversial singer also had many critics because of his "bold" look and socially sensitive topics in his lyrics, such as homosexuality.

Monday's coup attempt in Gabon is the first there since the 1960s.

A small group of junior military soldiers tried to take charge to "restore democracy".

The government has said the plot has been defeated and the situation is "under control".

President Ali Bongo is currently receiving medical treatment in Morocco. His family has ruled Gabon since 1967.

But is Africa shaking off its reputation for coups?

Since the 1950s, there've been a total of 204 coups d'état - successful or otherwise - in Africa, according to a dataset compiled by two US political scientists, Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne, who are based at the University of Central Florida and the University of Kentucky respectively.

Their definition of a coup is that they are illegal and overt attempts by the military or other civilian officials inside the state to unseat sitting leaders.

However, the definition of a coup is often contested and in the past, military leaders have denied they're conducting them.

Read more: Is Africa seeing fewer military takeover attempts?

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has offered condolences to the victims of a train accident in the capital Pretoria on Tuesday morning.

Three people died in the accident.

“I have learned with sadness of the train accident, with three fatalities at this point and over 600 being attended to at various hospitals, mostly with light injuries. Our thoughts are with those who lost their lives and their families. To the injured I would like to wish you all a speedy recovery,” he said.

Burundian soul singer JP Bimeni is riding a wave of critical acclaim for his debut album, Free Me.

Recalling tones of Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye but imbued with the soul of his home country, Bimeni delivers songs of love and loss, hope and fear with a conviction that comes from the extraordinary experiences life has thrown at him

A US professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is accusing technology giants Facebook and Google of promoting false information on their platforms about the presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In a post on Medium , externalEthan Zuckerman shared screengrabs of advertisements on the two platforms declaring Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the ruling party's candidate, as the winner.

The electoral commission said provisional results of last week's election were delayed because less than half the ballots had arrived.

The authorities have promised credible elections.

Mr Shadary and opposition politicians Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi are the main candidates in the race to succeed Mr President Joseph Kabila.

The influential Catholic Church, which deployed 40,000 observers during the 30 December election, said that it knows who won the election. Its statement has been condemned by officials in Mr Kabila's government.

The government has also limited internet access in the country.

"So why are ads on Google and Facebook, apparently targeted towards internet users in DRC’s neighbor, Congo-Brazzaville, declaring Emmanuel Shadary to be DRC’s new president?" Mr Zuckerman asked in his post.

"Facebook and Google’s powerful ad systems may be being used to reinforce election fraud, either by targeting these ads to Brazzaville or to DRC itself, where a small number of people are still on the internet," he added.

He said that he is collecting similar images so that "we can ask Google and Facebook to prevent the transmission of false information that could be used to cement a stolen election".

Kennedy Gondwe
BBC News, Lusaka

Authorities in Zambia have ordered a local manufacturer to stop the production and distribution of an energy drink that reportedly caused a prolonged erection in a man.

The move comes after the Uganda National Drug Authority (NDA) said in a letter dated 28 December that it had tested samples from a bottle of Natural Power SX after a customer complained of constant sweating and an erection lasting nearly six hours.

NDA said the drink contained sildenafil citrate used to treat erectile dysfunction.

The drink is manufactured by Revin Zambia Limited, a company located in Ndola in the north of the country.

The company's General Manager, Vikas Kapoor, told the BBC's Newsday programme that to the best of his knowledge the energy drink does not contain any drugs.

In a joint statement, the Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority, the Ndola City Council and the Zambia Bureau of Standards said they had instituted investigations in the matter and will release the findings to the public:

“Officers from the three institutions are on the ground to collect samples of the raw materials and of the finished product for analytical tests that will determine if there is any truth to the claims being made.

“The outcome of this investigation will be communicated to the public as soon as results are released," the statement said.

In Uganda, authorities have begun to impound the energy drink.

The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has announced that Egypt will host the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.

Egypt beat South Africa, the only other nation to submit, in a vote held at a Caf Executive Committee meeting.

Original host nation Cameroon was stripped of staging the tournament in November because of slow preparations.

Egypt, which will host the tournament for a fifth time, has just six months to prepare for the expanded 24-team finals, which kick off in June.

Caf has since offered Cameroon the chance to stage the finals in two years' time, which has meant that the original hosts for both the 2021 and 2023 finals have been asked to delay their tournaments.

Caf had originally planned to name the new hosts on Wednesday.

Read More on BBC Sport

Egypt's football association has posted a celebratory tweet.

Mozambique's former finance minister Manuel Chang has appeared in a court in South Africa's capital, Pretoria, for a hearing over a US extradition request over alleged fraud.

He was arrested as part of an operation targeting individuals accused of involvement in a $2bn (£1.5bn) fraud scheme connected to firms in Mozambique.

Chang denies any wrongdoing.

He would challenge the lawfulness of his arrest as police had not received a formal extradition request, his lawyers said, Reuters news agency reported.

Some Mozambicans gathered outside the court in Pretoria to support his extradition.

Three former employees of the Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse were arrested in London last week.

US prosecutors say that through a series of financial transactions between approximately 2013 and 2016, they created fraudulent maritime projects and used state-owned companies in Mozambique as fronts to raise $2bn.

Credit Suisse made clear that no action had been taken against the bank itself.

Some of the investors defrauded included US nationals, the indictment says.

It added that they "intentionally diverted portions of the loan proceeds to pay at least $200m in bribes and kickbacks to themselves, Mozambican government officials and others".

The state-owned companies missed more than $700m in loan payments after defaulting in 2016 and 2017, the indictment adds.

Mozambique's government revealed in 2016 to undisclosed lending, prompting the IMF and foreign donors to cut off support, triggering a currency collapse and a default on Mozambique’s sovereign debt. It is still struggling to overcome the resultant debt crisis.

On Monday Mozambique authorities announced that 18 people, including Mr Chang, had been indicted.

The attorney general's office said it would seek to have those charged in the US and elsewhere to face charges in Mozambique.

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

Africa’s oldest liberation movement - the African National Congress (ANC) - turns 107 today.

South Africa’s governing party since the end of apartheid in 1994 is celebrating this milestone amid deep divisions, factionalism and a litany of corruption allegations.

Birthday celebrations are planned for this weekend in the coastal city of Durban where President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to deliver the party’s annual birthday statement.

It was on this day in 1912 when African leaders gathered in the central town of Bloemfontein to fight against colonialism and the scourge of racial oppression, which later became known as apartheid.

President Ramaphosa has been using the birthday to campaign ahead of this year’s general election:

Speaking to a small crowd gathered in Ohlange, near Durban, where the first president of the ANC, John Langalibalele Dube, is buried, Mr Ramaphosa said: