Image source, The Arsenal Football Club/ Getty Images

Nigerians on Twitter have been praising Arsenal football star Bukayo Saka during his trip to Nigeria, with his latest visit being to Kwara State in the western-central area of the country.

"Kwara is blessed with so many great people spread around the world," one person tweeted, external.

There is a picture of him alongside, external people said to be his grandparents in the state.

The 21-year-old star, who recently signed a new deal to stay at Arsenal until 2027, has been in Nigeria for almost a week.

A few days ago he had a meeting with Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

He has thanked Nigerians for the warm welcome he has received, with people eager to photograph and greet him on his travels.

Saka was born in London to Nigerian parents in 2001 and has chosen to play for England at international level.

Nicolas Negoce
BBC News, Dakar

Image source, Getty Images

The Senegalese government says it has reinstated internet access for mobile phones, although the connection has proved to be problematic for many on Wednesday, even for those using virtual private networks (VPNs).

In its statement, the communications ministry had said access to some social media platforms would remain restricted.

This follows deadly protests that erupted last week after opposition leader Ousmane Sonko was sentenced in absentia to two years in jail for immoral behaviour, but cleared of rape charges.

His supporters fear the conviction could prevent the 48-year-old from contesting next year's presidential election. Sonko, who is also mayor of the southern city of Ziguinchor, said the case against him was politically motivated and effectively remains under house arrest in the capital, Dakar.

More than 100 civil society organisations and opposition groups have called for more demonstrations this coming Friday and Saturday over suspicions that President Macky Sall might seek a third term - although he has not confirmed that he will.

The government says the internet shutdown was necessary to stop hateful and subversive messages and videos, but rights groups accuse it of censorship.

In addition to hindering opposition protests, it hampered many businesses - including those in the informal sector that rely on the internet for their day-to-day operations.

More on this topic:

• What you need to know about Ousmane Sonko and his arrest
• A quick guide to Senegal
• What do young Senegalese want in a leader?

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, AFP

Two state governments in Nigeria have reduced the working week to three days for state employees.

The move is to help them cope with increased petrol costs, following the federal government announcement to scrap fuel subsidies.

Nigeria is currently struggling to control the rising cost of transportation, which is affecting many citizens.

The Edo and Kwara states governments’ announcement will fuel debate in the public and private sectors about measures to help workers cope with the rising costs.

Public service staff across Nigeria work five days a week, but there’s still a lot of confusion about the fate of employees in the private sector where some are required to work for six days a week.

There are also indications that other states may adopt the new model.

Nigeria’s federal government has said it has set up a team to evaluate agreements reached with organised labour on how to reduce the impact of rising costs.

The unions shelved their planned strike action on Wednesday, following a court order.

Didier Bikorimana
BBC Great Lakes Service

Image source, AFP

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has sacked more than 200 soldiers, including senior military officers.

Maj Gen Aloys Muganga, commander of the army's mechanised division, and Brig Gen Francis Mutiganda are among 16 officers who have been dismissed.

Another 228 soldiers of other ranks have also been kicked out.

The statement, released by the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) in the early hours on Wednesday, gave no reason for the sackings.

The move comes a day after Mr Kagame reshuffled top military officers, firing a defence minister and army chief at the same time and announcing their replacements - uncommon in Rwanda.

Gen Muganga is a graduate of US War College and served as commander of reserve forces from 2018 to 2019.

Gen Mutiganda had been head of external security in the National Intelligence and Security Services (Niss) until 2018 when Mr Kagame redeployed him to RDF headquarters.

The reshuffle and sacking come at a time of heightened tension between Rwanda and neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, each side accusing the other of working with rebels to topple one another’s governments.

Thomas Naadi
BBC News, Accra

Image source, Getty Images

The police in Ghana have been fined more than $8,800 (£7,100) for failing to release information over alleged brutality in compliance with a directive by a commission.

Ghana's Right to Information Commission had directed the police to provide the information requested by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) Africa, an international non-governmental organisation that focuses on access to justice.

The commission in a statement said that the police had breached the law and imposed an administrative fine which the police are required to pay within 14 days.

It further stated that police had undermined the right of access to information. There will be an additional penalty interest of 10% if they fail to comply.

The police have often come under severe criticism and scrutiny over reports of brutality and rights abuse against individuals including journalists.

In most cases police personnel are hardly held accountable, perpetuating a culture of impunity.

Sierra Leone and Algeria have been elected non-permanent members of the UN Security Council representing Africa.

Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio termed the election “a generational accomplishment” .

He said it “represented our unique success as a democratic and peaceful country of resilience” that had successfully transitioned from war to peace.

Guyana, Republic of Korea and Slovenia were also elected following a vote by the General Assembly on Tuesday.

The five will join Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland as non-permanent members of the Council.

The new members will take up their seats on 1 January and will serve until 31 December 2025.

The Security Council is composed of 15 countries, five of which - China, France, Russia, the UK and the US – are permanent members with a right to veto any resolution.

Image source, UN-IRMCT

A UN court has ruled that ageing Rwandan genocide suspect Félicien Kabuga is unfit to stand trial.

The Hague-based International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals said it finds that “Félicien Kabuga is unfit to participate meaningfully in his trial and is very unlikely to regain fitness in the future".

It has called for an "alternative" legal procedure that “resembles a trial as closely as possible, but without the possibility of a conviction”.

The trial of Mr Kabuga, 88, was put on hold in March over health concerns.

He was arrested in Paris in 2020 after evading capture for 26 years.

He is accused of being the primary financier of the militia and political groups that perpetrated the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

He went on trial in The Hague last September, accused of setting up hate media that urged ethnic Hutus to kill rival Tutsis and supplying death squads with machetes.

He denied the charges.

Read more:

• How Félicien Kabuga evaded capture for 26 years

Image source, Interior Ministry Kenya/Twitter

Kenya’s interior minister says the government will convert the Shakahola forest, where more than 250 members of a Christian cult followers died, into a national memorial.

Kithure Kindiki said once the recovery of the bodies buried in the 800-acre forest was complete, the place will be turned into “a place of remembrance” so that people don’t forget what happened there.

He said the government had enough evidence to prosecute the leader of the cult and the main suspect, Pastor Paul Mackenzie, for genocide after he allegedly convinced his followers to fast to death in order to go to heaven.

Most of the victims, including children, died of starvation but some were strangled, beaten, or suffocated, according to autopsy reports.

The minister spoke on Tuesday at the start of the third phase of exhumation, when nine more bodies were recovered.

Since the operation started in April, 251 bodies have been recovered. Ninety-five people have been rescued from the forest and 35 suspects arrested.

Mr Kindiki said investigations had shown that the cult's activities extended beyond the Shakahola forest and that investigations had extended to the larger 37,000-acre Chakama ranch in the area.

He said security roads were being constructed to provide access to the expansive area as search and rescue operations and investigations continued.

Read more:

• Kenya cult: Children targeted to die first, pastor says
• The mother who fled Shakahola forest to save her children
• My wife and six children followed Pastor Mackenzie

Image source, AFP

Senegal has temporarily closed its consulates abroad following attacks on diplomatic missions in Bordeaux, Milan, Paris and New York among others.

The foreign affairs ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the precautionary measure followed “a series of aggressions that caused serious damage”.

It said the consulate in Milan had been particularly hard hit, with passport-making machines and identity cards damaged.

The closures come amid political tensions in Senegal following the sentencing of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko last week to two years in prison which led to deadly protests.

Italian media reported on Monday that about 40 Sonko supporters had gathered outside the consulate with flags and anti-government signs - breaking in and ransacking the offices before the police intervened.

Senegal's foreign ministry says consulate services will resume “as soon as material and security conditions allow”.

Our proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

Black women in the North African country are looked down on and made to feel that they do not belong.

A campus where foreigners were staying was attacked, killing 10 people, DR Congo says.

That's all from the BBC Africa Live team for now. We'll be back on Wednesday morning.

Until then you can follow the latest news at BBCAfrica.com or listen to our new Focus on Africa podcast.

A reminder of Tuesday's wise words:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

We leave you with a photo of a man dressed in plastic waste in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan, highlighting awareness about the damage it causes to the environment:

Image source, Getty Images

BBC Monitoring

Two African migrants were injured in an attack on a military pick-up truck in the central Yemeni province of Marib on Monday, a local news site has reported.

An explosive device planted in the truck detonated, wounding the two migrants who were nearby, Aden al-Ghad reports.

The website did not give further details.

Domestic media have reported in recent days of military operations by Houthi rebels various parts of Yemen.

BBC World Service

Image source, Getty Images

Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has travelled to Tunisia to discuss the issue of irregular migration.

Ms Meloni's visit follows a call between her and President Kais Saied earlier this week, to address border surveillance and repatriation of undocumented migrants who cross the Mediterranean.

There's been an increase in racist assaults on sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia since an incendiary speech in February by President Saied.

Ms Meloni has warned Europe could face a huge wave of asylum seekers.

Tunisian media say her visit will put more pressure on the country "to play the role of Europe's coastguard".

BBC Africa Daily podcast

Agnes Nambozo has been a nurse for 13 years, giving vaccines and health information often to very remote villages in eastern Uganda.

A recent video of her clambering up a rickety wooden ladder on the side of a mountain without safety gear astonished the country's health minister, who called her "nurse of the year" in a viral post.

So has this changed Agnes’s life?

Apparently not.

While she feels good to be recognised, her life and work are still exactly the same, Agnes tells the BBC Africa Daily podcast. Her greatest wish is to meet the minister, Jane Ruth Aceng, so she can ask her to improve the roads and the ladders that nurses like her have to use.

Agnes is remarkably calm when she talks about her job reaching remote mountain communities in Nataba parish, in Bulambuli District.

The climb up the now-infamous ladder is especially treacherous during the rainy season, but she says it’s used by the community year round: children climb down it to go to school, villagers use it while carrying produce like potatoes to market on their heads, and "when there’s an emergency, they use these local stretchers to carry people down to the health facility."

At the beginning, none of the nurses in her team wanted to go up the ladder because of the risk so, as the team leader in charge of delivering vaccinations, Agnes felt compelled to "be courageous, and I climbed, and it was ok".

At the top she found a community of about 300 people living in two villages. Now she sometimes climbs up five times a week, depending on the needs of the community.

But she has had narrow escapes. She says her most scary moment was when, at eight months pregnant, she slipped and fell from a smaller ladder.

"Three to four steps down I slipped and I rolled over five times and I was alone," Agnes says.

Fortunately both she and her baby were unharmed.

So why does she do it? She says if she didn't, pregnant women would have to climb down and travel a long way to get care - and that children would miss out on important services like vaccinations.

She thinks about what it would be like for her parents if they lived in such a remote village.

"I just have love for my people… I put myself in their shoes and I’m like, 'let me reach those people'. I feel their pain," Agnes says.

Listen to the full interview on the Africa Daily podcast.

Many refugees are relieved to cross the Metema bridge from Sudan into Ethiopia. But getting there is extremely dangerous.

Image source, Getty Images

South African news sites have been reporting on a memorial service held in honour of renowned journalist and political commentator Eusebius McKaiser, whose sudden death last week at the age of 45 shocked the nation.

News24, external reports that people were requested to bring to the memorial one of his great loves, books, rather than flowers, that would be donated to a charity.

"The request was just one of the many ways the broadcaster, author and political analyst was remembered for his intellectual prowess and eloquence in communicating his sometimes radical and passionate ideas," the site reports.

SowetanLive, external reports that vocalist Lyla Faye performed Revolution by Tracy Chapman, while all the speakers described him as "extremely intelligent, witty, full of love and passionate".

In his address, McKaiser's partner Nduduzo Nyanda said: "What I'll miss the most are our Sunday nights and our rituals. I'll miss his cheesy music, his love of 80s music. What I'll miss the most is knowing I have somebody who loved fully and who gave himself fully."

McKaiser died after suffering a suspected epileptic seizure.

He was outspoken about racism and a strong advocate of the rights of the LGBT community.

McKaiser hosted talk shows and wrote columns for various local and international publications.

Alfred Lasteck
BBC News, Dar es Salaam

Tanzania's justice minister has defended the government over accusations of forcefully relocating the Maasai people from their ancestral land near the Serengeti National Park.

Damas Ndumbaro described as "misleading" a report by Amnesty International that accused security forces of repeatedly using excessive force to evict the Maasai in the northern Loliondo region.

The rights group said police carried out arbitrary arrests and shot at people.

The minister told the BBC that government had only sought to demarcate a 4,000 sq km (1,544 sq miles) area that was a game-controlled area, established by the German colonial government.

He said local people had invaded the area after independence in 1961 to an extent that it could no longer be used for conservation, and the government had donated about two-thirds of the land to the communities there.

The minister said the police had acted calmly despite locals confronting them with crude weapons.

“Our police behaved very professionally in last year's’ demarcation exercise. They did not react because they respect human rights,” he said, adding that a policeman was killed and the accused were being tried in court in accordance with the rule of law..

Samba Cyuzuzo
BBC Great Lakes

Image source, Salomon Idi Kalonda/Twitter

The right-hand man of the Democratic Republic of Congo's main opposition leader, Moïse Katumbi, has been accused by the army of colluding with a rebel group to plan a coup.

Salomon Idi Kalonda was arrested last week at the airport in the capital, Kinshasa. He is a key figure in Mr Katumbi’s political campaign ahead of December presidential election.

His arrest has been described by the opposition as politically motivated, but Col Kangoli Ngoli of the military intelligence said that Mr Kalonda had been “regularly” talking to M23 rebel officers “and Rwandan officers”.

“The aim was to overthrow the current authority in DR Congo by all possible means,” Col Ngoli told journalists on Monday.

The authorities in Kinshasa accuse the Rwandan army of fighting alongside the M23, an allegation Rwanda has consistently denied.

M23 spokesman Maj Willy Ngoma denied the rebel group was working with Mr Kalonda to stage a coup, adding that leaders in Kinshasa “can accuse anything about anyone they want to neutralise”.

"We cannot plan with someone in Kinshasa to organise a coup, we want talks with the government, not a coup,” Maj Ngoma told the BBC.