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The Gambia's incoming president said he favours launching a "truth and reconciliation commission" to investigate possible crimes committed by the outgoing leader of 22 years.

The Gambia's ex-leader Yahya Jammeh has flown out of the country he ruled for 22 years and into exile, bringing an end to a protracted political crisis following presidential elections last month.

West African leaders are in The Gambia to try to persuade Yahya Jammeh to cede power to his elected successor.

Mr Jammeh has asked for the deadline for him to leave office or be forced out by UN-backed forces to be extended until 16:00GMT on Friday.

Gambia's Vice President Isatou Njie Saidy has quit, Al Jazeera has learned, amid rising political tensions as Yahya Jammeh refuses to step down as president despite losing a December election.

The Gambia's National Assembly has adopted a resolution to allow President Yahya Jammeh to stay in power for three more months, starting from Wednesday, according to state television.

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has declared a 90-day state of emergency a day before his official mandate ends. Regional leaders have been unsuccessfully trying to persuade him to hand over power to Adama Barrow, who won December's elections.

As a result of the bomb blast in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has suspended a press conference it had planned to hold after the meeting of its National Executive Council, NEC, in Kano State.

It was gathered that a Professor and two others were killed in the blast, while thirteen others were said to have been rushed to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.

The Gambia's president-elect Adama Barrow is to remain in Senegal until his planned inauguration on Thursday, state media in Senegal say.

Nearly 100 people are missing after a boat packed with refugees and migrants sank off the Libyan coast, killing at least eight, according to the Italian coastguard.

Nigeria's lower house has voted to offer Gambian President Yahya Jammeh asylum if he steps down, according to Gambian MPs. The House of Representatives approved a motion on Thursday for President Muhammadu Buhari to offer Jammeh asylum if he hands over power to Adama Barrow, who won The Gambia's December 1 elections.

A radio station in Cameroon’s English-speaking city of Bamenda has been closed down.

A police squad visited the offices of Radio Hot Cocoa and ordered that it stop operations. 

 Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has said he will not step down before a Supreme Court decision on disputed elections, a ruling now not expected until May.

The United States of America (USA) still looks forward to having very good bilateral relations with Ghana, the US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs, Madam Linda Thomas-Greenfield, has stated.

The Gambia's Supreme Court is unable to hear the petition seeking to annul last month's election until May, chief justice Emmanuel Fagbenle says.

The Nigerian judge due to oversee the seven-member panel was not available till then, he said.

Morocco has banned the sale, production and import of the burka, according to local reports.

Letters announcing the ban were sent out on Monday, giving businesses 48 hours to get rid of their stock, the reports stated.

Zimbabwe has been hit by an outbreak of army worms which has destroyed maize crops in a country suffering from a food shortage because of drought. 

The state-owned Herald newspaper reports that the government has sent pesticides to the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces in an effort to curb the outbreak. 

South Africa's ruling African National Congress is marking 105 years since it was formed but there are deep divisions in the ranks of Africa's oldest liberation movement.