1. French group Vivendi's Canal Plus has offered to buy the shares it does not own in South Africa's MultiChoice Group for roughly $1.7 billion in a bid to strengthen its hand in a competitive international pay TV market.

Canal, which already owns nearly a third of Multichoice, said it would pay a 40% premium to the closing share price on Wednesday (January 31).

Multichoice has invested billions of rand over the years in a bid to fight off international streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon and Disney.

2. Burkina Faso has indicated that it may leave the West African Economic and Monetary Union, after it, Mali and Niger announced their withdrawal from regional bloc ECOWAS.

The eight-nation WAEMU uses a common currency, the CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro.

Critics see the CFA franc as a relic of colonialism, but ratings agency Moody's has warned that leaving the union would be "detrimental".

3. Nigeria's central bank said on Tuesday (January 30) that it had cleared the entire backlog of verified claims owed to foreign airlines whose payments had been blocked in the country.

However, the International Air Transport Association, while welcoming the announcement, said that $700 million remained stuck within Nigeria's commercial banks.

Dollar shortages since 2016 have made it hard for some foreign airlines that sold tickets in the naira to get their money out of Nigeria.

4. Cocoa farmgate prices rose to their highest level on record in Cameroon on Wednesday (January 31).

That's been driven by tightening global supply due to production shortfalls in top growers Ghana and Ivory Coast.

5. And finally, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni unveiled a long-awaited initiative on Monday (January 29) aimed at helping African countries prosper in return for curbing illegal immigration.

An initial $6 billion has been pumped into the scheme, but some critics scoffed at the small scale of many of the projects, while the chairman of the African Union Commission publicly chastized Meloni for not consulting more widely on the priorities beforehand.