Global Eyes: Africa

Back by popular demand, Habib Abodunrin Zakari's all-Africa roundup.

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NIGERIA

Nigeria’s Flutterwave becomes Africa’s biggest fintech startup, surpasses US$3 billion valuation:

Flutterwave has announced it has secured US$250 million in Series D funding, shooting its valuation beyond the US$3 billion mark, a milestone conferring on the fintech firm the prestige of being Africa’s most valuable startup.

Founded in 2016 by Olugbenga Agboola and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, and headquartered in San Francisco, Flutterwave provides wide-ranging services from card issuing and management to flexible loans. It aims to facilitate and leverage the booming African payments market driven by increased mobile phone use and faster internet speeds.

Nigeria’s economy strongest since 2014:

Nigeria recorded an annual GDP growth of 3.4 percent in 2021, representing the first annual growth since the Covid19 pandemic-induced recession of 2020 and the strongest growth in seven years since 2014, exceeding the World Bank and IMF’s 2021 projections of 2.5 percent and 2.7 percent for the country, respectively.

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WEST AFRICA

Burkina Faso junta leader sworn in:

Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba has been inaugurated as the country’s president, weeks after he led a coup that overthrew democratically-elected Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. In a televized ceremony, Damiba swore to “preserve, respect, uphold and defend the Constitution,” the nation’s laws, and a “fundamental act” of key decisions approved by the junta, which took power on January 24, 2022. Damiba cited Kaboré’s inability to curb an insurgency that killed thousands and forced more than one million people to flee their homes in the country as the justification for the coup.

3.6 million in Ghana face hunger:

Food insecurity has worsened among the Ghanaian population, according to a survey by the Ghana Statistical Service and its Ministry of Food and Agriculture . The survey indicated that the food-insecure had grown from 1.2 million (five percent of the population) in 2009 to 3.6 million (11.6 percent of the population) in 2020.

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CENTRAL AFRICA

Angola recovers looted millions:

President João Lourenço, who came into office in September 2017, resolved to root out corruption and the pilfering of state coffers. His endeavors bore more fruit with the recovery of over US$11 billion of looted funds stashed in Britain, Switzerland, Singapore, and Bermuda. The president launched an anti-corruption drive to recoup assets he suspected were embezzled under the administration of his predecessor, former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

In 2020, José Filomeno dos Santos, the son of the former president, became the first member of the former first family to be prosecuted as part of an anti-corruption campaign led by the president. Isabella dos Santos, Africa’s so-called richest woman and the daughter of the former president, was also named by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in their “Luanda Leaks” report, allegedly for growing her business empire by corrupt means.

Why African countries must protect their fish stocks from the EU:

Opinion: Fisheries serve as a source of employment for millions of people in the small scale sector on the coastline of Africa. Their fishing activities, in turn, provide food security to over 200 million Africans. Some African countries are trying to address the problems of unsustainable fishing through the introduction of new policies and management practices. Subsidies paid by EU members states to their fishing industries must be denied to repeat offenders of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

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EAST AFRICA

Kenya increases maternity, paternity leave days for teachers:

The Teachers Service Commission has increases maternity and paternity leave for teachers in line with the 2021 to 2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement signed by the unions and their employer in July 2021.

Tigrayan forces went on killing, raping, and looting spree in Amhara towns:

Amnesty International has published evidence that fighters affiliated with the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front have carried out dozens of killings of civilians, gang-raping women and girls—some as young as 14—and looting property, including hospitals, in two areas of northern Ethiopia’s Amhara region. Numerous eyewitness accounts and satellite evidence corroborate these reports. Tigrayan fighters appear deliberately to have killed unarmed civilians, seemingly in revenge for losses at the hands of Amhara militias and armed farmers. “Evidence is mounting of a pattern of Tigrayan forces committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.”

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NORTH AFRICA

South Sudan: Sharp decline in violence against civilians:

Reported incidents of violence against civilians fell by about 42 percent in 2021 compared with the previous year, according to a new report released by the UN Mission in South Sudan. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Human Rights Division’s annual brief on violence affecting civilians documented 3,414 civilian victims subjected to killing, injury, abduction, and conflict-related sexual violence, with 75 percent of the victims men, 14 percent women, and 11 percent, children. In 2020, 5,850 civilian victims were documented. Cases of conflict-related sexual violence declined slightly from 211 in 2020 to 194 in 2021, but remained “unacceptably high,” said UNMISS.

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SAHEL

French troops will withdraw from Mali within months, says Macron:

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that France’s military withdrawal from Mali will take four to six months, during which time there will be fewer operations against Islamist militants in the Sahel.

Macron made the statement after African and Western leaders met in Paris to plan the fight against militants in the Sahel once France and its European allies withdraw troops from Mali. The Barkhane and Takuba anti-jihadist operations in Mali said the withdrawal was due to “multiple obstructions” by Mali’s ruling military junta.

From Claire: A few French-language links of interest on the same subject; easily understood through Google Translate if you’re not a Francophone:

Macron assures partners that France will remain in the region “to play a unifying role” in the fight against jihadism in the Sahel, in conjunction with its European and African partners.

In Mali, France’s central mistake was pretending it wanted the “return” of a Malian state. “If Operation Barkhane is now suspended, it is partly because France undoubtedly underestimated the extent of the bankruptcy and corruption of a state that never really exercised its social or sovereign functions.”

Analysis: Between Mali and France, a painful divorce: The departure of French troops from Mali, announced by Emmanuel Macron on February 17, is a “half surprise” for the Burkinabe newspaper L’Observateur Paalga: “the increasing contempt between Paris and Bamako foreshadowed this outcome.”

A sad epilogue, symbol of a scathing failure. “After nine years of intervention in Mali, France is about to slink out of the country after a deadly tug-of-war with the Malian junta.”

In English:

Why France failed in Mali. “Broadly speaking, the answer boils down to a combination of unalterable structural features of France’s intervention, a misunderstanding of local conflict dynamics, serious political mistakes, and operational errors.”

Niger to accept foreign troops fighting insurgents in Sahel. “President Mohamed Bazoum says Niger will welcome foreign special forces to secure the region. He said threats from the militant groups would likely rise as France pulls its troops out of Mali. … ‘The heart of this military operation will no longer be in Mali but in Niger ... and perhaps in a more balanced way across all the countries of the region which want this (help),’ he said.”

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SOUTHERN AFRICA

BioNTech’s mobile vaccine factories denounced as a stunt:

Public health campaigners on Wednesday accused the German pharmaceutical firm BioNTech of pulling a “neocolonial stunt” after it announced plans to send mobile coronavirus vaccine factories made from shipping containers to Africa—a move that critics say will allow the company to secure its stranglehold on vaccine production and technology.

BioNTech—Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine partner—said it expects to ship its first so-called “BioNTainer” to Africa in the second half of 2022, but the company added that production in the facilities won't begin until “approximately 12 months after the delivery of the modules to its final location in Africa.”

Former Zimbabwe Warriors star Yohane murdered:

Zimbabwean football has reacted with shock following the tragic death of South Africa-based former Warriors defender Charles Yohane. He was 48. Yohane was murdered during a carjacking in South Africa over the weekend.

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MAP OF THE DAY

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Our Africa roundup comes from Habib Abodunrin Zakari, an Abuja-based reporter, translator, humanitarian aid worker, and teacher. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please contact him on LinkedIn.