Russia has been hard at work kicking the United States out of Africa. It’s all but chased out France, too. But anyone who imagines Russia to be a kinder, gentler superpower is out of his mind.
The investigative journalist Philip Obaji has been following the activities of the Wagner group in Africa for years. He recently spent the months investigating human rights abuses by Russian paramilitaries in the Central African Republic, where he was abducted and tortured, only narrowly escaping alive.
His reports of the way Russian mercenaries are behaving in Africa won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been studying their behavior in Ukraine. Or Syria, for that matter, or Chechnya. It appears the Russians have gone full Mr. Kurtz, mass-murdering and raping everyone in their path with impunity, hauling off the gold and diamonds from the mines, and selling them on the black market. This is how Russia manages to sustain itself despite the West’s sanctions. Their motto, writes the Sentry, is “‘leave no trace’—in other words, kill everyone, including women and children.”
Because there’s so little journalism from Africa, this story is apt to be insufficiently appreciated in Western capitals. But unless you understand the African dimension of Russia’s war, you can’t understand what’s really happening and what’s at stake in Ukraine. Or vice-versa. When Ukrainians say they’re the victims of an unreconstructed colonial power, they’re absolutely right. The crimes Russia is now committing are exactly the ones for which France and the UK are incessantly apologizing. But neither France nor the UK (and certainly not the US) are committing these crimes right now. Russia is.
We discuss Philip’s very brave reporting on the Russian Wagner Group’s activities in CAR, his experiences of tracking them throughout Africa, and other major stories he follows. I hope he’ll come back to talk about some of the other stories he’s covered.
For those of you in a hurry, there’s a full transcript below.
Articles by Philip Obaji
“Russians blindfolded us and made us dig mass graves to cover up their crimes.”Russian mercenaries dragged young men out of their homes and forced them to hide the evidence of a massacre of their friends and neighbors.
Why Putin’s private army ordered soldiers to torture me. The Daily Beast correspondent Philip Obaji Jr. was abducted and beaten by soldiers while reporting on wrongdoing by the Wagner Group.
Twins, 17: We were drugged and raped by Putin’s private army. A dozen girls have told The Daily Beast that they were kidnapped and sexually abused by Russian paramilitaries.
Putin’s private army accused of sickening new massacre. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin may be dead, but witnesses say Russian paramilitaries in the Central African Republic slaughtered dozens of people to secure access to a gold mine.
Putin’s private army filmed sex assault victims in Mali. Four witnesses describe their horrific ordeal at the hands of Russian mercenaries given a free pass by Putin’s regime.
Putin’s private army accused of most heinous massacre yet. Witnesses in the Central African Republic are pointing a finger at the Wagner Group over a series of gruesome killings that allegedly involved disemboweling several women.
Further reading
All eyes on Wagner: Monitoring Wagner's activities across the globe
Bois Rouge: How the Central African Republic gave away its forest to the private military group Wagner. Because of the inefficiency of the timber controls in Europe, Wagner conflict timber cannot be stopped from reaching European clients, despite existing sanctions.
Architects of terror: The Wagner Group’s blueprint for state capture in the Central African Republic
Transcript
Claire: Hi, it’s Claire Berlinski, and you’re here in the Elephant Cage with Philip Obaji, an extremely interesting Nigerian journalist who has had some remarkable experiences in the Central African Republic, which is why I’ve invited him to speak to us today. Philip, tell me a little bit about yourself.
Philip: So I live in Abuja, that’s the capital of Nigeria, and I have been a contributor at The Daily Beast, a news website based in New York. I have covered war, counter insurgency, and the activities of jihadist groups in Western Central Africa for The Daily Beast since 2015. In the last couple of years, I have focused my reporting on these issues, almost entirely on the activities of the Russian Wagner Group, whose mercenaries have spread themselves across Western and Central Africa.
Claire: It’s a huge story, which is getting so much less attention than it deserves. And certainly it won’t get any attention in the US right now because of the election. Nothing’s getting any attention. I wanted to ask how you became interested in the Central African Republic.
Philip: So in, 2018, three Russian journalists traveled from Russia to the Central African Republic to investigate the activities of the Wagner Group. At the time, not many people had heard about the Wagner Group. The government of the Central African Republic had just reached an agreement with the Russian Federation for the supply of arms and private military instructors to the Central African Republic. And the Russian Federation had sent a group of so-called military instructors, as the Russians like to refer to Wagner mercenaries. So these three journalists went to the country to look into the activities of the group. But sadly, they were killed somewhere around Sibut, in the central part of the country. And the journalists were close friends of one of my colleagues, Anna Nemsova, at the Daily Beast. And my then-editor , Christopher Dickey—
Claire: —You knew Christopher? We miss him so much here.1
Philip: Exactly. He was my editor, yeah. Chris asked that I look into what really happened with these three journalists. And I started to make phone calls to contacts in the Central African Republic. And then I found that there was something interesting about this group called Wagner. So, since then, I took it upon myself to continue where the three late journalists stopped, to know exactly what these Russians were up to, and then how to report on the activities.
Claire: Who killed them?
Philip: It’s still not known exactly who killed them. The investigations by the Central African government didn’t come up with any clear reports. So the government believes that there were local rebel gun men who assassinated the journalists, but many accusing fingers still point at the direction of the Russians, the Russian Wagner group.
Claire: It wouldn’t be a surprise, but there are a lot of candidates as I understand it. Perhaps you’d start by giving our listeners a bit of an introduction to the Central African Republic, because it’s probably not a country they’re very familiar with.
Philip: That’s correct. Even here in Africa, not many people are really conversant with the country. So, it’s a small country in terms of population in the central part of Africa. It borders Cameroon to the West and the Sudan to the East. And it’s a very impoverished country. And although it’s very rich in gold and diamond resources, much of its wealth has been plundered by its leaders. The country has been under a civil war since 2013, when Christian militias and Muslim rebels, fought against each other. And soon after the civil war began, the UN imposed an arms embargo on the Central African Republic.
So an election was held in 2016 that ushered in the current president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra. Unfortunately for the new president, he inherited a country that was pretty much in the hands of rebels and other militia groups. Only the capital, Bangui, was under government control at the time he took office in 2016.
So he had only one option, to ask the international community for help. But he knew it would be difficult to come by, and so he ran to Russia, first, to get the Russians to ensure that the UN Security Council lifted the arms embargo, second, to get Russian military instructors in the country to provide training and even arms to fight against the rebels that were almost overrunning the capital, Bangui.
Claire: Two questions, excuse me for interrupting, but I just want to make sure I understand the story. The rebels, you said, are Christians and Muslims, are they fighting each other? Or are there other issues involved?
Philip: No, they’re fighting each other for control of power. It’s a country divided into Christians mostly in the south, and then Muslims predominantly in the north.
Claire: So did they live peacefully before the Civil War erupted, or was there some demographic change?
Philip: There were always some little pockets of conflicts in the country. But it became worse after Muslims defeated the Christian president
Claire: Which side does the government support?
Philip: The government supports no side, because, as we speak currently, the rebel groups have all somewhat come together to fight against the government. So it’s more or less about the control of resources right now, because these militia groups are seeking control of gold and diamond mines, and then the sale of gold and diamonds.
Claire: Is it a conflict between Christians and Muslims, or are they allied in some places on the same side?
Philip: In the beginning, it was a conflict between Christians and Muslims, but now a lot of them have come together to fight against the current government. Because they want to control resources.
Claire: Does the current government support one side over the other?
Philip: Not really, that’s not really the case. And so much has changed since the Russians came on board because right now, you have gold mines in the country that in the past were controlled by Christian rebels or Muslim rebels or Christian militiamen. But now, we have a situation where the Russians are targeting every gold miner, every artisanal miner, and every armed group just to take complete control of this.
Claire: What was France’s role in this? Because I know they were involved.
Philip: Yes, France’s role was more or less, initially, it’s supposed to be like a peacekeeping role where they try to protect the local population from attacks by, any of the armed groups. That was why they got involved in the first place.
Claire: And as I understand it, there was a massive information operation sponsored by Russia against France/
Philip: Yes. So much of this information targeted the French troops. That went on for a long time.
Claire: And this has been a Wagner pattern throughout Africa.
Philip: You’re correct. We’re still seeing such campaigns, especially in West Africa, where the local media is paid to spread disinformation targeted at not just France, but the West in general. There are many people who are susceptible to this, and it’s having an effect. In many ways, in many countries, you go to Niger, you go to Togo, Burkina Faso, you meet a lot of people who will tell you what they read or what they heard, which—based on what some of us have investigated—are clear disinformation sponsored by the Russians.
Claire: So the article that got my attention today, which is why I invited you on the podcast, was about some of the real atrocities that Russia has been committing in CAR, and also I know of others in Africa. And I think this is a neglected story. Have you found that people are paying attention to your reporting?
Philip: Oh, if you look at social media, my post on Twitter, you’ll find thousands of retweets and likes. And I’m having a lot of people reach out to me, to collaborate. Since last year, I have received numerous phone calls from many Western outlets, CBS, NBC in the US and then, in the Gulf region, Al Jazeera and the rest. So there was some bit of attention from late 2022 to early last year, obviously, because Wagner was so much involved in the war in Ukraine, so many people wanted to know. Many outlets didn’t know exactly how this group operated in Africa. Keeping in mind that many of the mercenaries that were active in Ukraine were pulled from Africa. So a lot begun to change after the death of the Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin. It didn’t seem like Wagner was so much involved, or the old elements of Wagner were so much involved in Ukraine. So there’s little attention paid to what the Russians were doing in Africa. But I’m actually very glad that of late I’m seeing a lot more interest, particularly amongst Ukrainians and some think tank groups who are focused on Russian activities here in Africa.
Claire: Yeah. Now that Prigozhin is gone, is Wagner answering directly to Putin?
Philip: Now they are having to take instructions from the Russian Ministry of Defense, which has taken over the operations of Russian paramilitaries in Africa.
Claire: The pattern is extremely important. We have to look at Russia in Syria and in Africa to understand that Ukraine is not an isolated story. It’s a global story. And this is incredibly important to understand, because certainly, many people who are susceptible to Putin’s propaganda in the West don't appreciate this and believe that this is some Eastern European conflict. It’s not. It’s a global conflict. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about what you learned in Central African Republic about Russia’s activities?
Philip: First of all, the Russians have been able to take almost full control of the security apparatus in the country. You have a national security advisor to the president of the Central African Republic who is Russian. You have the communications advisor to the president who is also Russian. And you have dozens of Russian paramilitaries training the Central African Republic Armed Forces.
Claire: How many Russians are there in total?
Philip: I can’t say for now how many there are, but in the beginning there were—at some point before they were in Ukraine—there were up to 2,000 mercenaries. And in some of the reporting I did in 2022, about 500 were pulled out of the Central African Republic to Ukraine. But I do also know that some were also brought from Russia to the Central African Republic within that period, so it's hard to tell exactly how many there are, but I want to believe there are more than a thousand still in the country.
Claire: And based on your knowledge, how many would you guess are in Africa generally?
Philip: That’s difficult to tell. The Russians are most active in the Central African Republic and in Mali. We may be looking at some 1,000-something troops, or maybe two, in the continent. I don’t know for sure about Libya. Because I haven’t covered Libya so much. I have focused a lot on Western Central Africa, but I know that they have been active in Libya for some time now. But in terms of numbers, it’s difficult to tell, in Libya. But we’re looking at over a thousand troops, maybe up to 2,000, if you put together what we’ve seen in Mali and in the Central African Republic. So that’s a rough estimate. It may be a little less than that.
Claire: They’re getting a lot of bang for the buck, then, per troop. They’ve been incredibly effective with such a small force.
Philip: That’s correct. That’s because oftentimes they work closely with the local forces. So you could have Russian paramilitaries storming a particular community in Central Africa, or even in Mali, with hundreds of local troops.
Claire: When they arrive, they immediately target the natural resources. And they have absolutely no concern at all for the rights of any of the people they encounter.
Philip: That’s exactly what we have seen them do and what we’ve heard them do. And the situation now is, when the Russians first got involved, even before they sent troops on the ground in the Central African Republic, they had reached an understanding with the government to take control of the gold and diamond mines. But the problem they face is that all these mines are situated outside of Bangui, the capital. And they have been in recent years under the control of armed groups. So you just cannot go there and then take over these mines.
Claire: Why did the government agree to this? What are they getting out of it?
Philip: Basically what they wanted is control of the capital. When the Russians came, only Bangui was under government control, and even like that, Bangui was fragile. It was only a matter of time before it fell to these rebels. So that’s the game. So what they fear now is that if the Russians leave, they could face bigger problems in terms of control. And also with resources, too, because they didn’t have access to the mines.
Claire: They made a very short-term deal.
Philip: That’s correct. May not have been so short-term, but they made a deal.
Claire: And when they extract diamonds and other resources from the mines, is that staying in their hands, or is it going back to the Kremlin?
Philip: I did an investigation last year about where some of this gold gets to. Sometimes gold is sold in the Middle East. And even when Russia was under sanctions by the US and EU, they still found a way to sell their gold in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East. So in the black market.
Claire: It’s a huge source of cash.
Philip: Yes, for the Kremlin, yes, it is. and no one even knows.
Claire: How much would you guess they’re managing to extract from just the Central African Republic, first, and then from Africa generally, including Sudan?
Philip: We may never know exactly how much, because, this information is opaque. This deal is done in the dark. And I have seen some outlets report about maybe over 500 billion dollars, or even above the billion dollars .
Claire: For a year?
Philip: Yeah, in the period of maybe around the year or so. But I don’t know. These are allegations, or these are information, that I haven’t verified yet. Because it’s so difficult when you don’t have access to documents.
Claire: Of course. But even if that’s ballpark correct, it explains how Russia is managing to survive the sanctions.
Philip: That’s correct. That’s correct. And they have many middlemen who are helping to evade the sanctions, for the good of the Kremlin .
Claire: Aren’t Africans enraged by this?
Philip: If you look at West Africa, for example, you find in the Francophone Africa, over the years, the French have been present in this region. And even after decolonization in the 1950s and 60s, the French never really left. You still have a situation where the currency is still being controlled in the French central bank. So people are believing in the region that France has got some level of manipulation or whatever. And that the involvement with France has not yielded any results. And to make matters worse, in some of the fragile countries that have been in conflict where there’s been French troops, we haven’t seen any kind of tangible results. Rather, things have got even worse. In Burkina Faso, in Mali, where the French independently came in to help fight against jihadists, these countries have even become worse in terms of the number of attacks and incursion by jihadist groups. It is the belief, generally, that France, rather than help[ing], exploited these Francophone nations. And the Russians, too, haven't really helped in terms of the kind of, disinformation that they have spread across the region.
Claire: So people don’t yet really understand the role that Wagner is playing.
Philip: Wagner is relatively new. So they don’t really get exactly what’s going on. So for some of them, it’s “Let’s give Russia a chance, maybe they become better than France,” but we’re seeing something different. Another problem, you look at the Central African Republic, for example, internet penetration is so low. If you live away from Bangui, you don’t really get to hear too much about what’s happening. And it is only recently that with the increase in attacks on artisanal miners by the Russians, that people are getting to understand exactly what the Russians are really up to in the Central African Republic. Not many people in West Africa really have so much to say against the Russians, because they’re relatively new in these countries. And they haven’t really done too much.
Claire: It’s pure old fashioned European colonialism without any disguise.
Philip: You put it very well. Yes, you put it very well. That’s what’s going on.
Claire: So that’s what surprises me, that people aren’t immediately able to recognize it. Have they provided any kind of security in any place they’ve been?
Philip: If I have to give credit to the Russians in Bangui, they’ve done it, in terms of what the government would like, like I said earlier, if they were not there, I can tell you for sure that Bangui would have been overridden by these men. And we will have had a situation where you have a rebel as the ruler of the country. So the Russians actually, give them credit for what they did in Bangui to keep Bangui away from the rebels.
Claire: And what about in other places they’ve been? Is there anywhere where they’ve made a significant contribution to local security? Because the jihadi issue in the Sahel has been terrible. Have they contributed in any way to reestablishing security?
Philip: When it comes to combat, they’re only active in West Africa, in fact, in the Sahel, they’re only active in Mali in terms of combat. And I can’t really say that we’ve seen so much of gains already. What happened at the weekend when dozens of Russian paramilitaries were killed by a Tuareg rebel coalition, that shows that, as much as the government will say, “There’s some gains with the Russians being involved,” it’s not exactly what we’re seeing. When you have so many troops and so many Russians being killed by rebel fighters, just at the weekend, that shows that there’s still a hot war going on there .
Claire: Tell me a little bit about the kinds of human rights outrages you’ve uncovered. I think it’s really important for people to understand just how global this is.
Philip: Yes, it’s enormous, horrifying, troubling—what have you. Now, you go to many parts of Central African Republic especially in the north, you will find at least one person who would have had an experience with the Russians, whether it’s a woman being raped on her own farm, or young girls being sexually assaulted in their own compounds or young artisanal miners who are captured and brutalized by the Russians. So it happens in many forms. Most times the Russians just show up unannounced in mining communities, and just begin to open fire on anyone they see, because they have this impression that every single person in this community is a friend or an accomplice to the rebels.
So they’re opening fire, killing people, arresting some others. And then torturing them to get them to confess to being members of an armed group. So it’s really torturous for the local population. And it’s so sad that even women and girls, some as young as 13, they’re getting raped, abused by the Russians. I did an investigation last year about young girls who were either taken from their compounds or rescued from rebels and then taken to the military base in Bouar. Bouar is the major town in the northwestern part of the Central African Republic. And in this military base, the Russians drug them, rape them, and administer contraceptives to these girls. There should have been dozens of girls who were victims of this Russian abuse in Bouar.
Claire: Administering contraceptives suggests that this is a policy, not just something that happened with troops who are out of control. It suggests that they just consider these girls and women a bonus.
Philip: Yes, you can put it that way because they’re having unprotected sex with these girls and they don’t want a situation where someone comes out the next day and say “I’m pregnant and I’m giving birth to a half caste baby.” It’d be difficult to deny.
Claire: It’s just appalling.
Philip: Yeah, it’s really appalling. So it becomes difficult to deny that they are the ones who are responsible. So the contraceptives are made to ensure that they don’t get pregnant.
Claire: And from the articles you wrote, these girls are just traumatized beyond words.
Philip: Yeah, beyond even our imagination. Because what they have faced—with not just one rapist, serial men who’ve raped them. So it’s really appalling. Horrific.
Claire: Horrific. It must be really hard to report on that.
Philip: Yes. Yes, the last reporting, I faced the most difficult time in my career as a journalist, because, one, myself, I was attacked, tortured by local forces who were acting on the orders of the Russians. And then also I still had to go, even with my injuries, go meet these young girls and listen to their stories. And in between, I was held for hours by rebels who thought I was a spy, so it was really very difficult, situation for me. But I have traveled too far and suffered too much to just give up, so I had to just focus and then complete the job.
Claire: Where else besides the Central African Republic have you spent a lot of time reporting in Africa?
Philip: Obviously in Nigeria, I started reporting in 2015 on the activities of jihadist groups, Boko Haram and Ansaru groups linked to both Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. I also reported in Cameroon on the Anglophone crisis, in Cameroon. And then, yes I have reported in Niger too, on the battle with Mali.
Claire: I’m interested in all of this and I wonder if I could have you on the podcast again to discuss these stories, because these are all stories—in fact, Africa generally just gets so little coverage in the West. And it’s an absurd situation, because obviously this is the most demographically important part of the world, and it has so few journalists in it.
Philip: That’s correct. And, it’s even very difficult for we local indigenous journalists here, because the funding is so poor. Oftentimes you have to depend on one fellowship to be able to do these things. When I started this, I was spending my own money on this trip just to tell the story.
Claire: When you think about how many journalists are reporting on Donald Trump’s every twitch-- and what you’re doing is the real thing, it’s what journalists ought to be doing, and there are so few of you. It’s so important to fund work like this.
Philip: That’s correct. That's correct.
Claire: I will tell my readers that they should fund you.
Philip: Yeah, that would be great because it’s very hard, I have to tell you. And my trip to Central Africa was made possible by the International Center for Journalists, who just thought they need to hear something about what’s going on. Luckily for me, I’ve got the support of the Daily Beast. When it comes to filing stories, I always get the opportunity to file stories with Daily Beast. But in terms of getting funding for these projects, it’s difficult for a project like this. And I still have a lot to report on. I haven’t really touched on Mali that much, and that’s what I’d like to look at, going forward. But it’s very difficult to find the funds to do.
Claire: Do you speak French?
Philip: My French is poor, so I have to rely on interpreters, which is even more expensive for me, because I have to get somebody who's interpreting, either it’s French or the local language. I’m studying, I’m going back to school to improve on my French.
Claire: The French media publishes a lot more about Africa than the English language media. So that would be a good market for you if you do learn.
Philip: Yeah, you’re correct about the French media publishing more than English. Yes, you're correct.
Claire: My listeners, at least half of them will be American, and it’s an election year. So what do you think the United States should be doing, if anything, to counter what Wagner is doing in Africa?
Philip: In an election year, a lot of focus will be on what's going on in the US. But there’s something else that the Americans should not overlook, is the fact that Russia is using Africa to try to experiment a new pattern of disinformation, and that could also be deployed ahead of the US presidential elections. We all know that in the past, the IRA, that’s Internet Research Agency, founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, deployed, was used, as a conduit and as a source for disinformation targeted at the Hillary Clinton campaign. So that could return.
Claire: When you say they’re experimenting, have you noticed any experiments that we should be particularly aware of?
Philip: I have seen a pattern of disinformation in all kinds. Now, they’re not just talking about the fact that France or the West is bad and Russia is good. Before now, we were seeing this information targeted completely on France. But now, in the Central African Republic, and it’s not just in Central Africa, but across the West African region, we’re seeing more paid stories targeted at the US, saying the US is bad for central Africa, US investors are killing people quietly, and they’re ripping off Africa and what have you. And when they say US, they’re referring to the current, Joe Biden administration.
Claire: So they pretty much chased us out of Africa. We were forced to leave Niger.
Philip: That’s correct.
Claire: This is a big problem to lose your access to a whole continent. I wonder if there’s something that we could or should be doing to counter Wagner’s influence.
Philip: I think the best side of it will be on countering Wagner disinformation. I remember talking about this a long time ago, how the EU in particular must come together to counter this because we’re even hearing rumors that Wagner has been helping migrants cross across the Mediterranean from Libya getting into Europe. And in countries where the EU had tried to spend money to stem this migrant flow, the Russians now have a stronghold on the government in these countries. And whatever narrative is been pushed out there in the media in Western Central Africa is targeted at the West in general. So maybe France and the EU will have to look at sponsoring some fact checking, in terms of the information people hear out there, because it’s a lot. It’s enormous. I have done some investigation about this disinformation, here in West and Central Africa, and I can tell you that the major media outlets have been used as channels for this disinformation.
Claire: I didn’t see that article.
Philip: No. I haven’t written about it yet, but I did the documentary for Al Jazeera last year, going to be next month in August, it’s on disinformation. So that will tell you a lot about what’s going on. It’s a big report coming up.
Claire: Good. If you were to hear a foreign policy statement coming from a presidential candidate now, what would you be looking for to see if they understood the problem and see if they had any intelligent thoughts about it? If you get to interview Kamala Harris, for example, next week, what would you ask her?
Philip: I would want to know what plans they have for Africa in terms of collaborations and investments. Russia and China have been promising investments in infrastructure, investments in training. And this is where the local governments have been able to fully embrace Russia or China. Because of what they’re promising, even though some of us do know that some of these promises and some of these investments are not so much in the interest of the people , especially looking long term. But the fact that African governments are able to get some bit of monies now, somehow it’s having an effect.
Claire: Chinese investments are real, aren’t they? Russia’s not investing as far as I know, but China is making massive investments.
Philip: Yes. China is invested in Africa, but again, people are already skeptical about these kinds of investments because they need loans. And with conditions that are very difficult for the local government to meet. But they accept it now because we deal with a lot of corruption in governments, especially across Africa, because they want to see what they can gain now. And then if you’re looking at the future, again, the Russians have come with promises to invest in central Africa, so-called investing because you have Russian companies linked to Wagner that have set up in the central African Republic and are doing business. Some are even hiring the locals.
Claire: What are they doing? What kind of companies are they?
Philip: The companies that work on gold mining and also on the sale of gold. We have similar companies in Sudan that was set up by Wagner.
Claire: So nothing that would actually grow the economy.
Philip: Basically, something that will fulfill them in future. It looked like they’re supposed to be paying taxes to the government. I haven’t seen any records that they’re paying these taxes to the government, but they are meant to be companies paying taxes and employing locals .
Claire: And have you been following Wagner’s role in Sudan?
Philip: Right now, because of the war, we don’t really know exactly what’s going on. But we knew that up north, before now, there was a Wagner company involved in the sale, in fact, the processing and sale of gold. But since the war begun, it’s really hard to tell exactly, how far, how much is going on there.
Claire: It’s amazing that the war in Sudan is receiving so little attention internationally.
Philip: It’s sad, really sad. Yeah. Really sad.
Claire: And it’s just, an unspeakably brutal war.
Philip: Indeed. You have many people dying from both sides and even more civilians dying than even when the war started. So it’s really sad that we’re not hearing, even here in Nigeria, where I live, people hardly talk about the war, or even the coverage is not so much there.
Claire: One of the reasons, as you said, is because there are no journalists there. And it’s part of the larger problem of the disappearance of foreign news coverage. So people are barely aware that this cataclysmic conflict is underway there.
Philip: Yeah, you’re correct. You put it well. And I want to see more because in Africa, we need help in terms of investments in media and investments in journalists. The media in Africa don’t have the resources to do in-depth, long term, long-form reporting. So we oftentimes rely on Western outlets for help. The one problem I’ve had in the past is the fact that, oftentimes, some Western outlets will send a correspondent from Europe or from the US to come to Africa, then spend a few minutes doing interviews, and then they go back and then report on a situation that really doesn’t tell the exact story.
Claire: That’s a terrible way to do it. And I’ve seen the effects of it. They’re so inaccurate. We need to fund local journalists, not parachute someone in who’s never been there before and who tries to understand the situation in three weeks.
Philip: Yeah. That’s true. That is very true. It doesn’t tell the true story, it doesn’t show the holistic picture of what’s going on there.
Claire: There should be a pan-African answer to Al Jazeera—a regional, very large professional news gathering organization. And I wonder who would fund something like that. Is that something the Nigerian government might want to sponsor?
Philip: The Nigerian government hasn’t shown so much of desire, even interest in funding the media. Maybe for fear that journalists will become equipped to go after the government itself,
Claire: Al Jazeera doesn’t report on Qatar, but they do good reporting in a lot of the world.2
Philip: So you see, when government is funding you, you just cannot focus on the same government where you are getting resources from.
Claire: No, but it would be a really good resource for people who are doing work in other countries in Africa.
Philip: I know that the Global Investigative Journalism Network and I’m part of that network, we have come together and then we share some of our work together. And even ideas we share together. But the problem will always remain with the funding.
Claire: Yeah. All right. I would love to have you on the podcast again to talk about some of these issues.
Philip: I’ll be delighted. Yeah.
Claire: Okay. That would be great. I’ll put links to your stories in the show notes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us. And I’m very glad you’re okay because that was a terrifying experience.
Philip: Yeah, the pleasure is mine. I’m lucky.
Claire: All right. Speak soon
Philip: Bye bye. Have a good day.
Claire: Bye bye.
Chris Dickey died unexpectedly, to our great shock and sorrow. He lived in Paris and everyone adored him.
Except when it comes to Israel and Gaza. Their reporting on Turkey isn’t good, either. But their reporting on Africa and Latin America is excellent.
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