TAR107 - Southern Africa Extract

theafricareport

100 www.theafricareport.com

THE AFRICA REPORT

The

N° 107 • APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

In this issue:

PROFILE Ramaphosa’s agenda

QUARTERLY EDITION • N° 107 • APRIL - MAI - JUNE 2019

DEBATE Is Magufuli’s economic nationalism working?

INVESTIGATION Nigeria’s OPL 245 net widens DOSSIERS Bayelsa, East Africa, Logistics

most influential Africans

A constellation of the celebrated: barrier-busting business folk and power players on the continent. From the stars of the moment to those imagining Africa’s tomorrow JEUNE AFRIQUE MEDIA GROUP

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Algeria 610 DA • Belgium €7.90 • Canada CA$ 12 • Denmark 80 DK • Ethiopia 200 Birr • France €7.90 • Germany €7.90 • Ghana GH¢ 35 • Kenya KES 900 • Morocco 45 DH • Netherlands €7.90 • Nigeria 2000 NGN • Norway NK 95 • Rwanda RWF 7,500 • Sierra Leone LE 67,000 • South Africa R75 (tax incl.) • Sweden SEK 100 • Switzerland 10.90 FS • Tanzania TZS 20,000 • Tunisia 15 DT • Uganda UGX 30,000 • UK £7.2 • United States US$ 15.99 • Zambia 80 ZMW • Zimbabwe US$ 6.20 • CFA Countries 3,900 F.CFA • Euro Zone €7.90

Experience the Progress.

Visit us at: Munich, April 8th – 14th Find out more at www.liebherr-bauma.com

www.liebherr.com info.lex@liebherr.com www.facebook.com/LiebherrConstruction

EDITORIAL

SIGNS OF AN AFRICAN SPRING

By PATRICK SMITH editorial@theafricareport.com The mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of young people on streets across the continent demanding economic and political rights challenges traditional oppositionists as much as incumbent regimes. In each case, the demonstrators in Algiers, Bamenda, Harare, Kampala, Khartoum and Kinshasa are taking on systems of vested interests and dysfunctional politics that are holding them back. They are calling for sweeping change, not just different party colours in the presidency.

Even in South Africa and Nigeria or countries where politics seems quiescent or dominated by competition between ideologically identical parties, these new movements send important messages.

First is that the economic downturn has exposed the jobless growth of Africa’s boom years. The demographic reality of the world’s youngest continent means this issue will dominate African politics for the next three decades. Although most policymakers talk of structural reform, very few have a strategy and can implement it.

Second, when regimes try to reform after years of stasis, they are at their weakest point. They have neither the legitimacy nor the resources to change the policy course.

The protesters’ grievances run the gamut

of economic and social demands. The main targets are the spiral in youth unemployment, stagnant economies held prisoner by international commodity markets, together with deteriorating provision of education and training – a key ingredient to revive dynamism.

Activists are finding new ways to organise and avoid the attentions of the police. They have brought together students, professionals, and trade unionists of all ages – even feuding family members – into a sprawling movement.

Innovation is key to the organisational power of the new groups. Activists in Algeria are using WhatsApp groups of football fans to mobilise support. It worked.

On the evening of 3 March, hundreds of thousands marched through the streets to call on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to refrain from standing for a fifth mandate in April’s elections. In Sudan and Zimbabwe, the governments have tried to shut down services like WhatsApp, so activists use virtual private networks to share information and send messages to the outside world.

All this has prompted easy comparisons with the rebellions that swept across North Africa in 2011. The protest movements in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia started that way, so the argument goes, but ended in a new autocracy, bloody chaos or frustration and disappointment.

There are parallels between today and 2011 but more importantly there are lessons. Above all, demonstrate in peace, is the message circulating relentlessly among activists in Algeria and Sudan.

Many hope the form of the demonstrations themselves, heterogenous with a strong, sometimes majority, participation by women, can shape the political transitions. This may prove the hardest task: for a popular movement to take on the responsibilities and limitations of political power without betraying its supporters.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

3

theafricareport #107 / April-May-June 2019

THE AFRICA REPORT 57-BIS, RUE D’AUTEUIL 75016 PARIS – FRANCE TEL: (33) 1 44 30 19 60 FAX: (33) 1 44 30 19 30 www.theafricareport.com

CHAIRMAN AND FOUNDER BÉCHIR BEN YAHMED

Ramaphosa is working on his image as ‘an enigma’

MOELETSI MABE/SUNDAY TIMES/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

PUBLISHER DANIELLE BEN YAHMED publisher@theafricareport.com EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER YVES BIYAH EDITOR IN CHIEF PATRICK SMITH MANAGING EDITOR NICHOLAS NORBROOK editorial@theafricareport.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR MARSHALL VAN VALEN PRODUCTION EDITOR OHENEBA AMA NTI OSEI To find the full editorial team, all our correspondents, and much more on our new digital platform, please visit: www.theafricareport.com SALES A JUSTE TITRE

03 EDITORIAL 06 MAILBAG 08 COFFEE WITH THE AFRICA REPORT / Bob Collymore 10 THE QUESTION 12 Q2 / April 14 Q2 / May 18 Q2 / June

63 EAST AFRICA FOCUS Policymakers are not yet looking at the many concerns of business and ordinary citizens in order to avoid the pitfalls that have hobbled other integration projects

FEATURES 22 PROFILE / Ramaphosa’s destiny Ahead of 8 May’s general elections The Africa Report talks to close contacts of the president over the years to build a picture of the man who says he can get South Africa out of its current mess

86 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL AFRICANS The Africa Report’s inaugural ranking of the top Africans who control the levers of power across politics, business and the arts: from billionaire barons to unpredictable peacemakers and soft-power superstars

122 INSIDE BAYELSA New projects are taking root in the Nigerian state after years of despoliation

36 INVESTIGATION / Nigeria’s billion-dollar oil scandal An investigation in Nigeria has turned into the country’s biggest corporate bribery case, with nine executives from Eni and Shell now on trial in Milan

146 LOGISTICS DOSSIER

48 WIDE ANGLE / The youth wave

Ethiopia has high hopes for exports, and has made improving logistics a priority

Sudan street protests, Bobi Wine, #FeesMustFall and #NotTooYoungToRun – a demographic tide is pushing back against outdated politicians, so how long before the bulwark crumbles?

56 DEBATE / Is Magufuli’s economic nationalism working?

The threat of a $190bn tax bill became a $300m payment. The Africa Report looks into whether the Tanzanian government’s barnstorming style will revolutionise the economy or scare away investors

4

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

156 ART & LIFE African designers are in the limelight when Black Hollywood stars choose their labels for red carpet ceremonies

Tel: +33 (0)9 70 75 81 77 contact-ajt-sifija@ajustetitres.fr CONTACT FOR SUBSCRIPTION: Webscribe Ltd Unit 4 College Road Business Park College Road North Aston Clinton HP22 5EZ United Kingdom Tel: + 44 (0)1 442 820580 Fax: + 44 (0)1 442 827912 Email: subs@webscribe.co.uk ExpressMag 8275 Avenue Marco Polo Montréal, QC H1E 7K1, Canada T : +1 514 355 3333 1 year subscription (4 issues): All destinations: €27 - $32 - £24 TO ORDER ONLINE: www.theafricareportstore.com ADVERTISING DIFCOM INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING AND COMMUNICATION AGENCY 57-BIS, RUE D’AUTEUIL 75016 PARIS - FRANCE Tel: (33) 1 44 30 19-60 – Fax: (33) 1 44 30 18 34 advertising@theafricareport.com

PRINTER: SIEP 77 - FRANCE N° DE COMMISSION PARITAIRE : 0720 I 86885 Dépôt légal à parution / ISSN 1950-4810

THE AFRICA REPORT is published by JEUNE AFRIQUE MEDIA GROUP

MAILBAG

Introducing a more technical curriculum doesn’t do enough to address the root cause of the failing education system, as technology alone won’t fix our public schools [‘Yemi Osinbajo: Selling our crown jewels isn’t the solution’, TAR106 Dec./Jan. 2019].

What ails our educational system ranges from poverty in early childhood to underfunded districts and poorly designed incentives for an overburdened faculty, all of which feeds the unequal access to quality education for the teeming population of schoolage children. Recruiting more qualified teachers into service requires more funding than the sector currently gets. The proposed reform of the school curriculum will level the playing field of access, but level fields do not necessarily translate to improved player skills, which is the entire point of education.

Maryam Bello, Ibadan, Nigeria

62 COUNTRY FOCUS | NIGERIA

NIGERIA’S OBY RAISES CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili

Presidential candidate, Allied Congress Party of Nigeria

The old order has delivered misery

STEPHEN LOVEKIN/SHUTTER/SIPA

THE POINT OF EDUCATION

For all your comments, suggestions and queries, please write to: The Editor, The Africa Report, 57bis rue d’Auteuil Paris 75016 - France or editorial@theafricareport.com

The Nigerian presidential candidate talks to The Africa Report about the education crisis and the need for the politics of ideas rather than personality

B

lunt-speaking and a passionate advocate for women’s r ights, Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili has launched a groundbreaking run for the presidency, which looks like a logical stepin her professional and political career. Standing for the small Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), she is shaking up the election by running a grassroots campaign with a dedicated band of young volunteer helpers.

Oby, as she is widely known in Nigeria, should not be underestimated as a campaigner.

What she lacks in establishment backers and corporate donors, she could make up for in her own enthusiasm and that of her young supporters. She shot to global fame as one of the founders of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign in 2014 demanding

that the government of Goodluck Jonathan find and rescue the more than 270 schoolgirls kidnapped from Chibok in Borno State by the Islamist Boko Haram militia.

Oby and Hadiza Bala Usman, co-founder of the campaign, used social media to get the message around the world, and even US First Lady Michelle Obama was

“I would do a much better job than [Atiku] because government is not monolithic” pictured on social media brandishing a #BringBackOurGirls placard. That campaign was a major reason why Jonathan lost the 2015 election.

An accountant by training, with amaster’sinpublicadministration from Harvard University, Oby has worked on development projects THE AFRICA REPORT

DOUBTFUL DOUBLING FOR MAURITIUS

•

for much of her career. She joined then-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s government in 1999 as head of its Budget Monitoring Unit, where she earned the sobriquet ‘Madame Due Process.’ She later served as minister of mines and then of education before leaving government to join the World Bank as vice-president for Africa.

Oby is a fiercely independent campaigner. At the launching of the now governing All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013, she warned its members that they should stand for more than chasing the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) out of power. But she is also critical of Atiku Abubakar, the PDP’s presidential candidate, with whom she clashed in government. She tells The Africa Report that Atiku did “everything to undermine due process” when he was in government.

N ° 10 6

•

D E C E M B E R 2 018 - J A N U A R Y 2 019

Mauritius is keen to double the size of its financial sector in 12 years, but how will it find the growth strategies to achieve its dream in today’s global economic turmoil? [‘Mauritius: Offshore on the radar’, TAR105 Nov. 2018].

Various forecasts against a backdrop of new US government measures to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium have resulted in Turkey’s currency significantly

Oby not only has the educational qualification, she also has enough professional experience to be president [‘Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili: The old order has delivered misery’, TAR106 Dec./Jan. 2019]. It is sad that Oby was not seen as a major contender. Instead, Nigerians were focused on two men who have been in power before and have shown that they have nothing to offer. Is it because Nigerians cannot yet wrap their heads around a female president?

Lucia Edafioka, Feminist and brand communications manager, Nigeria

losing its value. Four countries – Egypt, Jordan, Argentina and Barbados – have suffered from high debt and deficits. Will Mauritius be successful in its expansion of its financial sector with new international investments when the general global economic outlook seems negative?

Kokil Shah, Kenya

HELL BREAKS LOOSE IN ZIMBABWE It surely never rains in Zimbabwe. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s

attempts to turn the economy around are yet to bear fruit [‘Zimbabwe 2019 Country Report’, TAR106 Dec./Jan. 2019].

Fuel shortages have loomed, doctors are going on strike, teachers are going to work twice a week and there has been a sharp increase in the prices of basic goods and services. New uncorrupt blood is needed, human rights laws need to be respected and in a nutshell, a new government is needed.

Jeff K. Chakanyuka, Zimbabwe

HOW TO GET YOUR COPY OF THE AFRICA REPORT On sale at your usual outlet. If you experience problems obtaining your copy, please contact your local distributor, as shown below.

ETHIOPIA: SHAMA PLC, Aisha Mohammed, +251 11 554 5290, aisham@shamaethiopia.com – GHANA: TM HUDU ENTERPRISE, T. M. Hudu, +233 (0)209 007 620, +233 (0)247 584 290, tmhuduenterprise@gmail.com – KENYA, UGANDA, TANZANIA: THE NEWZ POINT, Dennis Lukhoola, +256 701 793092, +254 724 825186, denluk07@yahoo.com – NIGERIA: NEWSSTAND AGENCIES LTD, Marketing manager, +234 (0) 909 6461 000, newsstand2008@gmail.com; STRIKA ENTERTAINMENT LIMITED, Mrs. Joyce Olagesin, +234 8038471516, joyce@strika.com – SOUTHERN AFRICA: SALES AND SUBSCRIPTIONS: ALLIED PUBLISHING, Butch Courtney; +27 083 27 23 441, berncourtney@gmail.com – UNITED KINGDOM: QUICKMARSH LTD, Pascale Shale, +44 (0) 2079285443, pascale.shale@quickmarsh.com – UNITED STATES & CANADA: Disticor, Karine Halle, 514-434-4831, karineh@disticor.com – ZAMBIA: BOOKWORLD LTD, Shivani Patel, +260 (0)211 230 606, bookworld@realtime.zm For other regions go to www.theafricareport.com

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX LIEBHERR p 2; MSC p 5; GLOBACOM p 7; UBA GROUP p 19; AIRBUS p 17; BUA GROUP p 19; OCP GROUP p 29; MCB GROUP p 31; REPUBLIC OF COTE D’IVOIRE p 34-35; SEPLAT p 41; AFRICA CEO FORUM p 43; CMA CGM p 45; DELTATEK OFFSHORE p 46; AFRICAN UNION p 47; THE AFRICA REPORT p 53; JEUNE AFRIQUE MEDIA GROUP p 55; BRD DEVELOPMENT BANK OF RWANDA p 62; BPR p 67; SHELTER AFRIQUE p 69; TDB GROUP p 71; BANK OF KIGALI p 73; CRYSTAL VENTURES p 75; IZUBA DEVELOPERS p 77; CHANDARIA GROUP p 78; GPO PARTNERS p 79; MFK GROUP p 79; ELSEWEDY ELECTRIC p 81; RADISSON BLU KIGALI p 83; DALY & INAMDAR p 85; ECOBANK p 91; AVEON OFFSHORE p 93; NABC p 93; REPUBLIC OF TOGO p 99-102; BBC GLOBAL NEWS p 107; ALLIANCE MEDIA p 109; AFRICANEWS p 121; BAYELSA STATE p 129-132, 134-135, 138-141, 144-145; EKO HOTELS & SUITES p 151; AIM CONGRESS p 153; EDITIONS DU JAGUAR p 155 ; BMW p 163 ; DASSAULT AVIATION p 164

6

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

PLUG INTO THE WORLD’S FASTEST GROWING DIGITAL MARKET

We are Africa’s largest fully integrated telecommunications service provider, offering our partnership to International and Regional Operators/Carriers seeking to break into Africa and the rest of the world. As your preferred Gateway, we have the capacity to connect you to opportunities anywhere in the world.

With Glo Gateway, you will enjoy the following benefits:

Unlimited For more info Visit www.gloworld.com/ng/business/gateway

THE QUESTION

SELORM BRANTTIE

MICHAEL K. SERCHIE

Global Strategy Director, mPedigree Network

Project Manager, Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation

YES

NO

The National Cathedral serves an aesthetic and Ghana’s National Cathedral offers more than a house of prayer. It is a critical avenue for social superfluous purpose. It does not directly reflect the nation’s founding goals. It is a piece of architecture transformation in enhancing the prophetic, advocacy and educational role of the church as a corporate body. For that is just going to change the skyline. In a country which has a majority Christian religious orientation, there are a country with an estimated 70% Christian population, the National Cathedral would serve as a sacred space for already mega-auditoria that seat, in some cases, three governance of the nation, host times the proposed capacity of the cathedral. These auditoria state and religious functions, serve as a convening centre for have hosted and still have capacity to host events of a national interfaith dialogue to improve nature. To date, there has been the cohesive relationship beno explanation for the cost of retween government and religious placement of structures that will leaders and create a visible and be demolished for this edifice, organic unity of the different which will cost tens of millions Christian denominations in the of dollars at least. While the country. Our commitment to somega-pastors are running around cial justice in encouraging social with statesmen to raise funds, no integration requires initiatives to building the needed various inGhanaian even knows the cost of the whole project, and the govfrastructures at all levels – local, ernment itself is not disclosing regional and national – so that Ghana’s government-backed its interests. For a monument our nation can develop faster multimillion-dollar project has to a religion that has truth and than it is currently. Building the received backlash for being transparency as its core virtues, cathedral and tackling the other a misplaced priority in the face this cathedral’s very foundations socio-economic challenges in show a contradictory attitude. the country are not mutually of harsh economic conditions exclusive. Monuments like the Ghana has done very little to protect its heritage, and yet revels National Cathedral, in addition in the imposition of a foreign religion, whose main propoto its tourism potential and socio-economic revitalisation nents shackled our forefathers and condemned our ways of the city, will create jobs, revitalise the landscape of as barbaric. So while the national museum steadily breaks Accra, serve as a catalyst for technology and skills transfer down in ruins just five kilometres away, a monument that into our country, and will play an important cultural role celebrates our mental slavery rises in its wake. in cultivating pride for our heritage and past.

Are national cathedrals a waste of resources?

No!! These resources in question are meant for the wellbeing of the citizens and the development of the nation. Religious beliefs are entrenched in Ghanaian society and form part of the national identity. Yes, a national cathedral may not be in the interests of the entire population, but it captures most of the citizen’s religious affiliation, which is Christianity.

It appears the project does not have universal appeal in Ghana, even among the Christian community. It is more a matter of political mobilisation for short-end electoral purposes rather than Christian ends. State support is not universally agreed, since many court cases are ongoing regarding the presidential donation of prime government land. Besides, all so-called national cathedrals are denomination-based or -owned.

Randolf B. Hackman, Email

Colin Essamuah, WhatsApp

10

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

It is a vanity project. It’s management will be chaotic and at the taxpayers’ expense. It is the height of misplaced priorities.

Kobi Annan, Twitter

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

To respond to this month’s Question, visit www.theafricareport.com. You can also find The Africa Report on Facebook and on Twitter @theafricareport. Comments, suggestions and queries can also be sent to: The Editor, The Africa Report, 57bis Rue d’Auteuil, Paris 75016, France or editorial@theafricareport.com

THE A330neo.

FLY The A330neo shares many of the same innovations as the groundbreaking A350 XWB, delivering a 25% saving in fuel consumption compared to others in the category. Both aircraft also benefit from a common type rating, which means pilot training costs are significantly lower too. And on top of that, they can be fitted with our beautifully designed Airspace cabins, setting a new benchmark in passenger comfort and wellbeing.

Innovation. We make it fly.

ALET PRETORIUS/FOTO24/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

Quarter

The Africa Report’s exclusive guide to the quarter ahead features key events from the worlds of politics, business and culture. Find out more about how to plan your April, May & June, whether it is to find out who is planning for life after Bouteflika (see page 13), what happens next in the fallout from Steinhoff International’s accounting irregularities (see page 14) or understanding the battleground fights in South Africa’s election (see page 16).

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

11

Q2

/ APRIL

‘We want to know how much debt Kenya is paying in pending bills and we want this done this year’

INVESTMENT Oil

interest

Despite low prices, several African countries are seeking investment in oil exploration in the months ahead 1 GABON The 12th licensing round is set to close in April 2019.

2 GHANA Its first formal licensing round should be complete in May. It has reportedly got the attention of 16 oil companies, including majors.

2

1 3 4

3 REPUBLIC OF CONGO Licence round phase II is due to close in June 2019.

4 ANGOLA The Marginal Fields Bid Round will be launched at the Africa Oil & Power conference in Luanda in June 2019.

World Bank leadership contest ALL RIGHTS RESERVED/ZUMA/REA; CAMILLE MILLERAND; ATUL LOKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES-REDUX-REA

PAUL ABUOR Kenyan MP calls the government to account over opaque debts as the government seeks to roll over big loans in April

POWER PLAYERS After president Jim Yong Kim’s surprise resignation, the race is on to name a replacement. Nominations ended in midMarch and a vote is due before the Spring World Bank/IMF meetings in Washington. Early talk was about breaking the US stranglehold on the presidency.

DAVID MALPASS The US Treasury official – a critic of multilateralism and former Bear Stearns boffin – is US President Donald Trump’s pick.

NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA The former finance minister of Nigeria has said that she would run for the World Bank presidency if nominated.

RAGHURAM RAJAN The former Reserve Bank of India governor could be a strong candidate for the Asian grouping of countries.

ARTWORK

Up for sale

SOTHEBY’S

Pieces from renowned artists such as El Anatsui and Chéri Samba are going under the hammer at Sotheby’s London on 2 April. Contemporary African art continues to do well on international markets.

Congolese artist Samba’s piece (pictured) sold for £31,250 ($42,000) in an October 2018 auction at Sotheby’s, which netted £2,274,625 in total.

12

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

$100m

Tech-focused Andela raised a large sum in January, and Africa-focused investors will be discussing that deal and others at the African Venture Capital Association in Nairobi 1-5 April

SAMIR SID

Thousands of protestors have marched in Algiers and other cities across the country

‘A combination of economic discipline and vibrancy will ensure that we will not have to be rescued’ KEN OFORI-ATTA

ALGERIA ELECTIONS

Ghana’s finance minister decribes what is needed when the country’s programme with the IMF ends in April

The street speaks

MO IBRAHIM FOUNDATION The Mo Ibrahim Governance Weekend at the Sofitel hotel in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on 5-7 April will play host to a new edition of The Africa Report Debates, with the question: “The new tech era: job killer or job creator?”

APPOINTMENT

SYDNEY MBHELE

SANLAM

The powerful clique behind President Abdelaziz Bouteflika may have waited too long to resolve their disputes about who should take over from the ailing 82-year-old president. They backed Bouteflika to run again in the planned 18 April elections, leading to hundreds of thousands of protesters – young and old – taking to the streets in late February and early March to send a message scrawled on handwritten posters and chanted by throngs of protesters that ‘enough is enough’. The economy, which is largely dependent on oil and gas projects, is hurting.

Nearly everything had seemed on course for a non-event election where Bouteflika would win a fifth five-year term: the opposition is weak and divided, the regime holds a tight grip on the military and security services and Algeria’s young people were seen as disaffected and perennially frustrated by the country’s gerontocracy.

Those around Bouteflika are now scrambling for a strategy.

As The Africa Report went to press, the street had gotten wheelchair-bound Bouteflika to agree to a national conference on reforms and promise to step down before the end of the next term.

In the days and weeks ahead, the protesters are seeking to press their advantage now that they have gotten the regime to make concessions. But questions remain as to how this generational change in the wind will eventually take shape. The Arab Spring examples of neighbouring countries show the pitfalls and possibilities.

Will the opposition be able to rally around a candidate in time for the vote, if it will be free and fair? If Bouteflika steps down before the vote or his party fractures beyond repair, will oppositionists be able to exert enough pressure to push through generational change in the armed forces, many of whose leaders earned their pedigrees in the country’s war of liberation from France and the crushing of the Front Islamique du Salut group in the 1990s?

The new chief executive of brand at Sanlam takes up his post on 1 April.

Sanlam’s focus has been on its 2018 acquisition of Moroccan firm SAHAM. Mbehele brings experience from rival insurance firm Liberty to the table.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

13

/ MAY

DWAYNE SENIOR/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

Q2

STEINHOFF INTERNATIONAL

Awaiting the auditors

ALIKO DANGOTE His $9bn Nigeria oil refinery is due to begin test production in May 2019. The investment is set to more than double Dangote’s annual revenue and allow large investments outside of Nigeria.

JACOB ZUMA South Africa’s former president will be back in court in May on corruption charges relating to a multibillion-dollar arms deal in the 1990s. He faces charges of fraud, racketeering and money laundering.

14

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

ERIC LARRAYADIEU/AFRICA CEO FORUM/JA; CIA PAK/UN

The reckoning for Steinhoff International, an Africa- and Europe-focused retailer backed by South African billionaire Christo Wiese, depends in part on the audited results for its group and subsidiaries in 2017 and 2018, due to be released in April and May 2019. Under the leadership of chief executive Markus Jooste, Steinhoff’s share price crumbled when accounting irregularities were discovered in December 2017. Auditing firm PwC is carrying out the investigation into Steinhoff’s recent operations, which will reveal the extent of the company’s problems.

Since the 2017 crisis and writing down an estimated $12bn in assets, the company has been limping along as it conducts the restructuring of some subsidiary operations and preparing for court cases seeking billions of dollars in damages due to investor losses. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal – Steinhoff International is headquartered in the Netherlands – will hold a crucial hearing on 23 May to determine if it will go ahead with an investigation into the company. Steinhoff’s difficulties are also playing out in South African politics, where the opposition Democratic Alliance has been calling for the speedy launch of criminal investigations once the audited results become public.

Authorities in the Netherlands, Germany and South Africa could take years to complete their probes.

Restructuring specialist Louis du Preez has been leading Steinhoff since November 2018 with the goal of saving the company from collapse. Plans for new stores – Steinhoff owns Mattress Firm in the US, Conforama in France and the Pep and Ackermans brands in Africa – have largely been put on hold until the company is on sounder footing. Steinhoff’s unaudited results for the last quarter of 2018 showed 3% total revenue growth from existing stores, with a 5% jump in Africa and a 4% drop in the US.

‘Whether we have accomplished fully what we had set up to accomplish? The answer is no.

Corruption is worse […] It’s politics of patronage and appeasement.’

SAULOS CHILIMA Malawi’s former vice-president is running against his one-time ally, President Peter Mutharika, in May. Corruption and the economy are high on the political agenda.

Q2

/ JUNE AFDB

Let’s meet in Malabo The African Development Bank (AfDB) president Akinwumi Adesina has about another year left before he could be up for re-election as head of the continental financial institution. He came into office in 2015 promising to transform the AfDB, but at the last general meeting, the bank’s governors said they wanted to see more evidence of reforms and the efficient use of resources before they would agree to Adesina’s request for a general capital increase to allow the financing of more projects.

The AfDB is preparing for its annual general meeting in the Equatorial Guinean city of Malabo on 11-14 June as the continent’s growth engine continues to recover from a low in 2016. The AfDB predicts that growth will reach 4% in 2019, up from 3.5% in 2018.

Those numbers hide regional variations, with the oil producers and mineral exporters of West and Central Africa performing relatively poorly when compared to the economies of Senegal and Ethiopia.

Economic giants Nigeria and South Africa have been struggling to cope with lower commodity prices and other economic strains, and the new administrations in both countries will be looking for ways out of their current troubles. So Malabo makes a fitting backdrop for discussions about how natural resource-dependent economies can diversify and attract more investment – something the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has been talking about for quite some time.

With an annual infrastructure financing gap estimated at between $68bn-$108bn, attendees at the Malabo conference will be debating how African governments can raise more internal revenue, how to implement the planned continental free trade area and how to improve the mobility of the continent’s population in pursuit of better economic outcomes.

Japan will host its first G20 summit, which assembles the biggest economies in the world.

South African diplomats will be present to represent the continent, and topics to be discussed include agriculture, health, green energy, trade and the digital economy.

‘What we want is a mindset change from everybody.’

ISMAIL MOMONIAT The National Treasury deputy director-general said in December that the planned introduction of a carbon tax in South Africa would force companies to think differently about their environmental impacts.

12.88 MTPA

‘We will (…) eliminate need for importing electricity from Uganda’ JOSEPH NJOROGE Kenya’s energy principal secretary announces a transmission line for June 2019.

18

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

EMRE DORTER/TABANLIOGLU ARCHITECTS

US firm Anadarko is due to make an investment decision by June 2019 on two natural gas plants in Mozambique’s Offshore Area 1 with a capacity to produce 12.88 MTPA. The plants make up the key piece of infrastructure to the country’s planned gas boom.

Q2

/ JUNE SOUTH AFRICA

National Arts Fest ALET PRETORIUS/FOTO24/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

Art in nearly all of its forms will be centre stage in what is billed as Africa’s largest arts festival 27 June to 7 July. Amongst the singers, actors and painters, politically engaged South African photographer and multimedia artist Berni Searle will be in the spotlight.

AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS Cairo

$2.5bn

cup

After high drama about which countries will host the next two tournaments, African football fans are preparing to visit the land of the pharaohs for matches between 21 June and 19 July. As The Africa Report went to press, the qualifying matches had not yet been completed. But there were already some early favourites. Egypt, which came in second in the 2017 tournament, is expected to put in a strong showing. Fans of the home team, which automatically qualifies for the final tournament, will be cheering on Mohamed Salah, who scored a goal in each qualifying match.

Stanbic Bank Uganda, lead arranger for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline’s $2.5bn funding, expects the deal to close in June 2019.

‘Energy subsidy (cuts are also) a positive measure’

CAMEROON

NIGERIA

SENEGAL

Last year’s winners are expected to put in a good showing in Egypt.

The team will need a good performance out of winger Christian Bassogog, who was the 2017 tournament’s best player.

Shanghai Shenhua’s Odion Ighalo was in fine form in the qualifiers, scoring six goals in four matches. But the side was in a pool of relative lightweights, so the Super Eagles will have to prove their mettle in the next rounds.

Star Sadio Mané, rated one of the continent’s top footballers, is a key player for the team, which was on course to qualify for the final tournament with the highest number of points.

20

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

UG CO. K/SHUTTERSTOCK/SIPA; PRESSFOCUS/SIPA; ANDREW MEDICHINI/AP/SIPA

HASSAN AMIN Acwa Power’s director for Egypt says his firm will sign off on three solar projects by June.

Indian telecoms company Airtel Africa plans to raise additional funds of about $1.5bn by June in order to invest more and to help pay its debts. It raised $200m in early 2019 from the Qatar Investment Authority and $1.25bn in late 2018 from Warburg Pincus, Temasek, Singapore Telecommunications and SoftBank. Plans are underway for an initial public offering.

Send cash home instantly for 0% Only until 31 March 2019

0% fees

Send money to any account across 33 African countries Save time and money today with the Rapidtransfer app

Download it now

DANIEL HAYDUK/AFP

Features

22 PROFILE Ramaphosa’s destiny Does the formula that is Cyril Ramaphosa add up for South Africa? Contacts of the president help to build a picture of the man who says he can get the country out of its current mess

36 INVESTIGATION How Dan Etete’s billiondollar deal ended up in court An investigation in Nigeria has turned into the country’s biggest corporate bribery case, with nine executives from Eni and Royal Dutch Shell now on trial in Milan

48 WIDE ANGLE The youth wave Sudan street protests, Bobi Wine, #FeesMustFall: A demographic tide is pushing back against outdated politicians, so how long before the bulwark crumbles?

56 DEBATE Is Magufuli’s economic nationalism working?

The threat of a $190bn tax bill became a $300m payment. The Africa Report looks into whether the Tanzanian government’s barnstorming style will scare away investors

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

21

FEATURES /

Ramaphosa is working on his image as ‘an enigma’

22

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

PROFILE

Ramaphosa’s destiny Does the formula that is Cyril Ramaphosa add up for South Africa? Ahead of 8 May’s general elections The Africa Report talks to close contacts of the president over the years to build a picture of the man who says he can get the country out of its current mess

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

MOELETSI MABE/SUNDAY TIMES/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

By CRYSTAL ORDERSON in Cape Town and Johannesburg

23

FEATURES / PROFILE / Ramaphosa’s destiny

F

For 90 minutes on 7 February, Cyril Ramaphosa held parliament in his hand as he set out the ambitions for his presidency. In a sombre grey suit and tie, fitting his soubriquet as ‘South Africa’s CEO’, Ramaphosa reeled out his agenda for the coming elections: inclusive growth, jobs, better schools and training, stepping up the fight against corruption and strengthening the state to meet the people’s needs.

“It was 100% Cyril,” said a veteran African National Congress (ANC) cadre in Cape Town’s parliament square afterwards. “Thoughtful, well-crafted, something for everyone.” Then he paused: “But can he deliver on any of this?

His house is divided. The looters are not in jail. Growth is worse than stagnant and we’re losing more jobs.” So why the euphoria after Ramaphosa finished speaking? “Because we all want to believe in him. He’s won the ANC over 55% of the vote already. Job done.”

Ramaphosa has set the ANC on course for a victory that would suit him. It has to be over 55% of the vote to reverse the party’s decline during Jacob Zuma’s era, but not a landslide – which could encourage complacency. To lead the ANC now – 25 years after its victory

24

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

in South Africa’s first free elections – requires an extraordinary set of skills.

That Ramaphosa – the student activist, the militant unionist, the political organiser, constitutional negotiator and then corporate titan – has those skills is evident. Less obvious are his people skills. Many who have worked closely with Ramaphosa say they do not know the man.

Proudly announcing “I’m an enigma,” Ramaphosa revels in this psychological inaccessibility, rare among such ubiquitous public figures. Outgoing and gregarious, Ramaphosa works a room with a natural gift for recalling faces and personal stories. Rising at 5am, he has taken to power walking, with security in tow, chatting animatedly to the early-morning workers he meets en route.

In the popular mind, that somehow offsets his country-gentleman-style enthusiasm for fly fishing, golf and expensive herds of Nguni and Ankole cattle. Allies say it points to Ramaphosa’s chameleon-like qualities, which have steered his career: from pushing Harry Oppenheimer to raise miners’ wages to becoming a mine owner himself.

SELWYN TAIT/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

In 1982 the young militant criss-crossed the country to set up the National Union of Mineworkers (see page 26)

IDEALIST Born into South Africa’s struggle Destiny is a recurrent theme in Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa’s life.

From his confident teenage prediction to journalist Denis Beckett that he would one day be president of a free South Africa to his current position in just that job, Ramaphosa’s path has been accompanied by a strong belief that he is on the right side of history. Even when recalling his setbacks in politics and business, Ramaphosa reflects that they often worked out for the best.

Born in Johannesburg on 17 November 1952, Ramaphosa arrived at the end of an auspicious year. There was a general strike against the latest depredations of the apartheid regime.

The ANC had launched its ‘Defiance Campaign’, protesting against the repressive and discriminatory laws that banned interracial marriages and compelled black South Africans to carry passes in towns and cities. ANC militants responded by burning the hated passes at public rallies.

In Soweto, where Ramaphosa grew up on Mhlaba Drive, the militancy grew. Aside from his studies and his Christian beliefs the young Ramaphosa liked to sing and dance but politics soon became an all-consuming passion.

His parents, Samuel, a police officer, and Erdmuth, tried to protect their son from the regime’s brutalities. He later recalled how a white soldier kicked him into a ditch at the age of seven.

The following year, police shot dead 69 protesters, wounding hundreds more, at Sharpeville, not far from the

‘I think this time [his 1974 detention] had a profound impact on Ramaphosa’ LETEPE MAISELA

Ramaphosa family home. Then the regime banned the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). Suddenly, the anti-apartheid struggle became an international cause célèbre.

After finishing high school in Sibasa, in present day Limpopo Province, Ramaphosa left home to enrol at the University of the North, known as Turfloop, just as African students stepped up their campaign against discrimination. Ramaphosa, who was studying law, threw himself into student politics.

Natural leader

“He was the quiet type, not one to boast but someone students liked and looked up to,” businessman and author Letepe Maisela, who was at Turfloop with Ramaphosa, tells The Africa Report. After the regime cracked down on student politics, Ramaphosa used the Christian student movement to organise protests against apartheid, says Maisela. “He was a natural leader and students listened to him.”

In 1974, Ramaphosa was detained for 11 months under the Terrorism Act. “I think this time had a profound impact on Ramaphosa, [although] he doesn’t talk much of the solitary confinement,” says Maisela.

Ramaphosa spoke in parliament this year about his detention, responding to accusations from Mosiuoa ‘Terror’ Lekota, an activist at the time, that he had sold out his comrades to the apartheid security police. “My arrest was quite dramatic and I was taken to Pretoria Central police station […].

They started to interrogate me, which was quite vicious. I will not go into that.” He said the police tried to force him to give evidence against his comrades, including Lekota. “And I refused.

And they thought they would use my dad to put pressure on me to agree to become a state witness. I refused.

I said I will not do it.”

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

25

FEATURES / PROFILE / Ramaphosa’s destiny

ORGANISER Building the base

GILLE DE VLIEG/SOUTH PHOTOS/AFRICA MEDIA ONLINE

Ramaphosa facing Oppenheimer at a Weekly Mail debate

When she first met Ramaphosa in the 1970s it was clear to Patricia de Lille – the firebrand secretary general of the South African Chemical Workers’ Union – that he had the toughness to resist repression and to build a political movement in the unions. After release from detention, Ramaphosa joined the Black People’s Convention (BPC), an organisation in the Black Consciousness Movement under Steve Biko, and resumed legal studies. He was arrested in 1976 and detained for six months in the notorious John Vorster Square police headquarters after the 16 June uprising in Soweto against apartheid education policies.

De Lille first met Ramaphosa at the Council of Unions of South Africa, where he was working as a legal

NEGOTIATOR From national resistance to political power In the most dramatic decade in Africa since the independence era – the 1990s – Ramaphosa was at the centre of revolutionary change in South Africa. He started the era as a socialist trade unionist and ended it as a leader among the country’s new black business elite, with plenty of peaks and troughs in between.

South Africa’s business and political leaders were now talking to the ANC in Lusaka, and to Nelson Mandela in jail in Western Cape. Ramaphosa had become one of the ANC’s most important cadres.

At Mandela’s release on 11 February 1990,

26

Ramaphosa was in the reception committee for the revered leader. Ramaphosa went from being the man who held the microphone for Madiba to heir apparent.

It looked a surreal elevation for the 38-year-old union organiser.

Popular with the left and the unions, as well as having the backing of exiled Communist leader Joe Slovo, Ramaphosa was catapulted into the ANC hierarchy at the party’s conference in South Africa in July 1991.

In his autobiography, Mandela gave this accolade: “Ramaphosa was elected secretary general,

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

evidence that the torch was being passed from an older generation to a younger one. Cyril was a worthy successor to a long line of notable ANC leaders.

He was probably the most accomplished negotiator in

‘He was probably the most accomplished negotiator in the ANC’ NELSON MANDELA

the ANC.” The same conference elected Mandela as president and Thabo Mbeki as his deputy.

Snuki Zikalala, president of the ANC Veterans’ League, tells The Africa Report that Ramaphosa’s promotion was welldeserved: “Cyril was running the engine room of the ANC, delegates felt he was highly competent, a hard worker and the right man to lead the ANC’s office.”

Fishing trips

Earlier, Ramaphosa had emerged as leader of the the ANC delegation at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa

Move to the ANC

Mineworkers were reluctant to hand over their hard-earned money as subs to the mining unions. The unions were also divided politically. By the time the National Union of Mineworkers was founded, in 1982, Ramaphosa had switched allegiance from the BPC

from 1990 to 1993 to negotiate the country’s transition. Again, the path hit several obstacles. The worst was the massacre of 46 people at Boipatong in June 1992.

The two key negotiators were Ramaphosa and the National Party’s Roelf Meyer. “What annoyed me was that Cyril and Roelf would go away on fishing trips and come back and then have a position on a particular matter,” argues De Lille. “This meant that other smaller parties were simply dismissed.”

While Ramaphosa was negotiating the transition and the choice of Mandela’s deputy was being debated, Ramaphosa was losing his power base in the ANC. Zikalala says: “Cyril was

‘He was very shrewd.

He will smile with you, but would be planning something else’ PATRICIA DE LILLE

to the ANC, with its stronger organisation and international backing.

Harry Oppenheimer, chairman of Anglo American, allowed unions to organise, and Ramaphosa saw this as an opportunity to build a socialist mass movement.

Although some activists were disappointed with Ramaphosa’s move to the ANC, De Lille saw clear reasons for it: “He was very shrewd. He will smile with you, but he would be

too young to take over from Mandela. He had to learn how the ANC works.

Thabo was a senior leader, more experienced and had a vision for the country.”

After winning the ANC elections, Mandela asked Ramaphosa to chair the drafting committee for the new constitution. After two years of hard-fought negotiations with apartheid-era politicians and Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party, Ramaphosa’s team produced a world-class liberal constitution that was adopted at a grand ceremony on 8 May 1996. Stung by the pause in his rise to power, just four days later Ramaphosa resigned from parliament and as ANC secretary general.

planning something else. He was strategic and tactical.”

Internal differences within the PAC and BPC also pushed Ramaphosa towards the ANC. The next step was to organise a national union federation with the widest possible membership.

Along with Jay Naidoo, Ramaphosa launched the Confederation of South African Trade Unions in November 1985, grouping together 33 unions.

“It is important to draw people into restructuring society so that the wealth is democratically controlled and shared by its people,” Ramaphosa told the workers. Naidoo was the first secretary general of the federation, with Ramaphosa leading on its political strategy. It was aligned at home with the United Democratic Front, formed two years earlier, and to the ANC at its base in Zambia. By now, top ANC cadres in Lusaka were talking about comrade Ramaphosa, a rising star.

Getting the job done: South Africa’s constitution

STRINGER/REUTERS

adviser. Recognising his political skills, in 1982 the union chiefs sent him to organise mineworkers, who were producing more than a fifth of the country’s wealth.

That brought Ramaphosa up against the harshest realities of the apartheid regime as he criss-crossed the country, seeing the dangerous working conditions in the mines and the squalor of the single-sex hostels. “Ramaphosa and other organisers were frequently chased away by the police, as most companies had not granted them organising rights,” recalls De Lille.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

27

FEATURES / PROFILE / Ramaphosa’s destiny

From a standing start in the mid1990s to a personal fortune of an estimated R6bn ($500m) this year, Ramaphosa’s rise, along with that of his coterie of business associates, typifies the strengths and weaknesses of the government’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) schemes. They compelled white capital to hand over some of its more lucrative holdings to a self-selecting clique of commercial cronies.

Investors in Ramaphosa’s main business vehicle, Shanduka, have done well since its foundation in 2001, although some analysts claim the returns would have been higher had he been less distracted by politics.

Ramaphosa threw himself into the corporate arena in 1996, wishing to harness business to improve economic and social conditions. He sold his majority stake in Shanduka in 2015 – part of a lengthy process of divestment to resolve conflicts of interest for the then deputy president.

At the beginning, he was headhunted

by Nthato Motlana, Mandela’s doctor, to be deputy chairman of New Africa Investments Limited (NAIL), which was pioneering the government’s BEE plan. NAIL invested millions in the National Empowerment Consortium, an investment vehicle that used workers’ pension funds to finance mergers and acquisitions.

Paltry pensions and fat cats

NAIL bought assets as diverse as casinos and media empires, but activists criticised it for using worker pensions to benefit a new breed of capitalists.

Three years later, NAIL broke up amid some acrimony. Ramaphosa was frustrated that his ambition to invest in a big mining company had failed.

He returned to the industry as a partner of Glencore, the Swiss-based commodity trader, whose South African chief executive Ivan Glasenberg was

28

Ramaphosa bought South Africa’s McDonald’s franchise in 2011

‘He must go back to making McDonald’s burgers and leave politics to politicians’ JULIUS MALEMA

diversifying the company. Glencore picked Ramaphosa’s Shanduka as its BEE partner on a coal export project in 2005. They teamed up again as investors in the Optimum project to supply coal to the state power authority. That ended badly when the government blocked permits for the mine, forcing Glencore to sell it to the Gupta family, business allies of President Jacob Zuma.

By 2012, Ramaphosa had moved far away from the principles that motivated his early political engagement. In August 2012, police shot dead 34 striking workers at Lonmin’s platinum mine

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

at Marikana and wounded 70 more. It later emerged that as a non-executive director of Lonmin, Ramaphosa had sent an ambiguous email referring to the worker dispute in which 10 had already died as “dastardly criminal” and saying it would have to be addressed by “concomitant action”.

Leaders of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), vying with the National Union of Mineworkers for support at Marikana, lambasted Ramaphosa for doing too little to get the Lonmin board to make concessions or to restrain the police. AMCU accused him of acting for the greater good of his company’s share price rather than the greater good of the people.

When Ramaphosa's communications became public, his response – “It was terrible […] I take full responsibility of my role in it” – suggests contrition but also a heightened ear for the political nuances of the crisis. It was also the clearest sign that Ramaphosa was looking to head back to the centre stage of politics.

FOTO24/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

BUSINESSMAN Comrade Cyril, the multimillionaire

FEATURES / PROFILE / Ramaphosa’s destiny

WALDO SWIEGERS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

The future beckons: Ramaphosa wins the presidency of the ANC

PRESIDENT Destiny delivered, compromises made A mix of daring and desperation propelled Ramaphosa back to top-table politics in 2012. Just over five years later, he was president.

Plotting for Ramaphosa’s second coming – against a venal but well-protected party regime – had looked the riskiest of ventures.

All of his fêted talents as activist, organiser, negotiator, lawyer, businessman and diplomat went into Ramaphosa’s herculean re-entry project. First, he had to take the number two slot in a government about which he had the deepest reservations and whose president was facing accusations of grand corruption.

An acolyte of then president Jacob Zuma tells The Africa Report that his camp was looking for a candidate to appease investors: “Cyril did not have any grassroots

30

support, so he was given the position. He never had to work for it.” That’s not quite true. Ramaphosa, who became ANC deputy president in December 2012, scored 40 votes more than Zuma.

A narrow victory

Despite his appeals to liberation-party solidarity, Zuma’s reign caused the worst schisms in the ANC since its founding in 1912. That cut both ways for Ramaphosa’s election campaign. He had taken a long sabbatical from the party and politics. Then he had breezed back in, determined to fix the broken party and to win the presidency of the ANC against a strong insider candidate, the ex-wife of the sitting president. Photographs show a tearful Ramaphosa, head in hands, moments after his

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

narrow victory in the party elections in December 2017.

The full story of how Ramaphosa secured his winning margin over Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is problematic. A long-time ANC activist tells The Africa Report that Ramaphosa was set to lose the vote. Some activists organised a meeting between billionaire businessman Robert Gumede and Ramaphosa. This followed

‘We are going to root out corruption, and that is a promise I can make’ CYRIL RAMAPHOSA

reports that Gumede’s ally, David Mabuza, premier of Mpumalanga province, was wavering.

Zuma’s supporters were threatening Mabuza on charges of grand corruption and political murder – all of which he denies – unless he backed Dlamini-Zuma.

Gumede had a long-standing gripe against Dlamini-Zuma for cancelling one of his company’s biggest contracts at the Ministry of Home Affairs.

“Cyril’s instinct was to stay away from dealing with these two guys,” the activist says. “But one of his supporters told him to get real if he really wanted the presidency. He could not have won it without Mabuza […] that was the bitter truth.”

Equally, Ramaphosa was said to be uncomfortable when he and the ANC’s other top five officials called Zuma to press him to resign as state president.

Still more arduous is the way ahead: to win a substantial mandate for the ANC in the May 2019 elections, then push through reform of the country’s creaking public sector and embattled state institutions as well as a wide-ranging land-reform programme, in a way that will create jobs and bring in the promised $100bn of investment (see page 32). There is also the need for tough investigations, prosecutions, holding to account, argues former Cape Town mayor De Lille: “The buck stopped with Zuma and his cabinet, including Ramaphosa. They advise him and they must take responsibility for the failures.”

THE YEAR OF REFUGEES, RETURNEES AND INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS: TOWARDS DURABLE SOLUTIONS TO FORCED DISPLACEMENT IN AFRICA. Every year, the Heads of State and Government of The African Union decide upon a theme which focuses on a key issue facing the continent and which constitutes a focal area upon which the key activities and messages of the African Union will be anchored.

In 2019 the annual theme of the African Union will be “The Year of Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons: Towards durable solutions to forced displacement in Africa.

The 2019 AU Theme is driven by the need for greater commitment by Africa to address the plight of its citizens in forced migration situations, by implementing strategic and relevant programmes and working towards the ratification of the various AU treaties and legal instruments addressing the plight of refugees and displaced persons to ensure we achieve the goal of Aspiration 4 of Agenda 2063 to provide a peaceful and secure environment for all Africans on the continent.

Various AU treaties governing issues related to refugees, human rights, governance and promoting peace on the continent include the OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, OAU Convention for the Elimination of Mercenaries in Africa, OAU Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance.

Find out more about these treaties as well and their status of ratification by African states by visiting www.au.int About the 2019 Theme Logo: The logo for the Theme of the Year has been built around the crisis facing refugees in Africa. Whereas migration is a common phenomenon as people have always relocated for various reasons, in the case of Africa the continent is often painted as a miserable place because migration is as a result of civil strife, poverty and a myriad of other factors thereby promoting the narrative that Africa cannot care for its people. Africans and their governments have always opened their borders and welcomed into their communities their brothers and sister fleeing their homes for various reasons providing a safe haven as long as it is required.

The 2019 AU theme logo shows a mother embracing Africa with its child which encompasses love and affection.

Africa knows how to take care of its own in each regard no matter what.

www.au.int

African Union Headquarters P.O. Box 3243, Roosvelt Street W21K19, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Tel: +251 (0) 11 551 77 00 Fax: +251 (0) 11 551 78 44

FEATURES / PROFILE / Ramaphosa’s destiny

OPINION

THE TRIALS OF A POLITICAL CHAMELEON WILLIA AM GUMEDE Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesbburg, and author of South Africa in BRICS (Tafelberg)

Community activist, lawyer, trade unionist, negotiator of the constitution, chairman of the board and now president: Cyril Ramaphosa threw his many personas into his State of the Nation address in February. His primary mission is to convince voters that his government cares about them and can fix the economy after what he had described as “nine wasted years” under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.

Whether South Africans believe his promises will determine the outcome of the national election on 8 May. He wants a strong popular mandate to roll out wide-reaching reforms that shake up the government and economy.

Comprehensive and business-like rather than barnstorming, Ramaphosa’s February speech rallied the ANC ranks in parliament and left the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Democratic Alliance (DA) looking flat-footed. A few days before his set piece in parliament, Ramaphosa

32

addressed the Mining Indaba down the road in Cape Town, trying to win big-ticket investment. Ramaphosa’s balancing act is to get support from radical grassroots activists while courting investment from corporates.

Ramaphosa has to cover most of the points between the radical left and big capital. Although it held onto power with diminishing voter support, the ANC fractured in the Zuma years. Some disenchanted militants formed new factions or parties, others quit politics. The tripartite alliance, which bound the ANC to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu, co-founded by Ramaphosa in the 1980s) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), is much weakened by defections and feuds.

Neither is the ANC’s election machine in great shape. Tens of thousands of volunteers from the party’s youth league quit in the Zuma era. To win

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

convincingly in May, Ramaphosa must ensure that the ANC gets at least 55% of the vote. First, he has to stitch back together the triple alliance. Both the communists and Cosatu gave Ramaphosa conditional support in 2017, helping him win the ANC leadership against Zuma’s preferred candidate and ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Now they want policy concessions such as a commitment not to privatise failing state-owned entities such as Eskom, South African Airways and Denel.

Ramaphosa is keeping a discreet distance from such debates. Somehow, Ramaphosa, a businessman with assets worth an estimated $500m, has to keep the unions and the communists on side ahead of the elections.

Trickier still for Ramaphosa is winning over ANC members who did not vote for him – almost half the party – and remain loyal to Zuma.

A consummate chess player, Zuma

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is hoping for a resounding victory in May

MIKE HUTCHINGS/REUTERS

in Zuma’s camp say that they will move to oust Ramaphosa at a special national party conference should the ANC vote fall below 50%.

By embracing calls for the exprop­ riation of private land holdings without compensation, nationalisation of the Reserve Bank and staunch opposition to restructuring state-owned com­ panies, Zuma’s faction is wooing Julius Malema and the EFF. That is a serious challenge on Ramaphosa’s left flank.

is fighting against prosecution and political oblivion.

Zuma has formed what amounts to a party within the ANC, pulling in his die-hard loyalists. Ace Magashule, a former premier of the Free State, was caught on camera plotting with Zuma to oust Ramaphosa. Magashule is ANC secretary general, and this gives him power over the party’s election campaign and influence in its choice of parliamentary candidates.

For now, Zuma’s allies hold tightly to their ministerial posts, directorships of parastatals, as well as access to state contracts. Instead of confronting them politically, Ramaphosa is waiting for the judicial commissions and multiple anti-corruption investigations to weaken the group. With a backlog of as many as a hundred cases of high-level corruption, the authorities could push ahead with a number of prosecutions before the elections. But few are expecting

‘For so many, the most pressing issues are jobs and local services’

action against Zuma and allies in the short term.

South Africans have two votes in the coming elections: one for the national government and one for provincial government. Facing threats of investigation and prosecution, Zuma’s allies are shoring up their bases to try to win control of provincial governments, as well as the local party branches and youth and women’s leagues.

But they want to undermine the ANC vote at national level by covertly supporting other parties. Some

That means Ramaphosa has to calibrate policy carefully. Any move towards radical restructuring of state companies would prompt protests from the Zuma faction and the EFF, as well as trade unions. But without changes to creaking government structures and improvements to the poor standards of service, voters may have little faith that a Ramaphosa-led ANC can turn things around.

For so many of the ANC’s supporters in the townships and the countryside, the most pressing issues are jobs and local services. Despite setting out a vision in February of a resurgent country, Ramaphosa is struggling to shift the dial on the economy, against the backdrop of a ballooning budget deficit and mounting private and state debt.

Although Ramaphosa’s campaign to win $100bn of new investment over the next three years has yielded pledges of about a fifth of the target, the economy is marking time. Investors are holding back until they see more policy changes on mining, taxation, state enterprises and labour laws.

Unemployment hovers around 30%.

One bright spot for Ramaphosa is the weakness of the biggest opposition party, the centre-right DA. It thrived in the Zuma era, but as it changed from a white liberal party to a predominantly black and pro-business party, the DA under Mmusi Maimane’s leadership has struggled to assert its new identity. And with Ramaphosa — a super-successful businessman — at the helm of the ANC, many black voters are returning to the governing party.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

33

FEATURES /

INVESTIGATION

How Dan Etete’s billiondollar deal ended up in court An investigation in Nigeria has turned into the country’s biggest corporate bribery case. Nine executives from Eni and Royal Dutch Shell, and Nigerian officials, face charges in Milan over how they won control of a rich oil block 36

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

By HONORÉ BANDA in Abuja and PATRICK SMITH in Yenagoa On a biting cold day in Milan in January, Ibrahim Ahmed, a Nigerian investigator, and Colonel Alessandro Ferri of Italy’s financial police, hustle into the city’s imposing, marbleclad palace of justice. Ahmed is in Milan to explain to prosecutors Fabio de Pasquale and

GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP

Sergio Spadaro what Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) discovered when it started to investigate the award of one of the richest oil blocks in Africa to an obscure company called Malabu Oil & Gas in April 1998, which had been incorporated just five days earlier.

After chatting to local police, Ahmed is shown into the court. A tall, slender figure in

a dark suit, he expertly guides De Pasquale through the sheaves of documents about the disputes over ownership of Malabu and the oil block OPL 245. The story takes in more than 20 years of deal making and politics in Nigeria. It started in the era of military rule; now Italy’s Eni and Royal Dutch Shell face charges of corruption in the race to secure rights to the contested oil block.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

37

FEATURES /

The youth

WIDE ANGLE

Sudan street protests, Bobi Wine, #FeesMustFall and #NotTooYoungToRun: A demographic tide is pushing back against outdated politicians, so how long before the bulwark crumbles?

48

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

By NAMATA SERUMAGA-MUSISI in Accra, JOSEPH BURITE in Kampala, CARIEN DU PLESSIS in Johannesburg, EROMO EGBEJULE in Lagos and BILLIE MCTERNAN Since the end of December 2018, the streets of Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, have been in a state of unrest. Protests – initially against a tripling of the price of bread but now more widely against President Omar al-Bashir’s

wave

term said they would indefinitely postpone a meeting to draft the changes. And on 1 March the president delegated his position as head of the ruling party to its deputy chairman, Ahmed Harun.

A dangerous combination of a lack of job opportunities, poor economic growth, a growing youth demographic and an authoritarian government have pushed a generation of people with decades of life ahead of them to the limit.

According to the African Development Bank, more than 200 million of the continent’s 1.2 billion people are aged between 15-24, and that number is set to rise to 321 million by 2030.

Sudan’s youth-led protest movement is one of several around the continent. Some coalesce around a figurehead; others around a cause. But – as was seen with the Arab Spring movements of 2011 – when and if they reach a tipping point depends on the various and complex circumstances of each country: the structure and health of its politics, the quality of youth leaders and the individual choices of millions and millions of young Africans

government – have sent tremors across the country. Bashir, who seized power in a military coup in 1989 and has ruled Sudan ever since, has declared a year-long state of emergency, replacing all state governors with military officials. However, there are signs that his grip may be weakening: on 16 February lawmakers tasked with amending Sudan’s constitution so that he could run for another

Bobi Wine went into politics to amplify the issues he was singing about and get youth actively involved

ROBIN LETELLIER/SIPA

Protest, disengage or leave

Africa is no exception to the rule that young people are less likely to be engaged with traditional politics than their older peers.

While opinion polls (see page 54) show that young Africans discuss politics to the same extent, a lower percentage of them vote and a higher percentage participate in protests. But frustrations about poor public services and a lack of jobs can equally contribute to apathy or a desire to leave the country in search of brighter prospects somewhere else.

As recent events in Sudan and Uganda show, countries that have autocratic governments and few jobs for young people have the hardest time engaging with youth. Thirty-seven-year-old Robert ‘Bobi Wine’ Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, a musician and member of parliament for Kyadondo East in Kampala, wants to represent this youth demographic fed up with the 33-year rule of President Yoweri Museveni.

In November 2018, he was in Accra to attend the 2018 All Africa Music Awards but offstage he addressed a gathering of supporters and listeners at Mmofra Park.

Kyagulanyi engages the crowd, some of whom took part in the worldwide protests that erupted when he and more than 30 others were abducted and brutalised by the Ugandan armed forces

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

49

FEATURES /

56

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

Is Magufuli’s economic nationalism working?

The threat of a $190bn tax bill became a $300m payment. The Africa Report looks into whether the Tanzanian government’s barnstorming style will revolutionise the economy or scare away investors

President John Magufuli has a trademark ‘us against the world’ message

DANIEL HAYDUK/AFP

By NICHOLAS NORBROOK There was a certain optimism when John Magufuli became president in 2015. Here was a man, as the early skirmishes on social media revealed, who was not afraid to get his hands dirty to get things done: surprise visits on hospitals and government offices to reveal who was slacking off work; a push for discipline and austerity in public office; and an anti-corruption drive known as ‘lance the boils’.

Even some of his most trenchant critics – like opposition politician Zitto Kabwe – say that Magufuli is making progress. Kabwe tells The Africa Report: Magufuli is doing the “right thing, but in the wrong way.”

What is this ‘right thing’? At its core it concerns the role of government, the mediator between the interests of capital on the

one hand, and citizens on the other. “Let us stand as one. Tanzania belongs to us all and we should put interests of the country first,” Magufuli told parliament in 2015.

It is also a political fault line of our time.

And Magufuli has certainly changed the rules of the game in Tanzania. Passed in 2017, the Natural Wealth and Resources Contracts law allows officials to trawl back through two decades’ worth of contracts to see if any of the terms are unfavourable to the government.

Equinor, which has invested more than $2bn in developing Block 2 off the coast, says that the production-sharing agreement it has with the government is still valid, but has been unable to get any further in negotiations over building a $30bn gas plant in Lindi.

Other legislation pushed the royalty rate on gold from 4% to 6%, gave the government 16% of the stock of mining companies and

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

57

US$ 3.9 BILLION

1.1 MILLION

INVESTED IN TRADE AND PROJECT FINANCE

JOBS CREATED

TRANSFORMING AND INTEGRATING THE REGION’S ECONOMIES By providing different types of financing,TDB fosters trade, regional economic integration and sustainable development, prioritizing projects with cross-border impact.

www.tdbgroup.org

FOCUS /

EAST AFRICA

EAC

The East African Community was formed two decades ago, but rivalry and diverging national interests threaten to curb progress

The trade ties that bind

The region has a long agenda for cooperation in the years ahead, but policymakers are not yet looking at the many concerns of business and ordinary citizens in order to avoid the pitfalls that have hobbled other integration projects THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

63

The

100

most influential The Africa Report’s inaugural ranking of the top Africans who control the levers of power across politics, business and the arts: from billionaire barons to unpredictable peacemakers and soft-power superstars

By ALISON CULLIFORD, OLIVIA KONOTEY-AHULU, NICHOLAS NORBROOK, OHENEBA AMA NTI OSEI and MARSHALL VAN VALEN 86

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

The Africa Report is transitioning to a quarterly magazine with a special focus on the decision makers, the money takers and the thought shakers who are not only in the spotlight for their skills and strategies today but will continue to be so for years to come. Our 2019 ranking is based on three criteria: global reach (40%), trajectory (30%) and influence (30%).

00 Africans Global reach takes into account how many countries their activities touch and how well known they are. Trajectory is defined to capture people whose careers are on the up and those involved in crucial industries of tomorrow, like manufacturing, fintech and the creative sectors. And finally, influence is measured as to how much their voices matter in local

and global debates, and how much they are able to change the political, economic and cultural playing fields.

The names that follow – including a Nobel Peace Prize winner, officials helping to run global institutions, a highly sought-after architect and billionaires with hotly awaited stock IPOs – are examples of the heights

of African leadership in the world, both at home and in the diaspora.

They are coming up with innovations to spur financial inclusion and leapfrog technological stages, tackling climate change and human rights abuses in Africa and across the world, and telling heartbreaking and beautifully imagined stories that make the world a richer place.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

87

THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL AFRICANS /

Aliko Dangote

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Money talks

The sun keeps rising PLANET PIX/ZUMA-REA

Nigeria

1

He’s the richest black man in the world and Africa’s richest man, with an estimated wealth of $10.3bn.

Within Nigeria, Senator Ben-Murray Bruce called him “more influential and powerful than (President Muhammadu) Buhari”. The billionaire’s latest project is a $10.5bn oil refinery that will be Africa’s largest, so Dangote will not be sitting on the sidelines when it comes to oilsector reform debates there. He is investing in the continent’s manufacturing and agribusiness capacity, and plans to launch the long-awaited London IPO of Dangote Cement in late 2019.

Meanwhile, his philanthropy is taking flight.

Elon Musk

Rocket man

South Africa

2

The yo-yoing of his company shares, his hirings and firings and off-the-wall tweets keep Musk in the headlines. He may be a maverick but his ideas are shaping the future, from reducing global warming with his electric cars to urban transportation on a cushion of air and plans to establish a colony on Mars. His Boring Company could help a boom in urban public transportation, and he is a big pessimist about the impact of AI. He donates to both the Democratic and Republican parties in the US, saying it is necessary to pay up in order to have a voice.

Koos Bekker

Go-getter in Asia South Africa

3

When China-based Tencent sneezed in August 2018, Naspers share price caught a cold. It didn’t last long, but it showed how tied the fortunes of the South African media and entertainment behemoth are to its largest holding (Naspers owns 31% of the Chinese internet giant). Buying a stake in Tencent in 2001 makes Bekker the Buffett of Africa: the initial $32m investment has grown to $116bn since then, and Bekker famously waived a salary to get paid in stock options when he was CEO. With the bulk of South African pension funds invested heavily in Naspers and allegations of Gupta-style influencing in a 2017 broadcasting deal, Bekker said the company would work on its transparency at the 2018 annual general meeting.

88

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

Nigeria

The Nigerian author-cum-public intellectual continues her stratospheric ascent and is as often seen behind a mic as in print these days – engaging audiences about racism, sexism and the human condition. She started the year 2018 slaying a French journalist for her lack of knowledge about Nigeria and ended it on stage with former US first lady Michelle Obama. Who’s next?

Business

4

Entertainer

Power player

Disruptor

Trevor Noah

Mic wrecker

South Africa

7

Davido

Naija pop idol Nigeria

S. DAWSON/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY

He has riches (he’s worth $16m), good looks, fast cars and political clout. Using his music to inspire Nigerians to vote in the 2019 elections, he also lent his star appeal to presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar’s campaign, seriously upstaging the 72-year-old politician. His next act will be to crack the tough US market, with his eyes set on a gig at Madison Square Garden, having filled the 15,000-seat O2 Arena in London in January.

Tidjane Thiam

Master strategist Côte d’Ivoire

6 STEPHEN VOSS/REDUX-REA

TAYLOR HILL/WIREIMAGE/GETTY

5

One of the US’s most prominent voices critiquing the presidency of Donald Trump, Noah has brought millennial-inspired thinking and an astute outsider’s view to The Daily Show and taught some Americans that Africa is not a country. With the renewal of his contract in 2017 his job is secure until 2022, which will carry him through the febrile US election season.

He is also quite funny.

Thiam’s turnaround of Credit Suisse since 2016 has left bankers and analysts awestruck. Ignoring naysayers, the Ivorian CEO relegated the derivatives traders and recast the bank as a wealth-management operation focusing on emerging markets. He explained his view to Euromoney: “This is a fabulous bank. Or let me be more precise: it has always had a fabulous bank within it.” But it faces big blowback for its role in the Mozambique tuna bond scandal.

Enoch Adeboye Sacred networker Nigeria

8

In 2017 Pastor Adeboye’s resignation from leading his five-million-member church in Nigeria was greeted with dismay by congregations around the country. Nigeria’s highest-profile pastor, who numbers the Nigerian vice-president Yemi Osinbajo among his followers, had to step down from running the domestic operations of the church he had built up almost from scratch after a new law put a 20-year cap and 70-yearold age limit on the leadership of non-profit organisations. Adeboye could have argued that The Redeemed Christian Church of God was not, strictly speaking, “non-profit”, with Forbes quoting the net worth of the man born into poverty at €39m, but he chose not to.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

89

INSIDE BAYELSA /

BAYELSA

Change comes to the

STATE An auditorium at the University of Africa campus in Toru-Orua is taking shape

Delta

New projects are taking root in Bayelsa State, but the years of despoliation and false promises from governments and oil companies have left a legacy that will take generations to shake

By EROMO EGBEJULE and PATRICK SMITH in Yenagoa Photo reportage by KC NWAKALOR for TAR In the heart of the Niger Delta at Oloibiri there is an oil well – now rusting, with a steel cap screwed tightly over its head – that changed history. Oloibiri, in present day Bayelsa State, is the place where the Shell-British Petroleum consortium struck oil in 1956 after half a century of trying. Two years later, Nigeria’s first oil field came on-stream, gushing out 5,000 barrels per day. Within a couple of decades, the country was producing 2m barrels a day.

In many ways, Oloibiri symbolises what went wrong with Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

Today, the place has shrunk back into obscurity. A promise by oil companies and the central government to build a museum there has never been honoured.

More importantly, the living conditions of many people around Oloibiri have scarcely improved although an industry that has generated more than $1trn started life in their community.

Worse still, pollution caused by oil leaking into the creeks and swamplands has hobbled farming and fishing.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

123

LOGISTICS DOSSIER

Landlocked

blues

146 THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

Ethiopia has high hopes for manufacturing and exports, but the country will not be competitive until it solves its logistical problems. To that end, the state is starting to liberalise the sector

Hawassa Industrial Park is a flagship facility for the textile industry

NICHOLE SOBECKI/VII/REDUX-REA

By TOM GARDNER in Addis Ababa In January, it emerged that Ethiopian exports had once again disappointed, undershooting the government’s six-month target of $1.96bn by nearly 40%. It was a sobering reminder that, for all Ethiopia’s rapid, state-led growth over the past decade, exports have consistently shown few signs of improvement.

“Logistics is the number-one bugbear for anyone in exports and manufacturing,” says Graham Parrott, head of strategy at Ethiopia Investments Limited, which invests in local businesses. His words are echoed by many exporters, who say this challenge is rivalled only by the shortage of foreign exchange.

The figures are telling. To trans­ port a 20ft container of garments from Ethiopia to Germany costs 247% more than from Vietnam and 72% more than from Bangladesh.

In 2016, Ethiopia scored 2.37 in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index – significantly lower than neighbouring Uganda, which is also landlocked. The country ranked 159th out of 190 in the World Bank’s Doing Business index in 2018; Uganda came 127th.

In key export sectors, such as textiles, speed is essential to competitiveness. Slow and expensive imports, meanwhile, are bad for all businesses. According to Daniel Zemichael, chief executive

of Freighters International, a local logistics company, goods take an average of 20-30 days to reach an Ethiopian customer from the port in neighbouring Djibouti. A 20ft container costs an average of $2,660 to import from its source to Ethiopia. “This is probably one of the most expensive corridors in the world,” says Serge Tiran of Massida Group, another logistics firm.

Mojo rising

The government has made improving logistics a priority. A $2.5bn, 750km railway connecting Addis Ababa with the port in Djibouti launched last year and should cut a three-day journey down to 12 hours. In an ambitious road-building programme flagship projects include a 200km expressway connecting Hawassa, home to the country’s largest industrial park, with the capital.

Two years ago, the government signed a $150m World Bank project to transform Mojo, a poorly equipped and heavily congested dry port near Addis Ababa that processes more than 70% of imported containers, into a state-ofthe-art logistics facility. Meanwhile, Addis is helping a Dutch consortium, Flying Swans, to set up a cold chain along the railway to the coast.

With the appointment of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last April, logistics reform shifted up a gear.

The new administration’s roadmap,

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

147

ART & LIFE FASHION

Red-carpet

raves African designers are thrust into the limelight when Hollywood stars shine in their lines.

As orders flood in from around the world, they must be ready to up production quotas and ride the rollercoaster of Instagram success

By KATIA DANSOKO TOURÉ for Jeune Afrique Guests at the American Music Awards last October were already hyped to see what host Tracee Ellis Ross would be wearing – in 2017, the actress and daughter of Diana Ross made a spectacular 11 wardrobe changes in the course of the evening. This time she only changed 10 times, but she made even more of a statement: every one of her outfits was by a black designer. The most sensational was a majestic mermaid dress with double bell sleeves and ruffles to the floor, its “scales” shimmering in a blue and red wax print. The dress was by Claude Lavie Kameni, a Cameroonian-born designer and founder of the brand LavieByCK. Kameni, who had already made waves by dressing Janet Jackson in a wax print crinoline for the music video of her single Made

156 THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

for Now, posted a photo of the mermaid dress on Instagram and got 32,000 likes. A few snaps later, the 24-year-old designer finally published the information everyone was waiting for: “The dress that @traceeellisross fell in love with was from our 2017 fall collection” and “This gown will be available to pre-order on Sunday!!”

Ten days later, it was already sold out while the designer sourced new shipments of the now iconic fabric.

Over the past decade, particularly with the explosion of social media, a designer’s reputation can be made overnight. Celebrity stylists now have access to a world of fashion way beyond the big names in couture and can seek talent from anywhere in the world – including the African continent.

Black Hollywood stars have seized the opportunity to do more with their looks than

GARETH CATTERMOLE/GETTY IMAGES FOR VOGUE AND THE DUBAI MALL

Designer Alexis Temomanin’s Dent de Man is among African labels chosen by Black Hollywood stars at awards and premieres

SELORM (JAY) ATTIKPO/FULLISH ART FOR TAR

DAY IN THE LIFE

MOSHOOD BALOGUN in Accra I was born in Lagos in 1981. I got all of my formal education in the same city. Unfortunately, I did not get to complete my university education because I got into a series of troubles with the authorities and I eventually had to leave.

My mother provided me with some money, and I travelled to Denmark in 2002. Over there, I got into a relationship with a Danish woman and lived with her for close to a year. We’d made plans to get married, but she betrayed me one day; she called the police on me and had me deported.

Back in Nigeria, I reunited with my family: my parents, my children and their mother. Me and her are divorced now. We have five children in total. Two have passed. The eldest was born in the year 2000, on the ninth of July.

In 2007, when my then wife was pregnant with our last child, I was involved in a very serious accident.

I was seated behind a friend on a motorbike and […]

Searching for the right path Adebayo Hammed Ajibade’s passions and hopes have kept him going through lifechanging moments I don’t even know how the accident happened, but my friend lost his life in it. I came out of it with a broken leg. Although my life was spared, a lifelong dream of mine was killed. I could no longer play football. It had always been my dream to be a footballer. My father spent a lot of his money in pursuit of this dream of mine.

After a few years, when things were not going so well in my life, my mother suggested once again

162 THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019

that I travel elsewhere. So I came to Ghana in 2013. In my very early days here, I was robbed. My bag, which contained the little money I had, my passport and a few other essentials, was stolen. I had to hustle to get back on my feet. I sold pure water in traffic – dusters, too.

And then I got into working as a labourer, but the work was so hard.

I reasoned that I’d die young if I continued with it. So I stopped.

For a while, I had nothing to do.

Until a fellow Nigerian living here in Ghana introduced me to selling books in traffic. I choose to sell solely African books because I’m proud to be African.

These books I sell help me manage myself quite well financially. I get them from a wholesaler with whom I split the profits after I’ve sold the books. I’ve suffered a lot, and things are still not easy.

But I thank God for my life because when there is life, there is hope.

My dream now is to be a musician because I believe I’ve got a message to deliver. I just pray to God to point the right path for me soon.