Tar98 nigeria by The Africa Report

NIGERIA

• F uture factories Meet the robot job-killers • Kenya The unheard anger • Zimbabwe Is making the right noises enough?

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South Africa

Rebuild the rule

of law Ramaphosa’s next struggle is for trust

JEUNE AFRIQUE MEDIA GROUP INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Algeria 550 DA • Belgium €5.90 • Canada CA$ 7.95 • DR Congo US$ 9 • Denmark 60 DK • DOM 8 € • Ethiopia 130 Birr • France €5.90 • Germany €5.90 • Ghana GH¢ 10 • Italy €5.90 • Kenya KES 410 • Morocco 40 DH • Netherlands €5.90 • Nigeria 800 NGN • Norway NK 70 • Portugal €5.90 • Rwanda RWF 6,000 • Sierra Leone LE 15,000 • South Africa R40 (tax incl.) • Spain €5.90 • Sweden SEK 70 • Switzerland 9.90 FS Tanzania TZS 10,000 • Tunisia 5.4 DT • Uganda UGX 10,000 • UK £4.50 • United States US$ 6.95 • Zambia 48 ZMW • Zimbabwe US$ 4 • CFA Countries 3,500 F CFA • Euro Zone €5.90

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NIGERIA

• Future factories Meet the robot job-killers • Kenya The unheard anger • Zimbabwe Is making the right noises enough?

20-page special

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South Africa

Rebuild the rule

of law Ramaphosa’s next struggle is for trust

THE AFRICA REPORT # 98 - MARCH 2018 JEUNE AFRIQUE MEDIA GROUP INTERNATIONAL EDITION

BUSINESS

04 EDITORIAL It takes a team to topple

62 FACTORIES The post-manufacturing future Robots and artificial intelligence are upending traditional pathways to industrialisation, and threatening jobs

06 LETTERS 08 THE QUESTION

BRIEFING 10 SIGNPOSTS 12 PEOPLE Jewel Howard Taylor, vice-president, Liberia 14 INTERNATIONAL 16 CALENDAR

18 OPINION Stephen Chan, professor, SOAS, UK

68 MINING Randgold, the cost killer 70 LEADERS Lola Kassim, General Manager West Africa, Uber

FRONTLINE 22 LAND How long must we be patient? Black South Africans were promised their land back in 1994. A failure to deliver has sparked anger and fear in the countryside: a tough test for the new president

COVER CREDITS: MOELETSI MABE/SUNDAY TIMES/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; VERNIER/JBV NEWS

36 AFRICAN UNION Kagame takes the reins 40 OPINION Rebuilding trust is Ramaphosa’s next struggle 42 ANANSI Team South Africa scams Putin

COUNTRY FOCUS 45 NIGERIA Lights, camera, action The opening credits are rolling on Nigeria’s promised epic: ‘Beyond Oil Dependency’ THE AFRICA REPORT

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73 HANNIBAL DOSSIER CONSTRUCTION 74 Egypt’s new capital The government is developing a new $45bn city to take pressure off Cairo, as it struggles with poor planning and crowding 78 KENYA Is the bubble bursting? 80 WEST AFRICA China’s CCCC takes the long view

POLITICS 30 KENYA The unheard anger Politicians play out high-level chess moves while anger brews among Nairobi’s poor who are struggling to heal the wounds of post-electoral violence

72 FINANCE Why international banks are pulling out of Africa

ART & LIFE 82 PHOTO Bamako shines The photography biennale returned to its full glory in the Malian capital, a burst of imagination and deconstructed dreams of ‘Afrotopia’

62 82

86 THEATRE New rhythm in Lagos 87 TOURISM Romantic heights meet ancient sites 88 LIFESTYLE Nigerian highlife musician Adekunle Gold 89 TRAVEL Lamu Cultural Festival, Kenya 90 DAY IN THE LIFE Senegalese-Guinean percussionist Didi Keita

THE AFRICA REPORT A Jeune Afrique Media Group publication

BY PATRICK SMITH

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

It takes a team to topple

t might seem a tad smug for journalists to claim a critical role in the sinking of Jacob Zuma and the blocking of the criminal networks that fed off his presidency. But in an age when institutions face sustained attack around the world, the media should not be shy in pointing out when they have done something useful. Firstly, journalists such as the late Mandy Rossouw had the guts to look closely at the source of funding for Zuma’s homestead at Nkandla. Revelations about his misuse of state funds for the homestead had political consequences, and last year the African National Congress (ANC) lost a local election at Nkandla. Then South Africa’s journalists waded deeper into their country’s political weeds with a version of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ for the internet age. It was a cache of more than 200,000 emails hacked from the accounts of Zuma’s closest business allies. Those emails set out a train of corporate and political perfidy that prompted the foreign companies implicated to offer profuse apologies to the South African people. Details of over-priced contracts, sweeteners to ministers and pressure on directors of state companies poured out of those emails. Not only did media reports about the emails expose wrongdoing at the highest levels in the state and private companies, they did so in a way that strengthens the system of accountability drawn up by the authors of South Africa’s constitution. In the end, the very bitter end, the shooing out of Zuma was a collaborative venture. Leaders of the ANC delivered the coup de grace two months after electing Cyril Ramaphosa as its new

CHA I R M A N A ND F O UND E R BÉCHIR BEN YAHMED P UB L I S HE R DANIELLE BEN YAHMED publisher@theafricareport.com E X E CUT I VE P UB L I S HE R JÉRÔME MILLAN

president. They would not have done it unless they had been well informed. Indeed, it could have been Zuma’s preferred candidate and not Ramaphosa who won the elections had it not been for the deluge of information. Leading characters in the drama also include brave, independentminded officials such as Thuli Madonsela, the former public protector who corralled investigative reports, firstly on Nkandla and then on the business networks linking Zuma, his allies and the Gupta family. Then it was the Constitutional Court, which, after reading This very Madonsela’s first report, ruled that Zuma public had breached his oath drama may of office. It took sevbe the eral more months to get Zuma to repay the final act for state funds spent on the ‘Big Man’ Nkandla. Committed officials in the revenue theory service and the Audiof power tor General’s office also helped to take down the Zuma network. Many other rigorously independent judges played their role alongside redoubtable chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng. Lest anyone underestimates what was at stake, Madonsela received numerous death threats against herself and her children. This very public drama has an importance far beyond the fate of Jacob Zuma. It may be the final act for the ‘Big Man’ theory of power. Big institutions safeguarding integrity and the public good can and must push back against criminal corporate interests and the political snake-oil salesmen they enlist to their cause.

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M A R K E T I NG & D E VE L O P M E NT ALISON KINGSLEY‑HALL E D I T O R I N CHI E F PATRICK SMITH M A NA G I NG E D I T O R NICHOLAS NORBROOK editorial@theafricareport.com A S S O CI AT E E D I T O R MARSHALL VAN VALEN B US I NE S S E D I T O R MARK ANDERSON R E S E A R CH & P R O D UCT I O N OHENEBA AMA NTI OSEI RE G IO NA L E D I T O R CRYSTAL ORDERSON (SOUTHERN AFRICA) A RT & LI FE ED I T O R BILLIE ADWOA MCTERNAN S UB - E D I T O R S ALISON CULLIFORD ERIN CONROY P R O O F R E A D I NG KATHLEEN GRAY A RT DI R E CT O R MARC TRENSON DESIGN VALÉRIE OLIVIER (LEAD DESIGNER) SYDONIE GHAYEB CHRISTOPHE CHAUVIN (INFOGRAPHICS) CAMILLE CHAUVIN R E S E A R CH SYLVIE FOURNIER P HO T O G R A P HY XAVIER ROUSSEAU SAMUEL BOUAROUA SALES SANDRA DROUET Tel: (33) 1 44 30 18 07 – Fax: (33) 1 45 20 09 67 sales@theafricareport.com CONTACT FOR SUBSCRIPTION: Webscribe Ltd Unit 4 College Road Business Park College Road North Aston Clinton HP22 5EZ United Kingdom Tel: + 44 (0) 1442 820580 Fax: + 44 (0) 1442 827912 Email: subs@webscribe.co.uk ExpressMag 8275 Avenue Marco Polo Montréal, QC H1E 7K1, Canada T : +1 514 355 3333 1 year subscription (10 issues): All destinations: €39 ‑ $60 ‑ £35 TO ORDER ONLINE: www.theafricareportstore.com A D VE RT I S I NG D I F CO M 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 GROUPE JEUNE AFRIQUE

NO BETTER TIME THAN NOW

Angola, South Affrrica, Zimbabwe... Is this change we can believe in?

João Lourenço, Cyril Ramaphosa, and Emmerson Mnangagwa

Bright Ghana

w the country Hoow finally fi turned the t lights on

t’s still early to accurately judge the success of the free senior high school policy [‘When education yearns to be free’, TAR97 Feb 2018]. The country definitely had to start one way or the other, and there is no better time than now. For a developing country like Ghana, it’s not entirely surprising that some challenges have AFRICAN been encountered in the early stages. However, COMPANIES A glimmer of hope with a good feedback system and collective efforts to address them, the policy can be continuously improved. The eventual success of the system goes beyond the good intentions with which it was created. All stakeholders involved, from teaching staff to parents and even students, will need to play their part. Going forward, citizens who benefit directly from the policy will need to be actively involved in the feedback system, and push, through available structures, to get their concerns represented as well as hold the government accountable to see to the success of the policy. Lawrence Adu-Gyamfi, Ghana

PLURALISM UNDER PRESSURE

Your editorial ‘Zimbabwe: The people’s message’ [TAR96 Dec 2017-Jan 2018] correctly examines the irresistible hunger for political and economic change in Africa. But before the message for change reaches the most sclerotic regimes in Africa, can we also consider the state of pluralism in other parts of the world? Recently Alexei Navalny, after being endorsed as the only opposition candidate by the people in Russia, had his bid rejected by the Central Election Commission of Russia. In Iran, thousands of people protested against hard economic times, including high food prices, and the government swiftly blocked all social media footage and online messaging via mobile phones. These new witness accounts in choosing to have relaxed hair. of the resistance for change in Africa It is a woman’s prerogative how she and all over the world show a lack chooses to wear her hair: bone-straight of respect for political pluralism, which and relaxed, or natural and kinky! is a catalyst for political legitimacy Michelle N. Ntalami, CEO & Founder, and economic transparency. N ° 9 7 • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 18

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JEUNE AFRIQUE MEDIA GROUP

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

WHAT IS NATURAL DOES NOT NEED EXAGGERATION My response is Yes, I feel natural African hair is exactly that: natural [‘The Question: Has natural hair become too politicised?’, TAR97 Feb 2018]. Something that is already natural does not need to be exaggerated as a new phenomenon. We have always had natural hair, we just chose to relax it and now is when we are discovering our roots. In my opinion, natural African hair does not have to be a movement or protest, we just need to embrace it calmly, for those who would like to return to natural. There is also no harm

Marini Naturals, Kenya

Kokil Shah, Kenya

Quiz Answers Thanks to everyone who took part in our end-of-year quiz in the Dec 2017Jan 2018 issue. Correct answers: 1 b) Nambia; 2 b) Thando Mgqolozana; 3 b) James Ibori; 4 a) Lupita Nyong’o; 5 a) An electrical cable; 6 50 (19 Jan-10 Mar) + 104 (7 May-19 Aug); 7 His wife and children were too addicted to the show; 8 b) Schistosomiasis; 9 c) $460; 10 c) Robert Mugabe; 11 a) Helen Zille; 12 b) $8,000; 13 Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana; 14 c) Burundi; 15 a) Orange juice; 16 a) Bell Pottinger; 17 Seven.

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ADVERTISERS’ INDEX BOLLORE TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS p 2; EMIRATES p 5; MCB GROUP p 7; OLAM p 9; ENI p 15; AFRICA CEO FORUM 2018 p 17; BEIJING REVIEW p 20-21; CHANNELS INCORPORATED LTD p 33; TAR SUBSCRIPTION p 43; TAR Debates p 44, 91; UBA p 49; CAMEROON TEA ESTATES p 52; LADOL p 55; SONA GROUP NIGERIA p 57; RACK CENTRE p 59; AFSIC p 59; ENERGYNET - AEF p 61; DASSAULT AVIATION p 67; LIEBHERR EXPORT AG p 77; CFAO JCB p 81; WOLF OIL - CHAMPION p 92 THE AFRICA REPORT

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The decisions on ‘global’ problems are still being made by an exclusive club of developed nations often serving their own interests. As the African Union strikes out for financial independence and self-detemination, we asked:

Can African leaders adopt a stronger voice on global issues?

Yes JOSEPH RWAGATARE Columnist, Rwanda

Today’s important global issues, such as trade, climate change, terrorism and migration, impact Africans the most. Africa is undergoing transformation that is increasingly giving its people and leaders power, confidence and a voice. In the past its countries were weak and open to arm-twisting and even blackmail because of political and economic fragmentation, corruption, and dependency on foreign financial support. To overcome this demands a unified voice on the issues and the muscle to back it. That’s what the African Union and its ongoing reforms provide: to make it more independent in funding its activities, to increase its domestic and global impact and to strengthen regional economic communities. The Continental Free Trade Area that will be signed in March 2018 in Kigali will reinforce regional economic communities such as the EAC, ECOWAS and SADC, provide a huge market to African goods, and give the continent a stronger hand in negotiating trade matters. Greater economic integration and opportunities within Africa should stem migration, which is linked to weak economies although it manifests as a security and humanitarian issue. To be heard you must be respected. Respect comes from doing right, being strong and possessing the ability to stand on your own. The good news is that this is already happening.

No SHEHU SANI Senator, Nigeria

It is difficult for African leaders to adopt a stronger voice on global issues for a number of reasons. First of all there are overwhelming socio-economic and political challenges on the domestic and continental front that inhibit their intervention or interest on global issues. Secondly, some African leaders are still subservient and take orders from their former colonial masters who wield strong influence on the global stage. Thirdly, no African State is a permanent member of the United Nations Secretary Council – a huge limitation if leaders are to have a stronger voice on world issues. Leaders across the continent still depend on aid and favours from wealthy nations and this mentality comes with dire consequences. Moreover, African leaders are not in a position to impose sanctions on countries, as powerful nations in Europe and North America do. The new generation of African leaders also lack the ideological depth of the first-generation leaders, which limits their ability to deliberate on vital issues. Lastly, those at the top might struggle to be heard in the global arena because they don’t show much interest in getting into the ring on issues that have no direct impact on their countries. Whereas the world wants to discuss the Syrian civil war and the North Korean nuclear threat, African leaders are more interested in discussing aid and economic assistance.

We need to develop the economic status of Africa first. [This] lies in the unification of the continent through mostly trade and industry, and the emancipation of the values of ‘ubuntu’. African leaders should participate in international affairs with one voice. A united voice portrays an organised lot. Prince S. Mahlangu From what we’ve seen in the past, they mostly only do so if the ‘global issue’ affects them individually, like pulling out of the ICC. We are yet to see a precedent where they do so on matters affecting the African masses. @IsaacOtidiAmuke Yes it can but not in its current structure of 54 disunited states.So the challenge is to reshape Africa at the macro level and improve coordination at the AU Commission. @Djbawlah If there is a will it needs to be shared across the continent. One lone wolf cannot effect change across matters that are important to so many. Generational changes to thinking are required. @McLean_SCC What have they done with the responsibilities given to them by us to deserve to have a say on global issues? Will they not spread corruption, oppression, complacency and poverty? @tpeeven

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SOUTH AFRICA

WALDO SWIEGERS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

The end of Zuma’s road

Premonitions perhaps? Zuma at the 2017 ANC conference

acob Zuma’s tenure as South Africa’s president ended with a whimper, not a bang. Unfazed by the boos, by the Supreme Court’s verdict that he failed to uphold the constitution, by the reinstatement of a raft of corruption charges and the rejection of his preferred successor, Jacob Zuma spent Valentine’s Day complaining that the African National Congress (ANC)’s calls for him to stand down in February were “unfair”, before finally resigning. “There’s nothing I’ve done wrong,” Zuma said.

EDUCATION TIDAL WAVE OF TEACHER NEEDS

Because he resigned before a vote of no-confidence Zuma’s cabinet does not have to be dissolved. Ramaphosa will therefore have to clean the slate himself. While Zuma still has many allies in the ANC, the government is going hard against those suspected of being involved in corrupt Zuma-linked activities to isolate his remaining supporters. The authorities arrested Ajay Gupta of the influential Gupta family and other high-profile names were set to follow, sources said. Atul Gupta’s attempt to flee the country

“You know I think

60), and now that countries like Ghana are aiming for free and universal secondary education there are fears that the same planning mistakes will be repeated.

by 2

SOURCE: PASEC 2014/UNESCO-IIPE

025 by 2

Teach ers in

Africa’s population is young and growing rapidly, so if countries want to take advantage of that demographic, they need to quickly hire and train teachers. Total recruitment necessary by 2020 To meet the demand for schooling, sub-Saharan 4 01 African countries will have to almost double the number of teachers they had in 2014 within the next 12 years. In many countries, the 17 13 9 5 1 expansion of universal primary Teachers required education led local in millions governments North Africa to hire unqualified Sub-Saharan Africa teachers (see page

was said to have been thwarted by the pilot, who refused to take off from Lanseria airport. As The Africa Report went to press, Zuma’s son Duduzane was still on the run. Whether and how Zuma would be held accountable for his misdeeds was a major topic in his discussions with Ramaphosa. Those close to Zuma say that he still has some cards to play. In February, when Zuma asked for more time to get his affairs in order, he hinted that he was willing to take a great number of others down with him, based on information he had gleaned as the ANC’s former intelligence chief. But power leached away from Zuma fast. Staunch allies – like finance minister Malusi Gigaba – advised him publicly to step down. Ramaphosa’s honeymoon has not yet started, and there are high expectations about his ability to deliver change (see page 40). So far, the markets are on his side: the rand strengthened with each step closer to Zuma’s downfall. But Ramaphosa’s recent ups and downs – his role in the Marikana massacre as well as in negotiations for a minimum wage – suggest that he may not have an easy ride. However, his reforming zeal and eye on how to stop the Economic Freedom Fighters from poaching voters on the left on areas such as land reform (see page 22) mean the ANC may be able to turn around its weakening performance at the polls in time for the next elections in 2019.

Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said s that a French journalist’s question about whetther there are bookstores in Nigeria was out of orde er.

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0 03

BEN CURTIS/AP/SIPA

BRIEFING 11

PICTURE OF THE MONTH After boycotting the second round of the presidential vote last year, opposition leader Raila Odinga swore himself in as Kenya’s “people’s president” in February. His allies were absent, and the government is now in crackdown mode.

SECRECY TAKING ON THE TAX HAVENS

INVESTMENT ACTIVITY PLUMMETS IN 2017

27 80 9

95 62 Ghana

38 80

103 69 Botswana

The top secrecy jurisdictions in Africa 00

77 75 Seychelles

Liberia

Kenya

75 73 Tanzania

50 56 South Africa

Africa Rank

Secrecy Score

49 72

Global Rank

Mauritius

Tracking illicit financial flows is high on African and global agendas. This year’s Financial Secrecy Index shows that countries with reputations for being tax havens are not always the ones who engage in financial secrecy. Mauritius and Seychelles are high on the list, but Kenya tops it. Nairobi’s financial centre is small in global terms, but it is growing fast. THE AFRICA REPORT

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SOURCE: FINANCIAL SECURITY INDEX 2018

106 77 Gambia

Economic worries in two of the continent’s biggest economies – Nigeria and South Africa – led mergers and acqusitions to fall to their lowest levels since 2012 last year. Inbound deals dropped by almost 20% and outbound ones – where South African firms play the biggest role – fell by 44%. Low commodity prices have hurt activity, but big deals like Exxon’s $2.8bn for a stake in a Mozambican gas field in March 2017 show that the tides may already be turning.

Merger and acquisition deals in sub-Saharan Africa ($bn) 60

‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 ‘12 ‘13 ‘14 ‘15 ‘16 ‘17

SPOTLIGHT

Jewel Howard Taylor Elected vice-president in December, the ex-wife of war criminal Charles Taylor is a rising star in Liberia’s politics. Clearly ambitious, she is content to play second fiddle to President Weah for now UNDER A LONG, white-lit corridor in Monrovia’s Capitol Building, dozens of people wait quietly for hours. The queue has grown these past few weeks, and the calibre of the person sitting in the office behind the wooden door explains it. Jewel Howard Taylor is not only one of the most powerful female politicians in Liberia, but she is also the new vice-president. While her new office is under construction a few metres from the Capitol

Building, she continues to work from the small bureau she has been using since she was elected senator in 2005. “I always speak the truth,” she says with a confident, straight gaze. A devout Christian, she has a big poster of Jesus hanging on the wall. A Bible is also within reach. Howard Taylor maintains that she never knew about her ex-husband Charles Taylor’s war crimes or the ruthless repression carried out during his presidency.

During her time as First Lady (from 1997-2003), Howard Taylor held a number of positions, including deputy governor of the National Bank of Liberia. This led to her inclusion on a list of close relatives of Taylor targeted by United Nations sanctions. Having divorced Taylor in 2006, she says “it’s in the past”. She is confident her ex-husband will have no influence on Liberian politics in the next six years. Nevertheless, she will not comment on whether she is in regular contact with him. Several members of her entourage claim Taylor and Howard Taylor often speak. She is no novice in the political arena. “My name has not made me. I’ve been in politics for 15 years and what I’ve achieved is because of who I am and what I’ve done,” she says. And though the name Taylor might be loathed by some, it is well loved by others. According to an adviser JEWEL’S CUT AND POLISH 17 January 1963 Born in Zorzor, Liberia 1997 Married Charles Taylor, later divorcing him in 2006 2005 Elected senator for Bong County, representing the National Patriotic Party

AHMED JALLANZO/EPA/MAXPPP

February 2012 Introduced a bill to make homosexuality a crime punishable by the death penalty 26 December 2017 Elected vicepresident on George Weah’s ticket

“Probably the most important thing is not necessarily the election but what happens after the election”

“Last year, I complained [...]. This year, I will not complain. I will take action”

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Joseph Kabila maintains his cagey posturing on holding elections and stepping down from power.

Tanzania’s President John Magufuli vows to clean up corruption in the judiciary and law enforcement agencies. THE AFRICA REPORT

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BRIEFING 13

The Gabonese striker pleased a packed Emirates Stadium crowd by scoring on his debut match with London’s Arsenal. He joined the Gunners, leaving the German team Dortmund, in late January.

MERERA GUDINA In Ethiopia, Professor Gudina, the leader of the Oromo Federalist Congress, was released from prison in a government amnesty in January. In December there was a military crackdown against protests in the Oromia region.

Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo says stepping down is always hard to do. •

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A leaked US diplomatic cable cited by Africa Confidential suggested the Sierra Leone president’s foot-dragging over subsidies had caused the IMF to suspend support. The country goes to the polls on 7 March.

PIERRE-EMERICK AUBAMEYANG

“We are in full agreement that Yahya Jammeh must be protected ” THE AFRICA REPORT

ERNEST BAI KOROMA

MARKUS JOOSTE L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO/AP/SIPA; JEREMY GLYN/FINANCIAL MAIL/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; CIA PAK/UN

RICK BAJORNAS/UN

Anna Sylvestre-Treiner in Monrovia for Jeune Afrique

LEILA ZERROUGUI The Algerian legal expert and diplomat has the heavy task of leading MONUSCO – the UN peacekeeping mission to the DRC – as violent clashes loom in the east while the country awaits an election.

ESKINDER DEBEBE/UN; RICHARD CALVER/SHUTTERS/SIPA; CHRIS STEIN/AFP

to President George Weah: “It’s not for nothing that she kept her married name.” For several months last year, the United States tried to dissuade Weah from nominating her as the vice-presidential candidate, “but we were gaining more from her than what she was costing us,” the adviser says. She has established a strong political reputation, one characterised by seriousness and hard work. And despite proposing controversial bills to criminalise homosexuality and make Liberia a Christian state – neither of which were adopted – she was an important figure in the Senate, having lost the election to become its president pro tempore by a single vote in 2012. That experience made her a cunning tactician. She has encouraged reconciliation and spoken against trying individuals for war crimes. Instead, her attention is fixed on urgent needs such as roads, jobs, access to water and electricity, among others priorities. She also gives her allies room to manoeuvre, especially Weah. “I don’t want to be at the forefront,” she says while singing Weah’s praises. “He’s an extremely intelligent man who is more than just a footballer.” In that respect, she says, “He is much bigger than Messi or Ronaldo!” Though opponents criticise the football star-turned-president’s lack of political experience, vicepresident Howard Taylor has no intention of becoming the brains behind the presidency. But those close to Weah already have their suspicions. “She’s an ambitious woman who has been dreaming of taking up the top job for several years,” says one of them. “She might have given it up this time, but who can tell if she will not be the main candidate next time?”

The poster boy of South African globetrotting capital, former Steinhoff boss Jooste, has now been reported to South Africa’s leading crime investigators, the Hawks, who will be keen to prove their mettle in the post-Zuma age.

MANUEL VICENTE With the new man at the helm in Angola, allies of the previous president are being reeled in from all sides, including the former boss of Angola’s state oil company, who is on trial for corruption in Portugal.

SAUDI ARABIA

$107bn

Amount Saudi Arabia netted in an anti-corruption campaign launched in November by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. An estimated 500 people were taken into custody then forced to hand over cash, real estate and stock to gain their freedom.

With Islamic State (IS) rebels largely defeated, the crisis in Syria has entered into a new phase that risks conflict between the United States and Turkey. Northern Syria is the battleground after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan authorised an offensive in January against Kurdish troops that Washington had trained to fight IS. Kurdish troops control about 25% of Syria’s territory and Ankara is worried about Kurdish calls for independence in Syria, Iraq and at home. The US is keeping its troops in Syria, but their endgame against President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Teheran and Moscow, remains unclear.

FERDINAND OSTROP/AP/SIPA

GERMANY

Coalition of the sour

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is down but not out after her party agreed a last-minute coalition deal in early February. Merkel’s right-of-centre Christlich Demokratische Union took just 246 seats in the 709-seat legislature in September 2017’s polls, marking a low point in the party’s popularity. The cost of the February deal with Martin Schulz’s leftist Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) was the finance ministry and other cabinet posts. Neither party is too pleased about the terms, suggesting the coalition could be unstable, and the agreement could fall apart if SPD party members vote against it in late February. Historically, the popularity of the SPD has tanked after it participates in ‘grand coalitions’. A weak coalition could strengthen the hand of populist parties, like far-right Alternative für Deutschland, which took 94 Bundestag seats, previously having none, making it the third-largest force in the legislature. Merkel staying around could make things difficult for UK Prime Minister Theresa May, who has been struggling to get talks going about Brexit. 3

SYRIA

Fractured fighting

L-R: Horst Seehofer (CSU), Chancellor Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz, SPD

US/PALESTINE

“What

is there left to talk about now that Jerusalem and the refugees are off the table? ”

US/CHINA

Who wants a trade war? EVAN SCHNEIDER/UN

After President Donald Trump imposed new tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines, Chinese authorities launched a probe into the dumping of US sorghum in China’s animal feed market. The US’s trade deficit with China hit a record $375.2bn in 2017, and trade was a big plank of Trump’s 2017 election campaign. Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross says “strenuous effort is under way” to reduce US trade deficits. The risk is that tit-for-tat moves could quickly lead to a trade war.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas says the US is no longer qualified to act as a peace broker after it recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and cut aid to Palestinian refugees.

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ASA BAAKO MUSIC FESTIVAL 2-6 March BUSUA & TAKORADI | GHANA Annual music festival. asabaako.com

AFRICA HEALTHCARE WEEK 5-7 March LONDON | UK Africa’s largest healthcare event in Europe. africahealthcareweek.com

INNOVATION SUMMIT AFRICA 6 March NAIROBI | KENYA The Economist’s Nairobi summit explores the digital transformation of the continent. events.economist.com

DHL eCOMMERCE MONEYAFRICA CONFEX 14-15 March CAPE TOWN | SOUTH AFRICA With two special platforms for SMEs and start-ups. ecommerce-africa.com

IOT FORUM AFRICA 14-15 March JOHANNESBURG | SOUTH AFRICA Multi-industry two-day event. iotforumafrica.com

MINING INVESTMENT WEST AFRICA 15-16 March ACCRA | GHANA Incorporating Mining Tech and Women in Mining. mininginvestmentafrica.com

NORTH AFRICA PETROLEUM EXHIBITION & CONFERENCE 25-28 March

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE 23-24 March

ORAN | ALGERIA napec-dz.com

MASSACHUSETTS | US Harvard University’s annual conference with the theme ‘Our Time, Our Vision: Wielding Africa’s Potential for Sustainable Growth’. harvardadc.com

CAPE TOWN INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL 23-24 March CAPE TOWN | SOUTH AFRICA Largest jazz festival on the continent. capetownjazzfest.com

AFRICA ISLAMIC FINANCE FORUM 27-28 March LAGOS | NIGERIA africa-if.com

POWER & ELECTRICITY WORLD AFRICA 27-28 March JOHANNESBURG | SOUTH AFRICA With nine co-located shows including The Solar Show and Clean Technology World. terrapinn.com

SIERRA LEONE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 7 March

LARRAYADIEU/AFRICA CEO FORUM/J.A

MOZAMBIQUE ASSEMBLY 12-13 March MAPUTO | MOZAMBIQUE energycouncil.com/events/

COMMONWEALTH AFRICA SUMMIT 12-14 March LONDON | UK commonwealthafrica.com

BAUMA CONEXPO AFRICA 13-16 March JOHANNESBURG | SOUTH AFRICA bcafrica.com

26-27 March ABIDJAN | CÔTE D’IVOIRE Organised by Jeune Afrique Media Group, Africa’s premier private-sector event returns to Abidjan, after a successful event in Geneva last year. Under the theme ‘African Champions: Powering Competitiveness’, more than 1,500 participants from over 60 countries, including several African heads of state, are expected at this sixth edition. The annual highlight, the Africa CEO Forum Awards, celebrates the best of African business. Two new awards will be launched this year: CSR Strategy of the Year and Most Promising Company of the Year, in addition to top prize, Africa CEO of the Year. theafricaceoforum.com THE AFRICA REPORT

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MixedOwnership Reform China encourages the inflow of foreign capital in SOE restructuring By Ni Yanshuo

engLiang,anengineerwithChina Shenhua Group, the country’s largest coal enterprise, became a worried man when he heard the news that his company was to merge with China Guodian Corp., another stateowned enterprise (SOE) specializing in electricity generation and investment, in August last year. “I was not sure what would happen after the two giants in their respective fields merge,” said Peng. Peng soon found that his anxiety was

unfounded. Everything went smoothly and for Peng, it was business as usual. Three months later, the new company, China Energy Investment Group Co. Ltd. with assets of 1.8 trillion yuan ($277.3 billion) and 330,000 staff members, was officially established. “The merging of the two groups will definitely help realize integrated development of coal and power sectors so as to increase the new enterprise’s overall profit-winning capacity and create a more reasonable industrial development

Opening doors

As the acronym suggests, SOE means enterprises that are totally owned or controlled by the state. But the latest round of reform is trying to broaden this ownership. With the deepening of SOE reform, experts believe that foreign capital will become integral to the process. China Tea was a company wholly owned by China COFCO, China’s largest SOE specializing in food processing, manufacturing and trade. In November 2016, it became one of the first nine central SOEs selected by the SASAC to conduct a pilot project of mixed-ownership and employee stock-option reform. During the process, the company introduced investments from multiple sectors. After the reform was completed in August 2017, the stock share of COFCO reduced from 100 percent to 40 percent with employees holding 15 percent of the stock, and the rest held by various investment companies, including 3 percent from Mitsui & Co. based in Japan. Accordingly, a board of directors www.chinafrica.cn

PHOTO: PANG XINGLEI

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (center) on an inspection visit to the Dalian Bingshan Group in June 2017

mode,” said Xiao Yaqing, Chairman of State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council. “It is a good example of SOE reform in China.” The reform has seen achievements. When U.S. President Donald Trump visited China in November 2017, China Energy Investment Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of West Virginia State to invest $83.7 billion in all aspects of the shale gas industrial chain in the coming 20 years. This is the largest investment project in the energy field between China and the United States, as well as being the first project of the new SOE. Since China adopted its reform and opening up policy in late 1978, reform on the country’s SOEs has been ongoing, and the process has seen more rapid development in recent years. During the past five years from 2012-17, SASAC has restructured 34 SOEs under the supervision and administration of the Central Government, making great progress in SOE reform, especially in terms of ownership.

with principals representing various investors was established. “Thanks to the mixed-ownership reform, I now can see a different SOE in terms of competitiveness and employees’ sense of responsibility. We have solved problems like redundant organs and low efficiency that had lingered on for decades,” said Zhao Shuanglian, Chairman of COFCO. The reform also led to improvement in the company’s market performance. In the first six months of 2017, China Tea saw its turnover increase by 28.1 percent year on year, much higher than the average 2.36-percent growth of other companies in the industry in 2016. Its profit also increased by 40.8 percent year on year during the same period. “China Tea can also provide valuable experience for other SOEs in their reforms,” said Zhao.

Foreign capital encouraged

Besides China Tea, other SOEs also introduced foreign capital into their reforms, such as China Petrochemical Corp., China’s largest oil refining and petrochemical enterprise, and CITIC Group, a Chinese state-owned investment company. “Encouraging foreign capital to participate in China’s SOE mixed-ownership reform, on the one hand, will become the major trend of how China utilizes foreign capital, as China has great potential for attracting foreign investment; on the other hand, foreign capital can also help optimize the structure and operation of Chinese SOEs and inject new impetus into them,” said Xiao. Actually, as China has opened up wider to the outside world in recent years, it has become easier for foreign capital to enter a growing number of sectors in China. For instance, in July 2017, the State Council removed 27 items from the negative list of foreign investment in free trade zones. In addition, the State Council also issued a series of regulations to ensure that foreign investors compete with their Chinese counterparts in an equal and fair environment. AccordingtotheNoticeontheMeasures of Promoting the Increase of Foreign Capital issued by the State Council in www.chinafrica.cn

August 2017, China will further cut the limitation to foreign capital access, formulate preferential financial and tax policies, improve the comprehensive investment environment of national-level development zones, facilitate the entry and exit of talents, and optimize the operation and business environment in the future. The efforts will encourage more foreign capitals to enter the country. “With breakthroughs made in China’s SOE reform, the country now has the conditions [that facilitate] introducing foreign capitals to SOEs,” said Li Jin, Chief Researcher with China Enterprise Research Institute, adding that the Government’s next move will be further promoting mixed-ownership reform at local SOEs. SOEs occupy a strategic position in China’s national economy.“Foreign capital holding shares of SOEs can benefit both [sides],” said Bai Ming, Deputy Director of International Market Research Institute of Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Commerce. According to Bai, through mixed-ownership reform, foreign capital can have a larger market and earn bigger profits, especially in China where some SOEs occupy a monopoly position in certain sectors. It can also allow Chinese SOEs to enhance their influence on the international market through using advanced foreign technologies and overseas sales channels. “More importantly, an increasing number of Chinese SOEs

have started business overseas. Mixedownership cooperation can help them better explore international markets and be better localized,” said Zhang Yansheng, Secretary General of Academic Committee of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Future reform

Starting from November 2016 and March 2017, NDRC and SASAC launched two rounds of pilot projects of SOE mixedownership reform, with nine SOEs in the first round and 10 in the second, covering areas such as electricity distribution and sales, power equipment, high-speed railways, airline logistics, telecommunications and finance. According to Peng Huagang, Deputy Secretary General of SASAC of the State Council, a total of 31 SOEs will launch the third round of ownership reform early this year, including 10 SOEs under the Central Government and 21 SOEs under local governments. “The first two rounds of SOE reform have made steady progress in promoting economic development, while the stateowned economy has set up a sound platform for further development of private economy,” said Zhang Chunxiao, an official from SASAC, adding that the third round of reform will involve more areas, including SOEs that provide public service. * Comments to niyanshuo@chinafrica.cn

Experience the Progress.

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

Nigeria Shooting The CEO (no pun intended)

Lights, camera, FLORIAN PLAUCHEUR/AFP

action

The opening credits are rolling on Nigeria’s promised epic: ‘Beyond Oil Dependency’, an uplifting tale of agro-processing plants, tech innovation, manufacturing investment and a multibillion-dollar entertainment industry – starring Yemi Osinbajo and Okechukwu Enelamah By Patrick Smith in Lagos

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hen members of the government’s technocratic wing – vice-president Yemi Osinbajo and trade and industry minister Okechukwu Enelamah – descended on Ogun State on 8 February to open a couple of factories, they had another important task in mind: to send signals to the voters and the markets. They were doing so at a time of jitters about the oil-fired economy’s prospects as the country moves painfully out of recession. Depending who you talk to,

46 COUNTRY FOCUS | NIGERIA

the economy is set to grow between 1.7% and 5% over the next two years. Neither figure makes a serious cut in unemployment likely. In the third quarter of 2017, the share of unemployed and under-employed in the workforce increased to 40% from 37.2% last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. For the 18-35 age group the rate of unemployment and under-employment was 52.65%. So Osinbajo’s message to the voters – national elections are less than a year away – was that the government understands the challenge and is doing something about it. Like a true technocrat, Osinbajo took his audience on a guided tour of the multitude of government financing and training initiatives to encouragecompaniestohiremoreworkers. On coming to power in June 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari pushed his belief in national self-reliance: by boosting production of rice, wheat, sugar, tomatoes and a host of other commodities, the country could break its parlous dependence on crude-oil exports. That production boom is happening now. How much by design of government policy and how much born out of desperation from the chronic foreign-exchange shortages is another question. POLICY LABS: THE NEW BIG THING

The two factories visited, one making chocolate drinks and the other biscuits, showed the realities up close. Most of the jobs on offer in those industries are for farmers, not high-school leavers from the cities. “I am told this factory was built at a cost of N4.1bn ($11.3m),” said

Osinbajo at the drinks factory opening ceremony. “And it will create 150 direct jobs in addition to local sourcing of raw materials from Nestlé’s network of over 30,000 farmers.” The next stop was the Beloxxi biscuit factory, now one of the largest in the country, with plans to double production to 80,000tn per year. Its $80m expansion planwasfinancedbyBobGeldof’s8Miles investment company and African Capital Alliance, the private-equity company that Enelamah founded in 1997. Inside this factory, the job numbers are also modest: rising to 6,000 from present levels of 3,700 when the new plant is up and running. The real difference will be made by the 71 local suppliers of raw materials. Beloxxi and Nestlé, according to industry minister Enelamah, are companies that “have turned what potentially could have been a drawback into an advantage. Most of the inputs for what Nestlé produces in Nigeria, they get from here. They’ve managed to understand the market […] from farm to fork as they call it.” Beloxxi owes its success partly to a ban on imported biscuits. It built its manufacturing operations to depend almost wholly on local commodities. Nowtheproblembecomesoneof scale. At the factories in Ogun State, Osinbajo elaborated on the newly launched policy laboratories aimed at accelerating project implementation. An idea borrowed from Malaysia, “the laboratories will bring together all private and public stakeholders to achieve the specific policy or project objectives of our economic plan,” said Osinbajo. “We are focusing on three specific areas: agriculture and transport;

powerandgassupply;andmanufacturing and processing.” Intensely ambitious, Osinbajo wants these labs to generate $24bn of investment and 15 million jobs over the next three years. Most of the money will come from private companies. The incentive is that Osinbajo and his team will assemble all the government decision-makers on a particular project – everything from land rights and access roads to power supplies – bringing them into the same room as the project managers and financiers to agree a plan of action.

agriculture

technology

BETTER-TARGETED FERTILISER SUBSIDIES and efforts to help de-risk lending to vital cogs in the agribusiness machine have attracted large investors into Nigeria’s agricultural landscape. The players are making big bets. Olam, for example, is spending $150m across Kwara and Kaduna states to set up animal feed mils. Aliko Dangote is planning nearly $4.6bn in sugar and dairy projects. While there is still a paucity of processing equipment, rice mills are popping up across the landscape – even if there are concerns they lack enough raw product to run the mills at optimum capacity. And while many chafe at the Buhari administration’s decision to levy stiffer tariffs on agricultural imports, Nigeria’s biggest oil palm producers are booming: in mid-2017, Presco said revenue jumped to N12.8bn ($35.5m) from N7.5bn.

FROM ITS EARLY DAYS as a humble incubator for new tech talent to the creation of African ‘unicorns’ – companies valued at more than $1bn – Lagos has been instrumental in catapulting unknown start-ups such as Andela and Paystack into the global tech stratosphere. Interswitch, a Nigerian payments company, is hoping to supplant Visa and Mastercard. Silicon Valley’s success sits on the tripod of venture capital, top universities and entrepreneurs. Yaba – the high-tech district of Lagos – has the latter two, but finance is more complicated. While there is plenty of seed capital at the lower stage and lots of private-equity funds at the upper stages, in the middle is a financing desert. “Every day, promising companies are struggling because they lack funding,” says Seni Sulyman, Andela’s country director for Nigeria.

NIGERIA | COUNTRY FOCUS 47

For Cheta Nwanze, head of research at SBM Intelligence in Lagos, the diversification question is more about government revenue than the wider economy. “Over 80% of government revenue comes from the oil sector […] so the government has got to rebuild the non-oil tax collection system,” he says.

That could help end the logjam of stalled projects. According to a development consultant who formerly advised the Senate, hundreds if not thousands of projects are blocked by bureaucratic obstruction. “Under the previous government, a rogue official in the attorney general’s department was able to block a highly viable processing project on specious legal grounds for three years. In fact, the company simply wouldn’t pay himthe commissionhewas demanding.” About seven years ago, a special committee was set up under former finance

Oil has been a blessing and a curse to Nigeria since 1972: changing that has proved sticky

minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to develop policy in reaction to a global oil price crash. Some of that work is now playing out on the ground, according to finance minister Kemi Adeosun. “We have been able to balance our budget [with an oil price] at $45-46 a barrel and we’ve got to learn to live comfortably at that level,” she told the Nigerian Economic Outlook conference in January, which made ‘Beyond Oil’ its main theme.

With non-oil taxes at around 8% of gross domestic product, almost a third of the level in Ghana, the Nigerian government has embarked on a revenue collection blitz. A new scheme, the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme, allows late payers to submit all monies owed between 2011-2016 in return for a waiver on interest and to avoid prosecution. Nwanze says this is the start of a longterm effort to boost tax collection, using the national identity card system and pulling more individuals and companies out of the informal economy. To an extent, it is back to the future. “Oil overtook taxation as a source of revenues in 1972 and – apart from a brief period when oil revenues crashed in 2016 – government revenues have been very dependent on oil,” says Nwanze. Lagos, the only state in the 36-state federation to finance its budget mainly from local tax revenue, is leading the way. Many smaller states are looking at new sales and property taxes to finance civil service salaries and local services. Lagos State hosts about half the country’s industrial operations, while neighbouring Ogun State hosts 25%. But with that level of economic concentration comes the responsibility

media

manufacturing

WHEN NIGERIA’S CHIEF STATISTICIAN – the robust st Yemi Kale – rebased the economy’s gross domestic product figures in 2013, he discovered that Nigeria’s ‘Nollywood’ film industry was worth 1.4% of national output – some $7.2bn. Largely thriving outside government control, the media sector has been a heavy exporter: Kenyans and Congolese all dance to the Naija beat, while Nollywood films are watched across the continent. Meanwhile, new production companies touting reality TV shows such as The Voice are making money selling content into surrounding markets. Streaming company iROKOtv showed the value in the sector when it struck a $19m deal with Canal+ in 2016 to sell dubbed Nigerian films in francophone Africa. PwC consultants claim Nigeria’s entertainment and media sector will be the world’s fastest-growing for the next five years.

POLICY SUPPORT for Nigeria’s moribund factories is well under way. Abuja’s trade and industry ministry is working with Professor Justin Lin of the Beijing Center for New Structural Economics and Helen Hai, the UN’s goodwill ambassador for industrialisation in Africa, on a strategy to strengthen support for manufacturing in special economic zones (SEZ). As in China, the SEZs would be used to drive foreign investment in manufacturing but also to develop better power, water, transport and communications services for manufacturers in the zones. The target is to generate $30bn a year in export earnings by 2025. Meanwhile, the auto sector is attempting to rebuild its former lustre. Several car assembly plants have opened in the past few years, and local car manufacturer Innoson is forging ahead.

ANDREJS KIRMA; AGNI; DINOSOFT LABS; GREGOR CRESNAR/THE NOUN PROJECT

DAMIEN MALFERE/TOTAL

THE TAX MAN COMETH

48 COUNTRY FOCUS | NIGERIA

to provide better services. In early February, Lagos State governor Akinwunmi Ambode introduced new rules allowing the state to produce, via private-public investments, some 3,000MW of power to be used exclusively in the state and not hooked into the national grid.

Andela trains software developers in Lagos

TOM SAATER/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REA

TIPPING THE SCALES AT LAST

Ugodre Obi-Chukwu, founder of the financial analytics firm Nairametrics, reckons the government’s attempts at restructuring have been a qualified success. “Local production of staple foods has gone up and the import bill has fallen […] some of that is the work of the previous agriculture minister Akinwunmi Adesina and some is due to the shortage of foreign exchange after the oil price crash.” Monitoring prices and supplies in markets across the country, Nairametrics found that local rice was making strides against imports from Thailand and India. That is making a substantial dent in the over $10bn-per-year food import bill. Local sugar production is forecast to meet the national demand of 1.6m tonnes a year by 2020. Boosting tomato production to replace the 150,000tn of concentrate imported each year, costing some $170m, is also a target being pushed by Enelamah’s ministry. Those cuts in imports and the build-up of foreign reserves to more than $40bn in the past year give the government more room to manoeuvre. But it remains cautious on radical restructuring, says Obi-Chukwu.“Therecession[of2016]was a missed opportunity […] it would have been a big political risk but they could have used that crisis to deregulate the downstreamoilsectorandfloatthenaira.” Instead, those institutional battles are still to be fought. Most industry experts reckon that Aliko Dangote’s $10bn, 500,000-barrels-per-day oil refinery and petrochemical plant, expected to start operations late next year, will be a game-changer. And Segun Adebutu, chief executive of Petrolex, tells The Africa Report that he is making progress in raising the finance to build a refinery in Ogun State at a cost of $3.5bn. After three decades of trying to run state-owned refineries and being outwitted by avaricious fuel traders and smugglers, the government is starting its slow withdrawal from the oil sector. The signs are that Nigeria’s new economy, when it surfaces fully, will be dominated by its fast-growing companies.

The tech revolution

A small group of young Nigerians is coding, but what about those left out from the wave change?

Okechukwu Enelamah, Nigeria’s igeriahasalreadyboughtitsadmission ticket to join the fabled trade minister, tells The Africa Report ‘fourth industrial revolution’. that he shares the enthusiasm for the new digital economic take-off. His But politicians, business people and civic activists differ over how quickly communications adviser, Constance the revolution will take hold on the Ikokwu, cites a McKinsey report forecountry’s economic and social life. casting that Nigeria’s digital economy Partly, it is a generational and cultural could create three million jobs over the split, sometimes an ideological split. next decade. Enelamah adds: “Now But for computer-literate millennials, what you will find is that if you do the basics right then you will do better going to coding lessons in high school is as natural as their predecessors when you have these new technolreading the works of Chinua Achebe ogies […]. It’s good to tell ourselves and Wole Soyinka as set texts for their the truth. So you’ll find us investing literature examinations. in our people, getting our schooling Nigeria’s telecoms revolution has system right – the primary, secondary, vocational education right.” generated massive growth through the sheer weight of numbers. It has more than 150 milNigeria’s digital economy lion active users of cellcould create three million phones,60%ofwhomuse jobs over the next decade theinternet.Thatnumber will surpass 90% over the next three years, companies predict. But that, warns Enelamah, does not mean some of the cities career into a So, with more than 100 million peohigh-tech world of the 21st century ple connectedby increasinglypowerful mobile devices, the effects on the while other parts of the country stay spread of information and education stuck in the last millennium. “We are already phenomenal. The first wave should embrace technology then use it of innovations using artificial intellito empower people through the digital gence, 3D printing, nanotechnology, economy – services are as important as manufacturing.” The government biotechnology, solar energy storage is committed to backing the country’s and quantum computing is already nascent tech sector with funds and inlapping through Nigerian cities. The frastructure but not, Enelamah insists, northern city of Kano has become a getting in its way. P.S. in Lagos centre for trading in cryptocurrencies. THE AFRICA REPORT

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Okechukwu Enelamah

Minister of industry, trade and investment, Nigeria

Double-digit growth will come Enelamah talks to The Africa Report about why government must work with the private sector, how to diversify the oil-backed economy and driving growth up to 10%

key recruit to N i g e r i a’s e c o nomic reform team, Okechukwu Enelamah is a man of proverbs and patience. As befits a minister for trade and investment who took up his post in the worst recession for more than two decades, he is also a fully paid-up optimist. One of his favourite proverbs states unarguably: “You can’t be taller than me and shorter than me at the same time.” This has a relevance for economic development as well, he explained to a packed conference of business students, meaning that “our perceived weaknesses may well provide the opportunity and motivation we need.” Astrategicsense,combinedwith new policies and systems, is helping to launch an industrial revolution in Nigeria, insists Enelamah. But forget headlines and spectacularannouncements,hewarns.New realities on the ground are more important: fast-rising local rice and wheat production and a new generationofpetrochemicalplants and oil refineries are changing the economic landscape.

Enelamah is close to vicepresident Yemi Osinbajo. They are both technocrats who hail from Lagos, trying to get the worlds of business and government to work together. Enelamah started out as a medical student at the University of Nigeria, where he qualified with distinction. A decade later, a scholarship to Harvard Business School sent him into finance, first withZephyrManagementinSouth Africa during the Nelson Mandela years and then to establish his own private-equity firm, African Capital Alliance, in Nigeria. A decade later, it was the biggest in the country. TAR: Your government is committed to industrialisation and cuttingimportdependency.How much progress are you making? OKECHUKWU ENELAMAH: The ultimate objective is to create jobs, and to export and get foreign exchange. So there will be some things you need to import, like welding machinery and raw materials. One has to innovate and look for ways of producing more locally, because ultimately that creates jobs and adds value to the economy. But it can be dynamic, it can evolve over time.

DOCTOR’S ORDERS 1985 Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), University of Nigeria 1994 Master’s in Business Administration (MBA), Harvard University 1997-2015 Founder & CEO of private equity firm African Capital Alliance (ACA) November 2015 Appointed minister of industry, trade, and investment

For supporters of the ‘Washington consensus’, industrial policy is anathema, state intervention in the markets worse still. Where do you stand? You need to give some credit to the World Bank. They work with governments. It is not necessarily intervention – we call it engagement – but it defines an important role for government. The type of industrial policy we embrace is saying that government has a res ponsibilitytomakechoicesonhow you will support the private sector: policies that would support local manufacturing; monetary policy that would support things like foreign exchange; fiscal policies that would support green [projects]. Do you see dangers in some of the pro-market theology? There was a concern that the WorldBank,insupportingmarkets,

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equipment, give the right training to the people and motivate them by setting the standards.

KENECHUKWU NWATU FOR JA

Are you going to hit the target of self-sufficiency in rice and wheat by the end of 2018? There is a great expression: ‘Don’t worry about when, worry about if.’ If you’re going to be self-sufficient in rice and wheat that’s already a victory, even if it takes 10 years. Trends are more important than levels. We are on the right path.

did not care enough about the consequences in the short or even medium term. Because when products come flooding in and nobody is paying attention, a lot of importsaredumped.Everycountry has a responsibility to make sure it is not a victim of dumping, or of sub-standard goods or goods that can be manufactured locally. Your recovery and growth plan has some very ambitious targets. Vice-president Osinbajo talks of raising $24bn in new investment by 2020. How realistic is that? Depending on who you ask, they will say those targets are not ambitious enough. Look at the investment Nigeria needs for infrastructure, industry, services and employment. There are tens of billions [needed]. Last year alone, investments of $60bn plus were announced in Nigeria. THE AFRICA REPORT

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South Korea chose to go into shipbuilding and became a world leader. Where is Nigeria’s comparative advantage? South Korea would be an extreme case where you decide to do lot of things at the same time […] iron ore, steel. In a competitive world in the 21st century, you can

“If we complete our reforms, infrastructure […] it will create a virtuous cycle” learn from others and refine your strategy. Our comparative advantage is agro-processing because we grow most of the things here. They are labour-intensive, and our labour is cheap. You also have to look at industries, whether it’s petrochemicals, light manufacturing or agro-processing. What is needed is to bring in the right

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SomeNigerianpolicyexpertstalk of using oil to get beyond oil. Is thatanythingmorethanaslogan? There are countries that have managed their oil right […] like Norway, where they have a big trust fund for their oil and they continue to do well in other areas. In Saudi Arabia, they are saying business as usual will not cut it, and they are going to fairly extreme lengths to try and correct it. We are in the recovery and growth plan, and are really committed to it, not just talking about propaganda. We havetoimplementthesolutionthat diversifies us away from oil, while making use of the oil revenues to help that diversification. Given you have a country of 180 million people with world-class oil and gas reserves, are your growth targets of 3-5% ambitious enough? That’s why you have to look at the trajectory rather than a single point. Whether it’s 2.7% or 3.5%, it’s not nearly enough. Our target is double-digit growth. We’re planning to do 7% in the next couple of years, but then move to 10% to rebuild the economy. You have to give credit to this government […] we’re trying to be realistic so that people won’t say you over-promised. If we complete our infrastructure, reforms, industrial revolution and special economic zones, things will be mutually reinforcing so that it will create a very powerful virtuous cycle, and 10% growth will come. And we’re pushing hard. Interview by Patrick Smith in Abuja

Baba Danpullo Group An African success story

BIO

Baba Ahmadou Danpullo Group (BAG SA) is a dynamic and ethical group with the ambition of becoming a key economic player in its sectors of activity. Its progress has contributed to Cameroon’s economic growth while its expansion beyond Cameroon’s borders has taken its expertise to South Africa, Nigeria and Switzerland. The Group’s quality demands contribute to establishing a culture of excellence while at the same time preserving the human values that are its foundations.

Sodecoton Quality cotton guaranteed Through Société Immobilière du Cameroun (SMIC), the Baba Amadou Group is an 11 percent shareholder of Sodecoton. The State of Cameroon is the major shareholder, with 49%, while French company Geocoton holds 30% of the shares. Sodecoton was founded by the Cameroonian government to oversee the cotton industry - farming and trade - in Cameroon. Based in Garoua, in the northern part of Cameroon, Sodecotonisoneofthesub-region’s leading agribusiness companies.

aba Ahmadou Danpullo is a 65-year-old entrepreneur and businessman from

English-speaking Cameroon. He began his business career in the road haulage and retail

Viettel Cameroun S.A

trade before going into the rice import business. In 1977, he founded the Baba Ahmadou Group (BAG SA) which, over the years, has diversified into real estate, agribusiness (livestock, tea, cotton), transport (aviation, air freight), telecommunications (mobile telephony), media (TV channel) and trading. Like many South African companies, the Baba Ahmadou Group has expanded into other countries including South Africa, Nigeria and Switzerland. Known as one of the richest men in Cameroon, Baba Ahmadou Danpullo is also a philanthropist who helps the poor through his association, Sodelco, which builds schools and health centres in Cameroon’s disadvantaged areas.

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Elba Ranch Ltd. Intensive farming aimed at self-sufficiency Livestock is the core of the group’s activities, through this family business founded in 1976. It comprises three ranches located in Ndawara, Esu and Batcham in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. The company owns about 20,000 head of cattle including beef breeds of French origin like the Charolais and Blonde d’Aquitaine. Elba Ranch Ltd also possesses about 3,000 horses including Andalusian and Arab breeds. It is also one of the largest sheep and goat breeders in Central Africa, where its livestock products are sold.

A 3G pioneer in Cameroon The most recent of the three cellphone operators to enter the Cameroonian market,Viettel Cameroon launched its commercial activities on 12 September 2014. Trading as Nexttel, this operator is based in Douala and has two shareholders, namely the Vietnamese company Viettel-Group and Bestinver. As the third largest telecommunications operator and the pioneer of 3G technology in Cameroon, Nexttel now boasts 3.6 million subscribers and has created more than 1,000 direct jobs and over 60,000 indirect jobs. The operator invested 250 billion CFA francs during its first two years of business in this market.

Bestinver

Star Away Airlines

Truly popular TV

Real estate ambitions

Safety first

Dan Broadcasting System (DBS) is a television channel that was founded in Douala in 2006 and that has been broadcasting since 1 June 2009. It primarily covers business news and current political and social affairs. To reach all strata of the population, it broadcasts programmes in Fulfulde, Haoussa, Douala, Pidgin, Ewondo, and Bassa as well as other local languages. It also favours young journalists to ensure a constant renewal of personnel in the country’s media landscape.

Through this subsidiary that operates under South African law, BAG SA has real estate assets in various locations in Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, Europe and the United States. Assets include warehouses, apartments, shopping centres and commercial buildings. Today, it has the largest portfolio of independent properties in South Africa, comprising mainly commercial buildings and shopping centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.

Headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, this regional airline offers customers optimal security. Every operational aspect of the business, be it equipment maintenance, infrastructure or personnel, has been conceived and developed according to the highest quality standards equivalent to those applied in the European Union. It has a freight subsidiary that is partnered with airlines around the world.

Sodelco Paying it forward

Moulin Coq Rouge (MCR) A flagship of the milling industry Specialising in wheat flour milling, MCR has a current capacity of 400 tonnes of flour per day for an effective production of 325 tonnes per day. MCR produces regular and specially treated baking flour. It also produces special flour for the preparation of donuts, a product that is in great demand locally. Wheat is imported from Germany while the technical assistant and additive supplier is Ait Soufflet, the France’s leading miller and the largest cereal exporter in Europe.

Sodelco is a renowned NGO that develops educational, health, infrastructure, sports and environmental projects. The founder of the company believes that, «The economic development of a company can only be fully achieved if it is accompanied by the socio-economic and human development of neighbouring local communities [...]». The Baba Ahmadou Group SA attaches a requirement to every investment: to provide added value and technologies in the countries concerned; to respect environmental standards similar to those applied in the European Union; to respect the laws, particularly in social and fiscal matters, of the countries in which it invests; and to contribute to the social development of local communities.

Tea & tourism

Cameroon Tea Estates (CTE) and Ndawara Highland Tea Estate (NHTE) Tea industry expertise These two agribusinesses specialising in tea production are the exclusive property of the Baba Ahmadou family. The plantations cover an overall area of more than 10,000 ha, divided into four tea plantations spread over three regions of Cameroon (Southwest, West, Northwest). The total production capacity is 8,000 tonnes per year, of which 80% is for export (loose tea in 20 kg and 40 kg) and 20% sold on the local market (tea bags). Both companies produce only black tea. However, given the growing demand for green tea, the group plans to make this category of tea available to customers.

The Ndawara ranch is home to the largest tea plantation in Cameroon. In addition to this agricultural aspect, there are numerous ecotourism activities to attract visitors: see the whole property on horseback, organisation of Fantasias, cast a fishing line into the artificial lake or relax in the ultra-modern Guest House, specifically designed to host and accommodate tourists. A veritable haven of greenery, the region is home to an exceptional biodiversity, with a multitude of monkey species (baboons, chimpanzees, etc.), ostriches, peacocks, pythons, camels and even sea lions that can be observed at the edge of the Mbi crater lake, a regional biological treasure. The health and safety of visitors is ensured through a health centre and a police station. For more comfort and independence, visitors will find everything they need at the nearby shopping centre. In Ndawara, everything is designed for a serene and peaceful break.

DIFCOM/DF - PHOTOS: DR.

DBS

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PEOPLE TO WATCH

Making money, hatching plans BUA INTERNATIONAL LIMITED

With the economy out of recession and elections on the horizon in 2019, politicians and business leaders alike are making their moves

business

Abdulsamad Rabiu Trading sharp elbows

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji Serial start-ups Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is the poster boy for Nigeria's upstart start-up scene. Though many claim the title serial entrepreneur, few wear it well. Not so for Aboyeji, who has already created four companies, one of which, Andela, received a $24m investment from the foundation of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Andela is helping to create the next generation coders. Aboyeji's newest venture, Flutterwave, helps people and companies complete payments across various platforms, including, of course, mobile phones. “The digital economy is the new global economy,” Aboyeji tells investors.

Veteran industrialist Abdulsamad Rabiu and his BUA Group are less well known outside Nigeria compared to fellow northern traderturned-manufacturer Aliko Dangote. Currently, the two are battling it out over limestone mining in Edo State. In September 2015, BUA Group struck a $600m deal with Chinese cement company Sinoma International Engineering for a second production line to be built at its Obu cement plant.

MAX GREEN EKELIN

Segun Adebutu Refined business

IGH

LR ED RV SE RE

The film producer and director, who once upon a time was nearly a lawyer, now creates blockbuster Nollywood films that shed stereotypes around quality and make good money in the process. He is best known for Last Flight to Abuja and his hit TV series about bankers, The Calabash.

Obi Emelonye Banking on Nollywood

The great push to diversify Nigeria’s energy sector continues – and the country’s second large-scale commercial refinery is planned to open in 2021, according to Segun Adebutu, chief executive of Petrolex Oil and Gas. His plans are buttressed by an already existing infrastructure of storage tanks, which sit next to the construction site for the refinery in Ogun State. Though not as big as Dangote’s planned 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery, to open in the next two years, its 250,000-per-day capacity will make Nigeria a hub for refined petroleum exports in West Africa.

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political AMINU ABUBAKAR/AFP

The strongman of Rivers State politics is in his first term as governor of the oil-rich state after wresting control from the camp of its previous strongman, friend-turned-foe Rotimi Amaechi, in the 2015 gubernatorial polls. Wike’s eye is on the big picture though. Having installed his man Uche Secondus as national chairperson of the faltering People’s Democratic Party (PDP) party and becoming its de facto chairman, his next step will be to get a malleable set of candidates to attempt a return to power at the centre. Recent visits over the past three months to the Sultan of Sokoto, ex-president Ibrahim Babangida and Aminu Tambuwal, the governor of Sokoto, signify an intention to woo the north into an alliance ahead of polls in 2019.

Rabiu Kwankwaso Dancing with defection

The former governor of Ondo State – at the confluence between south-west and the Niger Delta – is a key ally of former president Goodluck Jonathan and seen as a stabilising force in the PDP. Believed to harbour vice-presidential ambitions, Mimiko could be a suitable candidate for running mate thanks to his stellar performance in his state’s health and education sector. Seizing control of the south-west from Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) grandee who has a fractious relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari, will be a herculean task for Mimiko. His level of success might depend on whether Tinubu is willing to betray his own party.

Olusegun Mimiko Heading south-west

The most critical challenger to throw a spanner into the works of President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election plans for next year may be Rabiu Kwankwaso. The senator has a wealth of experience as a former defence minister and two-time governor of the strategic northern state of Kano, where he is still widely influential despite falling out with his former deputy Umar Ganduje. A runner-up in the 2014 APC presidential primaries, he is expected to defect to the opposition PDP this year. He would take with him the Kwankwasiyya movement – his horde of fanatical supporters in the state – which delivered 1.9 million of the available 2.1 million votes to Buhari’s election victory in 2015. Kwankwaso has been making efforts to extend handshakes across the Niger as well, including being present at the highly publicised funeral of former vice-president Alex Ekwueme in early February.

Ahmed Makarfi Ready to serve

Nasir El-Rufai Rising restructurer

Makarfi is a two-time governor and former senator with a distinguished career in banking and finance. Despite recently being the interim PDP chairman, he has dismissed the return of Atiku Abubakar to the party, stressing that he is not the game changer the PDP needs to rebuild. Makarfi is seen in some quarters as a dark horse for a presidential run, having declared himself “ready to serve Nigeria in that capacity”. It is very unlikely that such an offer will come, given that the PDP might also be welcoming Aminu Tambuwal, Bukola Saraki or Rabiu Kwankwaso, arguably more popular politicians, into the fold.

Loved and hated in equal measure, Nasir El-Rufai has been hailed nonetheless for his technocratic leanings. He returned the capital to its original masterplan in his time as minister of the federal capital territory under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration. As governor of Kaduna, however, serial crises have engulfed the state, including the harassment of the Shia Muslim minorities and raging herdsmen-farmer conflicts. As chair of the APC committee on restructuring, he may help return the country to the regional autonomy witnessed at independence.

AFOLABI SOTUNDE/REUTERS

Nyesom Wike Eyes on centre stage

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How have some of these companies taken the opportunity to evolve? Several companies have executed contracts above $100m and have built excellent facilities. For example, Nestoil and Oilserv have both constructed several sorts of pipeline and developed themselves into full engineering, procurement, construction and installation companies.

Bank-Anthony Okoroafor

Chairman, Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (Petan)

Major projects are not moving fast enough

TAR: What were the factors that led up to the 2010 passing of the local content act? BANKANTHONYOKOROAFOR: There was a genuine need to increase the participation of indigenous companies in the oil and gas sector. Prior to the act, the level of participation was less than 5%. Andtherewasalsoadesireforlocal value-creation by increasing what we call backward linkages in terms of procurement, so using locally produced input materials to create more opportunities for the locals. There has been some $300bn in capital flight over the past 50 years from oil and gas activities. That’swhyweneedtopushtokeep some of the spending in-country. Without the bill,businessopportunities would be captured primarily by foreign companies – a situation where 95% of the service sector spending goes to foreign firms. Indigenous service companies’ participation had been flat in Nigeria over the previous 50 years. Without a strong legal framework thatpushesourinternalfabrication and manufacturing base, real local content growth cannot be a reality.

TWITTER

The spokesman for Nigeria’s indigenous oil services companies tells The Africa Report what’s changed in five years How have companies responded since the bill was passed? A lot of progress has been made […] in terms of equipment ownership and capacity development. […] You now have indigenous marine vessel companies like Marine Platforms, Starzs, Elshcon and Vhelbherg, and indigenous rig companies like Uniterm, Tecon and Tasaniola. More fabrication tonnage is now done in-country, with companies such as Aveon,

“Some 80% of engineering is now carried out in-country, and training has increased” Dorman Long and Energy Works. And,importantly,wehaveseenthe domestication of floating, production, storage and offloading vessel integration capability in Ladol, the first of its kind in Africa. Some 80% of engineering is now carried out in-country,trainingin-countryhas increased considerably, as well as seismic processing and integrated reservoir studies done in-country, with companies like IDSL, CB Geophysical and VerityGeo.

Howhaveoilservicescompanies coped with cheap oil? The service companies were hit terribly when the oil price dropped. With the oil price inching up slowly,wedo hope the activities will pick up. The major projects like Bonga SW and Zabazaba do not seem to be moving as fast as needed. Nigeria has the lowest well services activity ratio. We as a country need to increase our drilling and well services if we really want to achieve our planned 4m barrels per day and 40bn barrels of reserves. This does not happen by talk alone. In terms of financial effects on the companies, we have not seen a wave of consolidations. None of our members, for example, has gone bust. Banks have rescheduled most of the debts. What are the three things that the government could do that wouldmosthelpyourmembers? Create lasting sustainable peace in the Niger Delta, ringfence the exploration budget to do more exploration, drilling and well services, and remove bottlenecks on most big projects so that capacities and capabilities built are not lost. Are you happy at the passing of thefirsttrancheofthePetroleum Industry Bill? We are happy that progress has been made by the legislators after several years of front and back. It is a step in the right direction. But we still want them to go ahead and pass the fiscal bill. Most investors want to know what the fiscals are before putting in their money. Passage of this bill and the fiscals will encourage investment in the Nigerian petroleum industry. Interview by Nicholas Norbrook

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60 COUNTRY FOCUS | NIGERIA

Cheta Nwanze

Head of research, SBM Intelligence

Hey, teacher … when is Nigeria finally going to learn its lesson?

here has been a major brouhaha in Kaduna. The state government tried to fire several teachers it deemed unqualified following a mass failure on a standardised test. The teachers got the labour unions on their side, and we appear to be heading for a showdown. For the record, I support the move to sack the unqualified teachers. Education is too important to be put in the hands of people who can ruin our collective future simply because they do not know better. This is especially important in northern Nigeria, a region that has been labelled “educationally disadvantaged” since 1973. However, the process of sacking the teachers and replacing them has to be done with great care. This care is called “change management”, and it is vital. Whether the political class likes it or not, Nigeria will be forced at some point to undergo a sea change in the way its affairs are run. Some choose to call it restructuring. At that time, our change management skills will be put to the test. The first set of people to be affected will be those employed by our cosy and bloated civil service. Civil servants have for years had an entitlement mentality. They believe, perhaps correctly, that they cannot be sacked. Paradoxically, a lot of them recognise that they are not productive, and they have accepted that attitude as normal. For the archetypal civil servant, a work day consists of showing up late, filling out the attendance roster then buggering off soon after lunch. It is their share of the fabled national cake. Student performance and parental demands will compel you to always seek out the best teachers. However, these teachers are also civil servants, and therein lies one of the problems. It is a lesson in how we have allowed standards in our public services to slip to abysmal levels. These are issues real federalism would address in Nigeria, but who wants restructuring?. Over-centralisation has not worked – that much is clear. Basic schooling should not be managed by state governments, but by local governments with truly devolved powers and financial independence. State governments should not own primary and secondary schools, in the same manner the federal government should not own almost 50 universities. The sole duty of government should be to design

funding schemes for institutions and to regulate and guarantee standards for tutors, teachers and the general curriculum while allowing communities and private players to compete. Let us focus on what is to come: the Kaduna government will let go of 21,000 teachers, and, as per governor Nasir el-Rufai, recruit 25,000 qualified ones. But what will happen in five years when he certainly will no longer be there? Let me guess. In five years, the newly recruited teachers will probably become like the old ones. They will become civil servants with little incentive to be better because they will receive

their meagre allowances regardless, and firing them would be political suicide for El-Rufai’s successors. How does this relate to Nigeria and restructuring? The difficulty the Buhari administration, and a few before it, has encountered enacting long-lasting reform lies in the fact that when we structure on paper, the very people who would ultimately benefit the most – the civil servants – will fight to preserve the barely palatable crumbs the system provides. Education reform in Kaduna is thus a proxy for fiscal federalism, for ending the federal character principle, for whittling down the exclusive legislative list, for wider economic reform and for securing free, fair and credible elections. Will we be ready for these battles when they inevitably come? THE AFRICA REPORT

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group Kaloum Loele, and then with the National Theatre, playing doundou, gongoma and bolon. I founded a workshop and began making instruments by day, from 8am to 5pm, and rehearsing and playing music at night. I had the chance to come to France in 2003 with my djembé. Since then I’ve been back and forth participating in and organising festivals, workshops and concerts in both countries, as well as in other places around the world.

VINCENT FOURNIER/JA

RHYTHM IN CONTEXT

Drum line Percussionist Didi Keita followed his destiny and now teaches drumming in Paris and Guinea, imparting not just the rhythms but their stories and meaning

grew up in Conakry, Guinea, my mother Senegalese and my father Guinean. Guinea is a very musical country and when I was about six years old I started playing around on metal boxes and various objects. When I was 12 I started learning from master Lansana Dioubaté and soon knew that music was my destiny. He initiated me to the djembé and everything I do today is thanks to him.

Lansana was from a family of artists. In contrast, I was the first musician in my family. I wasn’t meant to be a musician with the name Keita, and my father wasn’t happy with my decision. Luckily my mother encouraged me to follow my passion. Without her I would now probably be in an office somewhere, not following my true path. When I was 20, music became my profession. I worked with the

Music is my purpose and I love teaching it. But I’m not just teaching the rhythms; I teach the stories behind the rhythms and their meanings. My master taught me this: Every rhythm has its story and significance. If you dance you need to know why you dance, or if you cook it’s because you’re hungry; it has a purpose. Rhythm is like that; it is used for a specific occasion. I have received warm hospitality in France and learned French culture, and so one of my greatest pleasures is to introduce my international students to Guinea. I organise a few workshops in Dubréka each year, not for my commercial gain but because sharing my culture makes me extremely happy. The students discover local musicians and dancers as well as the beaches, the food and the people. They begin to understand the rhythms in context. Today I join my fellow Guinean artists to present our culture to the world. We’re not at all government-funded so we mostly finance and produce ourselves. I’ll continue to push my projects as long as I can. I would love to become an ambassador for Guinean artists. My dream is to have funded music and dance schools, rehearsal spaces, festivals and more workshops and concerts in Guinea to nourish and create work for all the talent that exists. God willing, I will be able to help create more opportunities. Interview by Ruby Boukabou THE AFRICA REPORT

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