Africa

1. Trump envoy’s Africa visit
2. US maintains S. Sudan freeze
3. Music tour ambitions
4. Sudan accuses UAE
5. Mozambique gas project
6. Person of Interest
7. Carbon credits and grabs
8. Weekend Reads

The changing nature of Nigerian aso ebi.

US diplomat’s Africa tour

US President Donald Trump’s top Africa envoy laid the groundwork this week for a minerals deal in DR Congo. But any deal between Washington and Kinshasa is dependent on the US helping to negotiate peace in the African nation’s troubled eastern region, according to two people who were present for some of the meetings.

After the visit by Massad Boulos, the White House senior adviser for Africa, DR Congo repatriated three US citizens who it said were involved in a failed coup attempt. And on Wednesday, US-owned Alphamin Resources said it would initiate a “phased” reopening of its tin mine in eastern Congo after Rwanda-backed M23 rebel forces pulled back from the facility. “He achieved some of his deliverables, but the situation remains fragile,” said one of the people.

Boulos met the presidents of DR Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda during the visit. He said in a statement that after reviewing Kinshasa’s minerals deal proposal, he had agreed with DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi on “a path forward.” Western mining companies including Rio Tinto and KoBold Metals are among the names being lined up to take part in a US-backed mineral resources partnership, said a person close to the discussions.

— Yinka Adegoke

US still freezing South Sudan visas

Washington has yet to undo its freeze on visas for South Sudanese nationals despite Juba admitting a DR Congo citizen deported by the US. “We have no announcements at this time regarding the resumption of visa issuances to South Sudanese passport holders,” a State Department spokesperson told Semafor. If South Sudanese citizens who had their visas revoked wish to travel to the US, “they will need to apply for a visa again,” the official said.

Washington announced last week it was imposing a blanket visa ban on South Sudanese passport holders, and would start revoking existing visas unless the country took in the Congolese national, who initially presented a South Sudanese travel document with a different name to authorities. Earlier this week, a US official said Washington was “prepared to review” the situation when “South Sudan is in full cooperation.”

Eyeing homegrown music tours

Leading Nigerian record label Mavin is trying to unlock Africa’s music-touring potential by developing regional performance circuits, aiming to break into a global market dominated by Western nations.

The global rise in popularity of African music in recent years has seen successful homegrown artists gross tens of millions of dollars in touring revenues — mostly in markets outside the continent, particularly in North America and Europe.

Mavin, in which Universal Music Group last year acquired a majority stake in a deal estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars, partnered with Nairobi-based online ticketing platform HustleSasa and African entertainment media company Trace to begin an East African tour, with artists including Magixx, Bayani, and Boy Spyce visiting Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Speaking to Semafor, HustleSasa founder Peng Chen described the Mavin tour as a “proof of concept.”

Sudan accuses UAE of aiding genocide

Sudan told the International Court of Justice that the United Arab Emirates was aiding genocide by supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the ongoing civil war. The UAE said the case was a publicity stunt and should be dismissed as the ICJ lacks jurisdiction. According to Sudan, the UAE has been arming and training the RSF to help it wipe out the non-Arab Massalit population of West Darfur. Legal experts appear to agree the case has little chance of moving forward, but by filing a case Sudan has “drawn attention” to what it alleges is the UAE’s role, the BBC reported.

Join AfricArena in Lagos — AfricArena, the premier tech accelerator, is hosting its Fintech, Mobility, and Logistics summit on April 30, 2025. This one-day conference will feature pitches from across Africa, along with keynotes and panel discussions by top business, tech, and investment experts in the region. Network with top investors, venture capitalists, founders, and ecosystem builders — register here.

Trump reapproves Mozambique loan

The construction of a major liquefied natural gas plant in Mozambique is set to resume after US President Donald Trump reapproved a $4.7 billion loan for the project late last month. It is the largest loan in Africa by the US Export-Import Bank, a US export credit agency, with the South China Morning Post calling the decision “a major feat” as Washington tries to counter Chinese influence on the continent.

The loan was initially approved by Trump in 2020, but construction on the project was frozen in 2021 due to violent unrest. Washington is driven by “an eye on gas futures markets and a need to diversify production beyond Russia and the Gulf,” Alex Vines, director of the Africa Program at UK think tank Chatham House, told Semafor. Natural gas is seen as a key interim power source between fossil fuels and renewables, and Mozambique hosts one of the world’s biggest — and largely untapped — reserves. China has already invested in several off-shore natural gas concession contracts in the country.

— Paige Bruton

Carbon credits and grabs

The average price of a credit representing a tonne of CO2 in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with the global average of $4.90, according to MSCI Carbon Markets. The disparity — which is greater when compared with the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) price of around $68 — is central to growing concerns over Africa’s outsized potential yet limited share in the global carbon credit market: “We used to have land grabs, now we are having carbon grabs,” Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, told the Financial Times.

Oversupply and integrity issues have undercut various African projects in recent years. If African governments are to reap the benefits of growing demand for carbon credits, they must develop “policy and regulation to drive high-integrity credits,” Carlijn Nouwen from Climate Action Platform for Africa told Semafor, highlighting Kenya and Zambia’s efforts to develop carbon market frameworks that align with global standards.

— Madeleine Wright

Person of Interest: John Steenhuisen

The leader of the second-biggest party in South Africa’s ruling coalition has dominated headlines, after his party voted against the country’s budget, leaving people guessing about whether it will pull out of a government formed less than 10 months ago.

The 49-year-old became a DA activist as a teenager, saying that he was frustrated with how South Africa’s potential was “being squandered.” John Steenhuisen’s ascent to party chief in 2019 came with concerns the DA was shifting rightwards and critics say he “has blind spots when it comes to the all-important issue of race,” the BBC reported.

The DA leader remains ambitious: When asked by the Mail & Guardian if South Africa was ready for a white president, he responded: “Was America ready for Barack Obama? Was the UK ready for Rishi Sunak? They both come from minority groupings in their countries and I think both have performed admirably.”

Weekend Reads

• The European Union claims strong ties with Africa but undermines them through restrictive visa policies, argues a Centre for European Reform researcher. Efforts to curb irregular migration via visa restrictions are ineffective, says Katherine Pye, arguing that the EU must instead reform its visa policies, simplify applications, and decouple visas from migration enforcement.

• An Afrikaner journalist rejects claims by US President Donald Trump and Pretoria-born billionaire Elon Musk that Afrikaners face “genocide” in South Africa. Max du Preez writes in The Guardian that Afrikaners are in fact “generally better off” today than under apartheid due to the country embracing democracy. He criticizes US interference, linking it to South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and right-wing fears over diversity.

• Andrée Blouin was a pioneering pan-Africanist whose influential role in the independence struggle has somewhat slipped into obscurity since the 1960s. The reissue of her autobiography My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria will go some way to correct this oversight, writes Ernest Harsch for Jacobin. Born in modern-day Central African Republic, Blouin rebelled against her harsh upbringing in a local orphanage to travel across the continent to become a confidant to leaders including Congo’s Patrice Lumumba and Guinea’s Ahmed Sékou Touré.

• AllAccessFans, a Nigerian adult content platform, has generated $1.8 billion naira ($1.1 million) in revenue since it launched last year. An African version of the British subscription platform OnlyFans — known for hosting sexually explicit material — it has paid more than 1.2 billion naira ($750,000) to around 13,000 creators, Techpoint Africa reported. AllAccessFans is adapted for an African audience, it notes, offering faster local payouts in naira. Despite challenges like securing investors and combating fraud, the platform plans to expand across Africa.

Business & Macro

🇳🇬 Nigeria posted a $6.8 billion balance of payments surplus in 2024, the first in three years. It recorded a $3.3 billion deficit last year.

🇨🇮 Cote d’Ivoire, the world’s top cocoa producer, said it would consider raising cocoa prices in response to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

Climate & Energy

🇰🇪 Kenya is in talks with a unit of Saudi Aramco for the Gulf company to invest in oil storage facilities in the port of Mombasa.

Geopolitics & Policy

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe paid out $3.1 million to 378 white farmers whose lands were forcibly seized by the government two decades ago in the first batch of such payments.

🇹🇿 Tanzania charged Tundu Lissu, the chairperson of the main opposition party Chadema, with treason for a speech earlier this month in which he supposedly incited obstruction to upcoming general elections in October.

Tech & Deals

🇲🇬🇹🇿 The European Investment Bank invested $100 million in African mobile network operator Axian Telecom to support the company’s expansion of 4G and introduction of 5G to its mobile broadband network infrastructure across Madagascar and Tanzania.

🇳🇬 Nigerian digital banking startup Fairmoney’s gross revenue rose 62% to the naira equivalent of $78 million last year.

🇿🇦 South Africa’s Border Management Authority will unveil four unmanned night-vision drones and 40 body-worn cameras for border surveillance for the first time this month.

A clothing tradition that began as a symbol of kinship in Nigeria has become a statement of social standing. “Aso ebi,” or “cloth of the kin,” dates back to precolonial Yoruba societies, reports New Lines Magazine, a way to signify “a mutual sense of purpose” among a group. It could be women dressed in matching dresses, sunglasses, and feathered fans, or men wearing the same long cream robes. These days the tradition takes new life in settings such as weddings where friends and family of a bride may all wear tailor-made clothes as a “badge of honor.”

Orbital Materials, a company founded by a former DeepMind researcher, is launching a first-of-its-kind effort to capture carbon from the air by piggybacking off the hot air emitted by data centers, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti reported.

In the age of AI, data centers are consuming enormous amounts of energy and boosting emissions. But Orbital Materials’ pilot program could do the opposite, resulting in a net reduction in carbon in the atmosphere — if it works.

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— Preeti Jha, Alexander Onukwue, and Yinka Adegoke.