Niger’s junta moved to consolidate power as regional leaders prepared for a second emergency summit since the country’s July 26 coup.

The soldiers now running Niger continued to ignore demands to relinquish power and began announcing a new cabinet, days after the expiration of a deadline imposed by its neighbors to restore democracy.

West African heads of state are due to meet in Abuja, the capital of neighboring Nigeria, on Aug. 10 to discuss Niger, where President Mohamed Bazoum was deposed two weeks ago.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that America backs regional efforts to bring a diplomatic resolution to the “extremely troubling” situation in Niger, a key ally in the global fight against jihadists in the western Sahel. His top deputy, acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, traveled to the capital, Niamey, on Monday for what she described as “difficult talks” with junta officials about reinstating Bazoum.

“We are supporting the efforts of” regional leaders “to restore constitutional order in Niger,” Blinken said in an interview Tuesday with Radio France Internationale. The coup “puts us and many other countries in a position where we have to stop our aid, our support, and this will not benefit the people of Niger.”

Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States regional bloc gave Niger’s military leaders until Aug. 6 to hand back power to Bazoum or face the potential threat of military intervention. The junta restricted access to the country’s airspace over the weekend, and postponed a visit by an Ecowas mediation delegation scheduled for Tuesday, according to a letter dated Monday.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who currently chairs Ecowas, has ordered additional sanctions on entities and individuals linked to the junta, government adviser Ajuri Ngelale told reporters on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said the president was “unequivocal” about the use of diplomacy and will remain so until Ecowas delivers a different verdict.

The coup in Niger is the sixth in West Africa over the past three years. Ecowas didn’t threaten to use force to reverse any of the others, and Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso are today under military rule, with their leaders dragging their feet to return power to civilians.

The bloc is likely to ultimately take a similar tack in Niger, Vladimir Antwi-Danzo, a security analyst and director of the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, said by phone from the capital, Accra.

“There’s the threat of a military intervention, but we don’t see any sign of troops preparing to deploy,” he said.

The 15-member bloc successfully intervened in Gambia in 2017 to help oust dictator Yahya Jammeh, who refused to step down after an electoral defeat. That time there was no violence — Senegalese troops advancing toward the capital, Banjul, were enough to make Jammeh change his mind.

Niger is more than 100 times the size of Gambia, and has close cultural and trade ties to neighboring Nigeria, which would have to lead any intervention given that it’s the region’s most influential country and has its biggest military. Senators and civil society groups from Nigeria’s north — which borders Niger — have already expressed their opposition to any intervention.

The junta has so far largely ignored the threat. Niger’s self-declared military leader Abdourahamane Tiani on Monday appointed Ali Lamine Zeine as prime minister, according to a statement read on state broadcaster Tele Sahel. Tiani didn’t meet Nuland, the second-ranking diplomat from the US, which has about 1,000 troops in the country.

Bloomberg

Niger was slapped with more sanctions on Tuesday, hours after its new military leaders rejected the latest diplomatic mission aimed at restoring constitutional order following a July 26 coup.

President Bola Tinubu ordered the new sanctions through Nigeria's central bank, aimed at squeezing those involved in the takeover, a presidential spokesperson said.

The sanctions were imposed after the junta denied a joint delegation from West African states, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations permission to enter Niger, resisting pressure from the United States and the UN to come to the negotiating table.

Late on Tuesday, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) confirmed the joint mission had been aborted and said in a statement it would "continue to deploy all measures in order to restore constitutional order in Niger."

Regional and Western powers fear the coup will destabilise the Sahel region of West Africa, one of the world's poorest that is already dealing with a string of coups and a deadly Islamist insurgency.

Border and airspace closures have cut off supplies of medicine and food, hampering UN humanitarian aid. U.S. and Western interests in Niger, a former ally, are also under threat.

"We are still hopeful and we are still trying to achieve a result that is a return to the constitutional order," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday.

Funding for international military education and training, peacekeeping operations, and foreign military financing programs supporting Niger's counterterrorism capabilities are among the assistance the U.S. has paused since the coup, he said.

ECOWAS SUMMIT PLANNED FOR THURSDAY

ECOWAS heads of state are preparing for a summit on Thursday to discuss their standoff with the junta, which defied an Aug. 6 deadline to reinstate ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.

ECOWAS defence chiefs agreed last week on a possible military action plan, which the heads of state are expected to consider at their summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

Still, Tinubu's spokesperson said the leaders prefer a diplomatic solution.

"No options have been taken off the table," the spokesperson told reporters in Abuja, adding that "far-reaching decisions" would be taken at the summit concerning the bloc's next steps.

Explaining the decision to not allow the delegation in on Tuesday, Niger's junta said it could not guarantee their safety in the face of popular anger. It also denounced "a climate of threatened aggression against Niger".

The junta had already snubbed meetings with a senior U.S. envoy and another ECOWAS delegation.

The UN said Secretary General Antonio Guterres strongly supported mediation efforts by ECOWAS, while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told French radio station RFI diplomacy was the best way to resolve the situation.

He declined to comment on the future of some 1,100 U.S. troops in Niger, where French, German and Italian troops are also stationed.

Blinken later told the BBC he was worried that Russia's Wagner Group mercenaries could take advantage of the instability in Niger to strengthen their presence in the Sahel.

"I think what happened and what continues to happen in Niger was not instigated by Russia or by Wagner, but to the extent that they try to take advantage of it – and we see a repeat of what's happened in other countries, where they've brought nothing but bad things in their wake – that wouldn't be good," he said.

Adding to its strategic importance, Niger is the world's seventh-biggest producer of uranium, the most widely used fuel for nuclear energy.

RUSSIAN FLAGS

U.S. Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland flew to Niamey on Monday but was denied permission to meet coup leader Abdourahamane Tiani or Bazoum, who is in detention. She told reporters her talks with more junior officers were "frank and difficult".

Last week, ECOWAS sent a mission to Niamey led by Abdulsalami Abubakar, a former military ruler of Nigeria, but Tiani also refused to see him.

In contrast, Tiani on Monday met a joint delegation from Mali and Burkina Faso, both neighbouring countries where the military has seized power from civilians.

"We will not accept military intervention in Niger. Our survival depends on it," said Abdoulaye Maiga, a spokesman for Mali's junta, appearing on Niger state television.

Some pro-coup demonstrators in Niamey have held up Russian flags, which are in fashion according to residents and fabric vendors.

Western allies fear that Niger could go the way of Mali, which threw out French troops and U.N. peacekeepers and invited in Wagner mercenaries after a 2021 coup.

Reuters

Elite units of Niger's army have started advancing towards the airport of the capital Niamey, the Al Arabiya TV channel reported.

According to it, elite units of the Niger army "are advancing towards the presidential palace and the airport." The TV channel does not report the number of units moving toward these sites or their intentions.

On July 26, military rebels in Niger announced the removal of President Mohamed Bazoum, closure of national borders, introduction of a curfew and suspension of the constitution, as well as a ban on political parties. On July 28, they declared that General Abdourahmane Tchiani had become head of state. During the coup, Tchiani headed the presidential guard, units of which physically seized President Bazoum and continue to hold him and his family at his residence.

At an emergency summit on July 30, ECOWAS leaders demanded that the rebels reinstate the president and restore constitutional order to the country. The ECOWAS states gave Niger rebels one week to meet these demands. On August 4, the militaries of the ECOWAS member states announced that their emergency meeting had developed a contingency plan for intervention in Niger. The ECOWAS ultimatum expired on August 7. However, the Al Arabiya TV channel reports, citing a statement by the regional organization's defense ministers, that the ECOWAS military leadership recognized the inadvisability of using force against Niger. At the same time, it decided to increase sanctions pressure to force the rebels to release Bazoum.

RT

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Western officials losing faith in Ukraine's military – CNN

Kiev’s Western backers are losing faith in the ability of the Ukrainian military to penetrate Russian defenses and turn the tide of the conflict, US and other Western officials told CNN on Tuesday.

“[The Ukrainians are] still going to see, for the next couple of weeks, if there is a chance of making some progress. But for them to really make progress that would change the balance of this conflict, I think, it’s extremely, highly unlikely,” an unnamed “senior Western diplomat” told the American broadcaster.

Illinois Representative Mike Quigley, a Democrat who recently met with US commanders in Europe, described their briefings as “sobering.”

“We’re reminded of the challenges [the Ukrainians] face,” he said, adding that “This is the most difficult time of the war.”

Ukraine launched its long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces in early June, assaulting multiple points along the frontline from Zaporozhye to Donetsk regions. However, the Russian military had spent several months preparing a dense and multi-layered network of minefields, trenches, and fortifications, which the Ukrainian side has thus far failed to overcome.

Advancing through minefields without air support, Ukraine’s Western-trained and NATO-equipped units have suffered horrendous casualties, losing 43,000 troops and 4,900 pieces of heavy weaponry in just over two months, according to the most recent figures from the Russian Defense Ministry.

“[The] Russians have a number of defensive lines and [Ukrainian forces] haven’t really gone through the first line,” another anonymous Western diplomat told CNN. “Even if they would keep on fighting for the next several weeks, if they haven’t been able to make more breakthroughs throughout these last seven, eight weeks, what is the likelihood that they will suddenly, with more depleted forces, make them?”

Despite the best efforts of Ukraine’s armed forces chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, to convince the US that “the initiative is on our side,” officials told CNN that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky could soon be pushed to sue for peace if progress remains stalled.

A senior US military official predicted that Kiev would rely more and more on piecemeal strikes within Russia – like the recent drone attacks on Moscow – to compensate for its shortcomings on the battlefield. The Kremlin has drawn similar conclusions from these attacks, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov declaring last week that Kiev was launching “terrorist strikes” as “acts of desperation” to distract from its failing counteroffensive.

** Two combat drones shot down on approach to Moscow

Air defense systems have shot down two unmanned aerial vehicles on an approach to Moscow, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said, adding that no injuries have been reported.

"Two combat drones have attempted to fly to the city. Both were shot down by air defense systems, one in the Domodedovo area, and another one in the vicinity of Minskoye Highway. No injuries have been reported," Sobyanin wrote on his Telegram channel.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine accuses Russia of targeting rescue workers with consecutive missile strikes

Ukrainian officials on Tuesday accused the Kremlin’s forces of targeting rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles — the first one to draw crews to the scene and the second one to wound or kill them.

The strikes Monday evening in the downtown district of the city of Pokrovsk killed nine people and wounded more than 80 others, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. According to Ukrainian authorities, one of those killed was an emergency official, and most of those wounded were police officers, emergency workers and soldiers who rushed to assist residents.

The Russian missiles slammed into the center of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, which is partially occupied by Russia. Emergency crews were still removing rubble on Tuesday. The Iskander missiles, which have an advanced guidance system that increases their accuracy, hit within 40 minutes of each other, according to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

Since the start of the war, Russia has used artillery and missiles to hit targets and then struck the exact same spot around 30 minutes later, often hitting emergency teams responding to the first blast. The tactic is called a “double tap” in military jargon. Russians used the same method in Syria’s civil war.

“All of (the police) were there because they were needed, putting their efforts into rescuing people after the first strike,” Ivan Vyhivskyi, chief of Ukraine’s National Police, said Tuesday. “They knew that under the rubble were the injured — they needed to react, to dig, to retrieve, to save. And the enemy deliberately struck the second time.”

Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed it hit a Ukrainian army command post in Pokrovsk. Neither side’s claims could be independently verified.

Among those injured was Volodymyr Nikulin, a police officer originally from the now Russian-occupied port city of Mariupol.

Arriving at the scene after the first missile strike, Nikulin was wounded in the second strike when shrapnel pierced his left lung and left hand.

“Today is not my happy day because Russian criminals committed another awful crime in Pokrovsk,” he said in a video he sent to The Associated Press from a hospital ward.

In the video, he is seen lying on a bed shirtless, with dried blood on his side and covering his left hand. He moves with pain to show his wounds.

Pointing his camera to show other wounded security forces in the ward, he says: “Look, these are Ukrainian heroes who helped (injured) people.”

He told the National Police in a video that he feared a second strike but went to help anyway.

There were so many injured at the hospital that Nikulin was still waiting for surgery on Tuesday morning. He was later transported to a hospital in Dnipro, where he was to have the shrapnel removed.

Nikulin had already witnessed some of the war’s horrors. He helped an AP team escape after Russian troops that besieged Mariupol entered the downtown area and searched for them.

He was featured in the award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” a joint project between The Associated Press and PBS “Frontline” about the earliest phase of the invasion of Mariupol.

In a statement, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, described the latest attack as “absolutely ruthless” and said it was “a serious breach” of international law and violated “any principle of humanity.”

Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, 78 employees of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service have been killed and 280 have been wounded while responding to Russian missile strikes, according to agency spokesperson Col. Oleksandr Khorunzhyi.

Ukrainian officials say rescuers are protected by international conventions as they are providing humanitarian assistance and are not engaged in combat operations.

The head of the Pokrovsk city administration, Serhii Dobriak, described the attacks as “a typical Russian scenario,” with 30 to 40 minutes between missiles.

“When rescuers come to save people’s lives, another rocket arrives. And the number of casualties increases,” he said in a video comment to local media.

Kyrylenko, the regional governor, said that 12 multistory buildings were damaged in Pokrovsk, as well as a hotel, a pharmacy, two stores and two cafes.

The roof of one building was partially demolished, and rubble filled the sidewalk outside. Across the road, a children’s playground was wrecked.

Russian missiles, drones and artillery have repeatedly struck civilian areas in the war. The Kremlin says its forces target only military assets and claims other damage is caused by debris from Ukrainian air defenses.

Meanwhile, an overnight attack on the town of Kruhliakivka, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, killed three people and injured nine others, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.

Russia also dropped four guided bombs on a village near Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, killing two civilians, Ukraine’s presidential office said.

Rescuers later came under fire, and two of them were wounded, it said.

Also on Tuesday, Russian-installed authorities of the Donetsk region accused Kyiv’s forces of shelling the region’s namesake capital and killing three people. The Moscow-appointed leader of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, said Ukrainian shelling of the Russian-held city of Donetsk also wounded 11.

** 2 Russian missile strikes hit a city in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 5 people, officials say

Two Russian missile strikes hit the city center of the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region Monday evening, killing at least five people and wounding two dozen more, Ukrainian officials said.

The strikes, which targeted the Ukrainian portion of a region partially occupied by Russia, occurred within 40 minutes of each other, according to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. The attack damaged nine- and five-story buildings, residential houses, a hotel where foreign journalists used to stay, dining establishments, shops and administrative buildings, he said.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said five people, including a local official of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, were killed and 31 more were wounded by the strikes. Nineteen policemen, five rescuers and one child were among the wounded, Klymenko said.

The Suspilne news site, however, cited head of the Pokrovsk City Military Administration Serhiy Dobriak as saying that seven people were killed and 27 were wounded. The conflicting reports could not be immediately reconciled.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an online statement accused Russia of trying to leave nothing but “broken and scorched stones” in eastern Ukraine. His remarks accompanied footage of a damaged, five-story residential building with one floor partially destroyed.

The deadly attack came just a day after officials from around 40 countries gathered in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful settlement for the war in Ukraine. Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday denounced the two-day talks in Jeddah as not having “the slightest added value” because Moscow — unlike Kyiv — wasn’t invited.

A statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry repeated previous assurances that Moscow is open to a diplomatic solution on its terms that would end the 17-month-old war, and that it is ready to respond to serious proposals. The Kremlin’s demands include Kyiv recognizing its annexation of four Ukrainian regions, which Russian forces at this point only partially control, and Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.

But Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, ruled out Moscow’s previous demands that would give Russia time to dig in deeper in the parts of Ukraine it has occupied. He said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Russian forces must fully withdraw from the occupied areas and there would be no compromise by Kyiv on that.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo participated in the Jeddah meeting by video, and U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the United Nations welcomes all diplomatic initiatives and wants “to keep pushing forward towards any form of a peace that is based on the U.N. Charter, including on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Security Service announced Monday it had detained an alleged Russian informant who gathered intelligence about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s trip to the southern Mykolaiv region last month.

It claimed the woman “was collecting data for an airstrike during Zelenskyy’s visit.”

The woman attempted to establish Zelenskyy’s route, times and visits in the region. She was detained when she tried to pass the information to the Russians, the statement said, without providing evidence.

Zelenskyy has been a prime target for the Kremlin since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, when he refused to leave Kyiv as Moscow’s forces approached.

He has been one of Ukraine’s unexpected trump cards in the war, playing a key role in rallying public morale, including a nightly video address, and becoming a recognizable face across the world as he presses allies and others to help Ukraine.

Also on Monday, Russian shelling struck a nine-story residential building in the city of Kherson, killing one person and wounding four others, according to regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin. He said Kherson had endured a “tough night” as the Russians “covered the central part of the city with fire.”

A 57-year-old woman was killed and four people were wounded in the Russian shelling of a village in the northeastern Kharkiv province, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.

RT/Tass/AP

Africa is the cradle of human civilization and the planet’s richest continent in terms of natural resources. But according to Ibrahim Traore, the president of Burkina Faso, younger generations cannot understand why, despite its riches, Africa continues to be the poorest region of the world.

Across the continent we have seen uprisings and armed rebellions by anti-colonialist military leaders who have sought to reclaim their sovereignty from European imperialist powers, particularly France.

Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger are just some of the countries that make up the collective of former French colonies in West Africa. They have long served as the key source of natural resources for France and other European powers. Niger supplies 15% of the uranium needed for French nuclear reactors. Burkina Faso is a key exporter of gold, while Guinea is a crucial entry and exit point for trade between France and its former colonies. Mali is another major exporter of gold, and has been a battleground where the government has fought various armed Islamist groups.

The map of West Africa began to change radically in 2021. Like dominos, pro-French regimes began to fall to military uprisings, starting with Mali in May 2021 and the coup led by Assimi Goita, who immediately demanded that the French military leave the country. The Central African Republic also expelled French troops in June 2021. This was followed by the military takeover in Guinea by Mamady Doumbouya, a former French legionnaire, in September 2021.

One year later, Traore became the world’s youngest president after seizing power in Burkina Faso, and he proceeded to expel the French military in January 2023. Finally, the military rebellion in Niger on July 26 led by Abdourahamane Tchiani, now assuming the presidency, also expelled French forces and banned the export of uranium to France.

The case of Burkina Faso and Traore is particularly interesting. During his recent trip to St. Petersburg for the Russia-Africa summit, Traore gave a speech in which he called Russia part of the African family. He condemned the looting of the continent by European powers, and ended with the slogan “Homeland or death! We shall win!” – echoing the words of Ernesto Che Guevara and the national motto of Cuba.

Many have compared Traore to Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987, who was also called the “African Che Guevara.” Sankara likewise expelled French forces, nationalized the country’s resources, and implemented socialist policies of redistribution, before being assassinated in a pro-French coup.

So, what are France and its partners likely to do now? The United States and Britain have already cut all aid to Niger and its allies in response to their ban on exports of uranium to France. On July 30, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a confederation that includes many of France’s former colonies, issued an ultimatum to Niger – Tchiani had one week to step down or a military intervention would begin with the backing of France. Nigeria, a key French ally in the region and the leader of ECOWAS, was chosen as the launchpad for a possible military intervention. However, the senate of Nigeria rejected the demand of the highly unpopular president, Bola Tinubu, to authorize military action against its neighbour. The ultimatum has since expired, and Niger proceeded to close its airspace to any commercial aircraft.

The presidents of Burkina Faso and Mali have responded that any military intervention in Niger will amount to a declaration of war against them. But the African states also have an ace up their sleeve – their long-time friendship with Russia.

Delegations from 49 African countries attended the recent Africa-Russia summit in St. Petersburg. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared support for Africa’s battle against neo-colonialism, stating that Moscow had written off a total of $23 billion in African debt and confirming that more than 50,000 tons of grain will be delivered free of charge to the continent.

The friendship between the peoples of Africa and Russia stretches back to the 18th century. The story of Abram Gannibal, the African general in the service of the Russian Army and the great-grandfather of the legendary poet Alexander Pushkin, is among the most fascinating parts of the lore of Russian-African relations. Brought as a child slave to Peter the Great from Constantinople, he was freed from servitude and educated at the tsar’s palace. He would rise not only to become a high-ranking military officer in the Russian Army, but also a tutor to a young Alexander Suvorov, the famed general who defeated the Ottoman Empire in two wars, among other accomplishments.

In the twilight of the scramble for Africa, only one nation stood independent among the sea of colonial conquests – Ethiopia. The attempted Italian invasion and subjugation ended in a catastrophic failure for the colonizers, with Russia providing crucial assistance to the Ethiopian nation fighting for its sovereignty and independence. The Soviet Union became the “armory of the oppressed” for many young nations of Africa seeking their independence from their colonial masters, as arms and ammunition produced in USSR were delivered to the many revolutionary and anti-colonial forces in the region, such as the MPLA in Angola, the ANC in South Africa, the PAIGC and its leader Amilcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau, and many others. The memory of this solidarity is still fresh in the minds of many Africans, young and old.

The support and admiration for Russia echoes across the African continent, beyond the former colonies of France. During the mass rally of the Economic Freedom Fighters of South Africa, the group’s leader, Julius Malema, condemned the actions of France on the continent and proclaimed: “We are Putin, and Putin is us! And we will never support imperialism against President Putin!” A true sense of change seems to be sweeping across Africa, away from the old European colonizers and towards a new multipolar world.

Russia Today

When Uju Uzo-Ojinnaka, CEO and founder of Traders of Africa (TOFA), was informed about the need for groundnuts in India by her friend in Ghana, she had no idea that her online trading platform would stem from this demand. She discovered that there was no platform to locate groundnut producers, resulting in the loss of the deal.

She woke up in the middle of the night, puzzled. She shouldn’t let this opportunity slip by. Having studied Jack Ma and being able to relate to his frustration of not seeing Chinese beer online, she decided to create TOFA that very evening. This way, she reasoned, Africans will have access to more than just Nigerian peanuts. 

Today, the platform includes food, beverages, apparel, houseware, furniture, beauty and personal care products, packaging and supplies, minerals as well as agricultural supplies and produce. TOFA allows you to search for products and to see their availability anywhere in Africa.

A Pan-African platform

Uzo-Ojinnaka’s aim was to create an online marketplace for products grown, produced and manufactured in Africa and to facilitate trade with and within the continent.

One of the reasons this hasn’t been happening is detailed on the UN Africa Renewal website: “African countries are grappling to undo a legacy dominated by trade with their former colonial rulers rather than with each other.”

This is further unpacked in an article on the same website explaining how to boost trade within Africa. She says that within a month, she launched her platform in five African countries. By September 2017, she had connected with 9,000 suppliers. 

Building trust

But there was a hiccup. Although people were on TOFA, trade was not happening mostly because of distrust. Buyers and sellers didn’t trust each other, and nobody was willing to make the first move. 

This is not surprising. Emeka Ajene, the co-founder of Gozem, defines African markets as low-trust environments and stresses the importance of character, reputation and integrity. 

“It’s easier for someone who is selling something online for $1 because you can risk losing that. But nobody is going to risk losing $20,000,” explains Uzo-Ojinnaka.   

“What we did then was to create an offline part of the platform, which is accessible to buyers and sellers. Through this, we were able to facilitate the building of trust between them.”

It extends to company culture

She adds, “I need to settle my home first, and I tell my staff the same thing. Before they come to work, they must settle their homes first. If their home is not settled, there’s nothing they can do at work. 

“I want TOFA to be so successful that it outgrows me and to the point that I can’t handle it anymore. If, when that point comes that I have to leave and I’ve sacrificed my family, where will I go?” 

And according to Sarah Rice, Chief People Officer at Skynamo, culture isn’t just a set of values. It’s a set of behaviours linked to values. 

Six tricks of the trade

The TOFA founder eagerly shares a few of her biggest lessons but admits that being an entrepreneur means that you will always be a student: 

1. What works today may not work tomorrow
2. Never give up
3. Don’t waste any time. Just start. Now
4. You will always need to pivot and re-strategise, and
5. It is not going to be easy. 

Uzo-Ojinnaka concludes, “I realised that having a dream is not enough. The difficult part is getting people who already have their own dreams to buy into yours. That is what makes companies succeed. The dream is yours and nobody can interpret it better than you.” 

Inc

Let Trade Run Free. Tie your currency to the US dollar. Align your foreign policy with America’s. The US and its Western partners wrote these economic rules, a cornerstone of the world order prevailing since World War II. Now developing countries, often called the Global South, are quietly revising them.

The Global South sees a chance to chart its own future. Nirupama Menon Rao, a former Indian foreign secretary, points to her country’s spreading of digital payments to developing nations. “India’s outreach to countries in the Global South has been ­successful,” the one-time ambassador to the US told Bloomberg Television in June.

Developing nations are demanding control of their resources, reordering a relationship from colonial times, in part by insisting on factories in their own countries. Joining Namibia and Zimbabwe, Ghana is preparing to ban exports of lithium—essential for electric vehicles. Indonesia prohibited the export of nickel ores.

Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Indonesia are welcoming investments in EV battery plants from China rather than the US. “We can’t keep begging and begging from you,” Luhut Panjaitan, an Indonesian investment minister, said in May. “You may be angry at us for trading with other countries, but we have to survive.”

While visiting China in April, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asked “who decided that the dollar” should be all-­powerful. The Bank of Thailand is talking up fresh plans to diversify its basket of currencies, which it uses to establish the value of the baht, so it’s less tied to the dollar. Indonesia is shoring up local currency markets, as regional neighbors set up digital payment systems, reducing the need for the dollar in day-to-day purchases. Africa is discussing a common currency.

Adding a geopolitical component, countries are no longer picking sides in fights between the West and Russia or the US and China. Thirty-two countries abstained from a United Nations resolution in ­February demanding that Russia withdraw from Ukraine.

Leaders such as Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Philippine Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno sound like they’re reading from a script when they explain their neutrality with variations of the words “we’re a friend to all.” In June, when a Chinese vessel antagonized an American warship in the Taiwan Strait, Asian defense ministers at a summit in Singapore just emphasized avoiding conflict.

South Africa is denying a US ambassador’s claim that it’s supplying arms to Russia for its war against Ukraine. Vietnam has kept quiet about Ukraine. The reason: its onetime security partnership with Russia, which dates to the Vietnam War. India is buying Russian oil in defiance of US-led sanctions. “Energy is not about altruism or philanthropy,” oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri told Bloomberg TV in February.

The great powers’ behavior has soured many in the Global South: the debt-ceiling debacle and further political disarray in the US, China’s saber-rattling and Brexit in the UK. Pew Research Center survey results show unfavorable views of China reaching historical highs. But the US has failed to capitalize on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s declining popularity. “Xi Jinping has been God’s gift to US alliance-building in Asia,” says Ashley Tellis, a former senior State Department official now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The US has hardly offered a compelling alternative, according to former US Trade Representative Michael Froman. “They haven’t yet seen what our vision is for the future,” he told Bloomberg’s Stephanomics podcast in June. In response, the Global South has decided to come up with a vision of its own.

President Bola Tinubu has filed a motion seeking to prevent a federal court in the United States from releasing his university academic records to Atiku Abubakar, his principal opponent during Nigeria’s February 2023 presidential election.

Documents obtained by our correspondent showed Abubakar, on August 2, approached the States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to issue a subpoena for Chicago State University to release Tinubu’s school records, citing longstanding 

controversies around the Nigerian president’s background.

A Nigerian journalist, David Hundeyin, obtained records that showed a Bola Tinubu that attended Chicago State University in the 1970s was a female. 

The CSU registrar’s office had said that it graduated a Bola Tinubu on June 22, 1979, but did not elaborate when pressed on whether the student was a male or female, much less if it is the same person now occupying Nigeria’s presidency. 

Abubakar told the court he was seeking the documents as part of discovery to strengthen his legal challenge against the declaration of Tinubu as Nigeria’s president on March 1, 2023, following the hotly-contested February 23 election. 

But Tinubu quickly gathered his team of attorneys and asked to be added as an interested party in the suit, alleging that Chicago State University might be unable to fully protect his interest as the owner of the records being sought. 

“Tinubu should be allowed to join or intervene because he has a direct personal interest in records sought, his interests are not fully represented or

protected by Respondent Chicago State University, and his interests will be affected if he is not permitted to join or intervene,” the Nigerian leader argued in his motion to join the suit filed on August 3 and submitted by his Chicago attorney Christopher Carmichael.

“Chicago State University stated that its obligation is satisfied by providing notice of the application and attempt to access the records. Chicago State’s position is that it does not have an obligation to oppose the application and, therefore, CSU does not adequately represent Tinubu’s interests,” the filing said. 

Consequently, Tinubu argued that the records should not be released because they fell under a 1974 privacy law for American students. 

Abubakar’s lawsuit “indirectly seeks relief against Tinubu by seeking his records that the federal and state governments have determined should be confidential. See 20 U.S.C. § 1232(g) (describing the purpose of the Federal Educational Records and Privacy Act of 1974 as to protect students from a school’s unauthorized release of a student’s records); 105 ILCS 10/6(a) (prohibiting the release, transfer, disclosure and dissemination of school student records),” the attorneys argued. 

A federal judge had been assigned to the case, and both parties anticipated its expedited hearing and disposal, especially after Abubakar argued that the Nigerian election petitions tribunal would deliver a verdict around September 21, 2023. 

Abubakar previously filed a suit before a county court in Chicago, Illinois, but withdrew it in order to file a more comprehensive case at the federal court, which prompted the county judge to dismiss the earlier case from the docket and cleared the path for Abubakar’s federal complaint. Even though the county court handed off the case without prejudice, some Nigerian media outlets erroneously reported that Abubakar’s substantive case was dismissed.

But the Nigerian opposition leader’s filing showed he withdrew the case voluntarily to avoid any perception he was abusing the court process.

Abubakar, of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), welcomed Tinubu’s motion to join the suit. His team of lawyers said their client did not oppose Tinubu’s intention to join the suit, saying he was, in fact, previously told he should feel free to join.

PG

The naira, on Monday, closed at N774.78 per US dollar at the investors and exporters (I&E) window.

The figure signifies a depreciation of N31.71 or 4.27 percent compared to the N743.07 it traded on Friday, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange, a platform that oversees foreign exchange (FX) trading in Nigeria.

The I&E FX window is the market trading segment for investors, exporters and end-users that allows for FX trades to be made at exchange rates determined based on prevailing market circumstances. It is the country’s official FX market.

Since the government unified the exchange rate windows, the naira has consistently experienced fluctuations at the official window.

At the parallel market where the dollar is traded unofficially, Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators who spoke to TheCable in the Victoria Island area of Lagos said there was high demand for foreign currency.

The traders put the buying price of the dollar at N890 and the selling price at N897, leaving a profit margin of N7.

“Dollar keeps going up. Only God knows why,” trader simply identified as Musa said.

With the depreciation, the gap between the official and parallel market exchange rates is widening once again.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the professional services firm, recently projected higher inflation and continued volatility in the FX market in August.

The firm warned that petrol subsidy removal and the adoption of a managed float exchange rate system is expected to mount additional pressure on inflation.

The Cable

Nigeria tops the list of countries with the highest rate of unemployment, according to the latest statistics released by the World of Statistics.

Nigeria led with 33.3 per cent, followed by another African country, South Africa 32.9 per cent, and Iran 15.55 per cent.

The lowest rate of unemployment, according to the report, were in countries like Qatar: 0.1 per cent, Cambodia: 0.36 per cent, and Niger 0.5 per cent.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 33.30 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020 from 27.10 per cent in the second quarter of 2020.

Meanwhile, in a more recent report, a multinational consulting firm, KPMG, stated that the Nigerian unemployment rate had increased to 37.7per cent in 2022, and would further rise to 40.6per cent, due to the continuing inflow of job seekers into the job market.

The multinational consulting firm said unemployment would continue to be a challenge due to the slower-than-required economic growth, and the inability of the economy to absorb the 4-5 million new entrants into the Nigerian job market every year.

Centre for Social Justice recently, urged the National Bureau of Statistics to compile, and release the current unemployment data for the country.

CSJ, an advocate for fiscal transparency, accountability, and evidence-driven policy making and implementation, stated that the last time Nigeria’s unemployment data was released by the NBS was in the fourth quarter of 2020.

It added that since then, updated information had been absent, an act it consider as negligence of duty.

NBS earlier said it would release new unemployment and employment figures for the country by May 2023.

Punch