Africa

1. US-Africa diplomat nears exit
2. AFRICOM head nominee
3. Kenya protests
4. Dangote’s sugar milestone
5. Chinese exports grow
6. Supermarket shopping trends
7. Weekend Reads

Fela Kuti’s seminal album Zombie is still making waves.

Hello! I’ve been in Nairobi all week where conversations with friends and sources have revealed some deep concerns with the political and economic state of the country. Tensions have calmed since last year, when frustrations with President William Ruto’s controversial finance bill descended into youth-led protests in which at least 50 people died. But it is clear from talking to people here that the resentment towards the administration never fully went away.

Ruto’s government has struggled to narrow its fiscal deficit after more than a decade of heavy borrowing for expensive infrastructure projects, such as the Chinese-built Nairobi-Mombasa railway. The administration is seeking new sources of funding after last year’s protests forced it to pursue austerity measures and drop planned tax hikes that would have raised nearly $3 billion.

Recent protests have been limited but are expected to gain traction in the coming weeks. “This country only works for a few billionaires and now the majority have come together because they are angry with the taxation, angry with bad governance, and much more,” long-time political activist Boniface Mwangi told me. “There’s a lot of agitation that Ruto must go.”

Trump’s top Africa diplomat to step down

The Trump administration’s top Africa diplomat, Troy Fitrell, has told colleagues he will leave the State Department in mid-July, three people familiar with the matter told Semafor. Fitrell, a 30-year career diplomat who has worked across the African continent, is temporarily leading the department’s Bureau of African Affairs, and has been the most public proponent of the administration’s Africa policy, briefing both the media and Congress on Washington’s priorities.

Fitrell spearheaded the department’s commercial diplomacy push with Africa, arguing that the continent should become one of Washington’s biggest trading partners. He was seen as the most experienced Africa hand in the administration after the White House’s top Africa official, Major General Jami Shawley, was removed from her position and the National Security Council’s Africa team was merged with the Middle East office.

While experts in Washington were initially optimistic that the second Trump administration would move quickly to bring in Africa expertise, tough vetting by MAGA loyalists and high turnover have left the administration with few experienced policy hands. Two of the people Semafor spoke to said Fitrell’s pending departure casts doubt on whether the administration will be able to host a planned Africa leaders summit on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.

Person of Interest: Dagvin Anderson

Air Force Lt. Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson was nominated to lead US Africa Command (AFRICOM), which oversees American military operations in 53 African nations.

He would bring direct experience of the continent to the role if confirmed by the Senate: Anderson led the US Special Operations Command’s Africa branch from 2019 to 2021. In that time, he directed critical missions including hostage-rescue operations in Nigeria and emergency troop withdrawals from Somalia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since August 2022, he’s served at the Pentagon as director of joint force development. He would fill the role at a time when Washington appears to be scaling back its security mission in Africa, telling countries to work more independently, even as Russian and Chinese military influence grows.

Kenya protests over custodial death

Thousands of people protested in cities across Kenya after a blogger critical of the government died in police custody. Authorities had previously claimed that Albert Ojwang died from self-inflicted injuries, but an autopsy showed that he was likely killed by an assault and a police officer has been arrested. Ojwang’s case has reignited long-running anger against police brutality following last year’s widespread anti-government protests. “We are on our own, and it’s becoming more dangerous,” a human rights activist told The Washington Post.

Dangote’s sugar milestone

The time Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote spent as chairman of his sugar refining company, a role from which he is now set to retire. Dangote’s exit is in line with “good corporate governance and succession planning” principles, Dangote Sugar Refinery said. Dangote, whose eponymous business empire includes a $20 billion oil refinery in Lagos, as well as cement, fertilizer, and salt companies, will be replaced on the sugar board by Arnold Onyekwere Ekpe, a former chief executive of pan-African bank group Ecobank from 2005 to 2012. The move points to a desire for continuity, with Ekpe having served as an independent non-executive director at Dangote Sugar Refinery since last year. The company saw a sharp deterioration in profitability in 2024 that was largely due to the rising cost of imported sugar.

Chinese exports to Nigeria grow

Nigeria’s trade balance in the first quarter fell by 21% year-on-year to $3.3 billion, data from the country’s statistics agency shows. A 7% rise in exports was overshadowed by a larger increase in imports, according to the National Bureau of Statistics figures. Chinese imports to Nigeria from January to March were worth $3 billion — more than one and half times larger than in the same period in 2024. The increase strengthened China’s position as the top source of imports into Nigeria, growing from 23% of import share in Q1 2024 to 30% this year. The rise comes as China seeks to strengthen trade ties with Africa by removing tariffs on exports from the continent, amid friction with the US with the likely end to the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) free trade program. That said, India and the United States retained the second and third places with increased shares of Nigeria’s total imports. Crude oil remains Nigeria’s main export, accounting for 63% of the $13 billion earned in exports in the first quarter.

— Alexander Onukwue

Supermarkets dominate

Consumers in Africa’s leading economies favor supermarkets over smaller outlets such as kiosks, but informal channels are still thriving and should not be neglected, according to a new survey. Shoppers in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa buy items such as drinks, dairy, personal hygiene products, and household goods from larger stores amid what’s been described as a “supermarket revolution” on the continent. But for fresh food staples, for example, Nigerians prefer going to open markets, while Kenyans are split between those and supermarkets. “Winning in Africa means building an omnichannel strategy: maintain visibility in supermarkets, but don’t ignore the informal market where loyalty and convenience often reign,” the report by research firm GeoPoll said.

Weekend Reads

• Transsion, the Chinese company that makes nearly half of all phones sold in Africa, has its sights set on dominating the continent’s electric vehicle market, writes Damilare Dosunmu for Rest of World. Since launching its TankVolt electric bikes in Uganda in 2023, the firm has expanded to Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania, “targeting government contracts and partnerships with private fleets.” Like it did with phones, Transsion is betting on its distribution muscle and its understanding of African consumer preferences, combined with its manufacturing scale.

• Should anyone invest in the commodity giant Glencore? That’s the question posed by a Bloomberg Opinion writer in a recent column as the company tries to create a second-hand market for the batteries metal cobalt, most of which is sourced from DR Congo. Through Cobalt Holdings Plc, it’s planning a $230 million IPO to buy and store 6,000 tons of cobalt, betting that prices will rise after they plunged to a 20-year low in February. It’s a “perilous wager,” argues the columnist.

• Resurgent jihadist violence in northeast Nigeria is part of a worrying regional trend, write two analysts for The New Humanitarian. Islamic State West Africa Province has adopted new tactics and technologies, such as drones, with growing support from the Islamic State. ISWAP’s growing prowess is part of the wider insecurity situation in West Africa, the analysts say, with increasingly “interconnected” regional jihadist groups “feeding off shared grievances, limited state presence, and associated security vacuums.”

• A new documentary reflects on a director’s return to her hometown in Burkina Faso after living in France for decades. At one level, Al Djanat by Chloé Aïcha Boro explores a family dispute over inherited land. But the film also “represents a disconnect between the past and the present of a nation,” The Guardian reports, as she charts the legal wrangle in courts still based on the French colonial system.

The CEO Signal is Semafor’s exclusive weekly briefing for global chief executives. Helmed by veteran Financial Times editor Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, it sets a new standard for how global leaders connect, learn, and navigate future challenges. Prioritizing exclusivity over scale, the briefing delivers candid insights and direct conversations with the world’s top CEOs — offering the clarity and acuity that today’s leadership demands.

Business & Macro

🇧🇫 Burkina Faso completed its nationalization of two operating gold mines and three exploration licenses previously held by private companies.

🇺🇬 Uganda projects an acceleration in economic growth to 7% in 2026, up from an estimated 6.3% for this year.

🇳🇬 Shares of Beta Glass, the Nigerian unit of Greek company Frigoglass, have risen 254% this year, outperforming the Nigerian stock market’s overall index, which has only risen 11%.

🇿🇦 South African pay-TV company MultiChoice reported a loss of $45.13 million for the year ended March 31, after earning $73 million the previous year, as subscriber numbers fall.

Climate & Energy

🇺🇬 Uganda’s sole electricity distributor Umeme recorded a pre-tax loss of $167 million in 2024.

🇨🇮 Dutch firm Climate Fund Managers and Ivorian power producer Société Des Énergies Nouvelles will jointly develop a plant in Côte d’Ivoire to convert 600,000 tons of cocoa and agricultural waste per year into 550 gigawatt-hours of electricity.

Geopolitics & Policy

🇧🇮 Burundi’s ruling CNDD-FDD party won all 100 seats in a parliamentary election with nearly 97% of the vote, according to the election organizer, but opposition parties alleged rigging and cheating in denouncing the results.

Tech & Deals

🇳🇬 Moove, the Nigeria-born startup that manages Waymo’s fleet of self-driving taxis in the US, is in talks to raise $300 million at a valuation surpassing $1 billion, according to The Information.

🇿🇦 South Africa’s Vodacom will invest $5.6 million to build 106 new base stations in the KwaZulu-Natal province.

Zombie, the seminal 1976 album by Nigerian Afrobeat creator Fela Kuti, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February without much fanfare. But an Instagram post of the award plaque by his eldest son Femi Kuti this week has reignited interest in the album’s title track, best known to younger generations for featuring in the video game series Grand Theft Auto. The song calls out the daily brutality of the armed forces on Nigerians during 1970s military rule and Fela mocked soldiers (“zombies”) for following orders without thinking. Shortly after, in February 1977, the military carried out a raid on his Lagos home in which his mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a leading advocate of women’s rights, was thrown out of an upstairs window by the attackers.

Days ahead of New York City’s mayoral primary, the only real challenger to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is 33-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, reported Semafor’s David Weigel.

As Democrats on the Hill fret over finding moderate candidates to remake the party’s damaged, elitist image, the biggest city in the country is considering a move in the opposite direction — toward the Bernie Sanders model, Weigel writes.

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— Alexis Akwagyiram, Preeti Jha, Alexander Onukwue, and Yinka Adegoke.