Page 38 - bne Magazine August 2022

38 I Cover story bne August 2022
The chair of the African Union, Senegal’s president Macky Sall, travelled to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin last month. “President Putin expressed to us his readiness to facilitate Ukrainian wheat exports,” he wrote on Twitter after the meeting.
Russia supplied about 32% of Africa's wheat worth $3.7bn between 2018 and 2020, according to the United Nations, with Ukraine accounting for another 12% worth $1.4bn. However, even if deliveries of grain resume, after prices rose 45% this year due
to the war disruptions, Africa is also asking for price relief, as expensive food is almost as big a problem as no food. The biggest importers are Egypt ($3.23bn) and Nigeria ($556mn).
Western visitors
Lavrov’s visit to Africa has been mirrored by trips by other political luminaries,
as the race to secure relations in
the new geopolitical set-up is on.
French President Emmanuel Macron also toured francophone Africa in the same week as Lavrov, trying to shore up relations as some of the countries there are actively embracing Moscow – partly as a rejection of their former colonial master. The military junta in Mali recently expelled the French military and replaced it with Russian private military company Wagner in its struggle against jihadist terrorists. Macron also visited the West African countries of Benin, Cameroon and Guinea-Bissau.
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In May, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to Senegal, Niger and South Africa to do arms and energy deals. Germany is the fourth-biggest exporter of arms to Africa, and Berlin is keen to source gas from Africa via
a proposed pipeline from Nigeria to Europe via Niger and Algeria. Scholz also invited the South African president
Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea-Bissau. Turkey already does half a billion dollars of trade with Senegal, and Erdogan said he hopes to increase that to $1bn.
US President Joe Biden has also been trying to shore up US relations in
the non-aligned world with his first
“Lavrov’s visit to Africa has been mirrored by trips by other political luminaries, as the race to secure relations in the new geopolitical set-up is on”
to attend the G7 summit in a show
of solidarity among “democratic countries” against Russia’s aggression. The Indonesian president was also invited to attend for the first time.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also been making inroads into Africa as part of his ambitions
to make Turkey a regional leader.
He was on a four-day diplomatic tour of the West African states of Angola, Nigeria and Togo in October, partly to sell Turkey’s increasingly famous Bayraktar TB2 military drones. He followed up with another four-day tour in February to Central and West Africa that included Senegal, the
visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in July to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (MbS). The US has been putting pressure on the prince to increase oil production to bring oil prices down, but the trip ended in failure after MbS refused. Relations between the KSA and Moscow have become noticeably warmer in recent years; they have been working more closely together after Russia joined the OPEC+ extended cartel to control oil prices.
The US is also pushing back in Africa and planning a summit of African leaders in Washington in December, the first of its kind since former president Barack Obama convened one in 2014.”