In Case You Missed It: 3/7/16 – 3/13/16

A view of Abid­jan, cap­i­tal of Ivory Coast

The most impor­tant in this week’s head­lines out of and con­cern­ing Africa, for those who need help catch­ing up.

In this week’s news, Ivory Coast is rat­ed a top spot for prospec­tive investors into the African con­ti­nent, and two eco­nom­ic giants try to bridge their difference.

Nige­ria And South Africa Mend Diplo­mat­ic Fences

There is plen­ty of spec­u­la­tion as to why Jacob Zuma, South African Pres­i­dent, vis­it­ed Nige­ria in the last week.

After years of ten­sion between the two eco­nom­ic giants, it is believed that they skates were high when Muham­madu Buhari, Nigeria’s Pres­i­dent, wel­comed Zuma to Abu­ja. While the spec­u­la­tion goes on, rela­tions between the two coun­tries are par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant in the con­text of the lead­er­ship role they play on the con­ti­nen­tal and glob­al level.

Which oth­er African coun­tries could lead the African con­ti­nent on such a scale if the two coun­tries fail to lead, is the ques­tion we should be ask­ing?  Nige­ria-South Africa Rela­tions: Beyond the Rhetoric

Recent­ly Zuma suf­fered embar­rass­ment and humil­i­a­tion at home when MP’s walked out dur­ing his State of the nation address. He has also faced plen­ty of mis­giv­ings about his leadership.

This did not stop Zuma from mak­ing the trip to Nige­ria. Ana­lysts believe the vis­it was a way for him to take a brief respite from the trou­bles he faces at home.

Both Nige­ria and South Africa have been pulling hairs over what is being called a “Nige­ria-MTN face-off.” MTN is a lead­ing South Africa telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny with a huge spe­cial­iza­tion in tele­phone ser­vices through­out Nigeria.

At issue is the fact that MTN, while mak­ing huge sums of mon­ey from its ser­vices in Nige­ria, has failed to cut-off or dis­con­nect the SIM cards, con­nect­ed to sus­pect­ed phone lines, at the request of the Niger­ian government.

The tar­get­ed SIM cards are con­sid­ered “unreg­is­tered” by the Niger­ian admin­is­tra­tion and may belong to mem­bers of ter­ror­ist net­works oper­at­ing with­in Nigeria.

While MTN has been fined $3.9 bil­lion for miss­ing a dead­line to dis­con­nect the phone lines, Buhari has charged MTN for being “slow” in mak­ing the disconnections.

When Buhari became pres­i­dent of Nige­ria in 2015, one of the pledges he made was to step up the fight against the ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, Boko Haram in his country.

It is esti­mat­ed that there are more than 120 South African com­pa­nies doing busi­ness in Nige­ria in dif­fer­ent sectors.

Ivory Coast Secures A Lead for Africa Invest­ment Prospects

After many years of civ­il con­flict in the Ivory Coast which last­ed until 2011, you would think that the sit­u­a­tion may have damp­ened the appetite for prospec­tive invest­ment into the country.

This does not seem to be the case as the coun­try has over­tak­en Nige­ria as the num­ber one coun­try in the 2016 Africa Prospects Indi­ca­tor report (Api). The report, released by Niel­son, “ranks lead­ing African coun­tries based on their macro-eco­nom­ic, busi­ness, con­sumer and retail prospects.”

While Ivory Coast moved upwards, Nige­ria, pre­vi­ous­ly occu­py­ing the num­ber one spot, slipped to fourth place. We are told Nige­ria slipped because of a decline in com­mod­i­ty prices which affect­ed con­sumer con­fi­dence in the country.

The oth­er top spots are occu­pied by Kenya, Tan­za­nia, Zam­bia and Cameroon.

A detailed report can be seen here.