Africa Intelligence Brief — Saturday, September 26, 2026

Africa Intelligence Brief — Saturday, 26 September 2026

Africa’s temper this Saturday is candour about its own quarrels rather than complaint about anyone else’s. Three governments spent the week explaining themselves to their own citizens, and one of them did it from a television studio in New York.

The register is confession rather than defiance. Senegal’s president described the breakdown with his prime minister in the flat language of a man closing a file, and ministers in Kinshasa kept saying the worst of their epidemic was behind them.

Dakar is the sharpest case, because the quarrel is inside the winning side. Bassirou Diomaye Faye told two French broadcasters that he and Ousmane Sonko, the man who made him president, had “des divergences persistantes sur certains sujets”, or persistent disagreements on certain subjects.

Kinshasa’s mood is stubborn reassurance. Its government has called the country’s Ebola epidemic under control since 10 September, while the World Health Organization’s report of 25 September counted 7,890 confirmed cases and 3,799 deaths.

Nigeria’s week ended with a forecast about its own weather. A research group at the University of Chicago placed the country at the top of a world list for deaths from heat in the months to February.

What steadies the week is procedural and dull, which is usually the good news. Ugandan police arrested a suspect within a day of a national musician’s death, and Tanzania’s transport regulator published four years of its own ticket figures instead of a slogan.

Dakar Says Out Loud What It Used To Whisper

Senegal spent the week listening to its president explain a quarrel it had only been able to guess at. Bassirou Diomaye Faye sat for a joint interview with Radio France Internationale and France 24 in New York on 24 September, on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.

The subject was the man who made him. Mr Faye and Ousmane Sonko ran together in 2024, and Mr Faye dismissed him as prime minister on 23 May after a debt crisis and stalled talks with the International Monetary Fund.

His account of the break was unusually plain. He said the two had “des divergences persistantes sur certains sujets”, or persistent disagreements on certain subjects, the Dakar news site Seneweb reported.

He described the moment he acted in the language of appointment rather than of injury. Mr Faye said that when the breakdown of trust persisted, “je me suis choisi un autre premier ministre” — I chose myself another prime minister.

He rejected the charge of betrayal in religious terms. Mr Faye said the only thing he was capable of betraying was the oath he swore before the Senegalese people and before God, and that nothing beyond it bound him.

His verdict on the months since was a short one. Mr Faye said that “le Sénégal avance et la République est à l’heure”, Senegal is moving forward and the Republic is on time, the Dakar site Xibaaru reported.

The new prime minister is a technician rather than a tribune. Ahmadou Al Aminou Lô, appointed on 25 May, is a former central banker, and Pastef, the party Mr Sonko leads, refused to take posts in his government in June.

That refusal matters because of where Mr Sonko now sits. He was made speaker of the National Assembly three days after losing the premiership, so the government’s bills now go to a chamber chaired by its own former head.

The immediate test is a budget. A corrective finance bill has reached the National Assembly and is still waiting to be examined, Seneweb reported.

Mr Faye said he expects the deputies to pass it. He told the two broadcasters that they “ne sauraient avoir un autre comportement patriotique” — could not behave patriotically in any other way — given the country’s difficulties.

He also declined to rule out the harder instrument. Asked whether he would dissolve the Assembly, Mr Faye replied “Pourquoi exclure une prérogative dont on est investi par la Constitution ?”, or why exclude a power the Constitution confers.

He attached a condition rather than a date. Mr Faye said “Tout est question de nécessité ou de contexte”, everything is a question of necessity or of context, the Cotonou site Bénin Web TV reported.

Mr Sonko’s own position was set out after the prime minister’s general-policy declaration of 8 September. He said the state “n’a pas besoin d’institutions alignées mais d’institutions debout”, or needs institutions that stand up rather than ones that fall into line, the Dakar site Senego reported.

He had earlier promised that the split would not become a rupture. In a joint interview with the same two French broadcasters on 15 June, Mr Sonko said “il n’y aura pas de déchirure” with Mr Faye, there will be no tearing apart.

He has said nothing publicly about this week’s interview. Neither Mr Sonko nor Pastef had issued any answer to it by 12.45 UTC on Saturday.

The money underneath the quarrel is an agreement that is not yet approved. The International Monetary Fund said on 1 September that its staff had reached an agreement with Dakar on a 36-month Extended Credit Facility worth US$2.2 billion, or 1,537.1 million special drawing rights.

It is a promise with conditions attached rather than money in the account. The Fund said the arrangement needs “decisive corrective actions” over a case of misreported public finances, and financing assurances from Senegal’s partners, before its Executive Board can approve it.

Senegal has also said it will ask for relief on its debts. Mr Faye said he wanted the discussions with partners and creditors to move quickly, so as to restore the country’s financial room to manoeuvre, allAfrica.fr, a pan-African news service, reported.

The figures underneath are better than the politics. The Fund put Senegal’s growth at 6.7 per cent in 2025, its first full year of oil production, with inflation at 1.4 per cent.

The non-oil economy is the weaker half. Growth outside hydrocarbons slowed to 2.2 per cent in 2025 before recovering to 4.7 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2026, the Fund said.

The Senegalese press read the interview as a settling of accounts. EnQuête, a Dakar daily, led on “Diomaye sort du silence”, Diomaye comes out of silence, while Walf Quotidien, usually hostile to the government, had “Diomaye solde ses comptes”, Diomaye settles his accounts.

One front page pointed somewhere nobody expected. Le Quotidien, a Dakar daily, led on the president’s “soutien sans faille”, unfailing support, for the United Nations candidacy of the predecessor whose party he beat.

That predecessor is Macky Sall, who governed from 2012 to 2024. Mr Faye said “Je pense que la candidature de Macky Sall conserve toutes ses chances de succès”, he believes the candidacy keeps every chance of success, the Dakar site Senego reported on 24 September.

The endorsement is older than the interview. Senegal’s foreign ministry said in July that Mr Faye had told his government to “fully mobilize” behind the candidacy, CNBC Africa reported, and the African Union had named him its candidate on 2 March.

Kinshasa Insists The Curve Is Already Falling

The Democratic Republic of the Congo spent the week telling the world it has the better of an epidemic whose numbers keep growing. Its government has described the outbreak as under control since 10 September, and the World Health Organization’s latest account of it is dated 25 September.

The disease is not the strain the country knows best. It is Bundibugyo virus, one of the Ebola viruses, for which no vaccine and no specific treatment are approved, the health agency said.

The count is the part that has not slowed. As of 23 September there were 7,890 confirmed cases and 3,799 deaths, a case fatality ratio of 48.1 per cent, with 1,966 people recovered.

The preceding fortnight added a great deal to both totals. The same agency’s previous report, on 11 September, carried 1,133 fewer confirmed cases and 532 fewer deaths.

The map is widening rather than narrowing. Sixty-three health zones in seven of the country’s twenty-six provinces are affected, with Ituri accounting for 6,032 cases and North Kivu for 1,480 at the highest fatality ratio, 59.7 per cent.

The health agency names the two most recently affected zones as Bulu in the north-west and Dungu in Haut-Uélé. Dungu lies on the border with South Sudan, which turns the spread into a regional question.

The government’s case is that the peak has been passed. Patrick Muyaya, the communications minister, said on 10 September that “L’épidémie est sous contrôle”, the epidemic is under control.

A scientist on the response said the same thing with a curve. Placide Mbala, a virologist at the University of Kinshasa, said the country had passed the peak and that “la courbe est dans sa phase descendante”, the curve is in its descending phase.

The head of the health agency put the difficulty on the war rather than the virus. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the response “is affected by the conflict, because there is displacement and there is an access problem to some areas”.

Africa’s own public health body was blunter about the arithmetic of tracing. Jean Kaseya, director-general of Africa CDC, the African Union’s health agency, said “When the outbreak is at community level, we cannot talk about control”.

His figures explain the worry. He said “we have just 30,000 people in the contact list”, against about 474,000 expected at some sixty contacts for each of nearly 7,900 cases, Reuters reported.

A doctor in Butembo explained why people stay at home. Michel Paluku Mukuloli said patients think that if they reach hospital “they will be immediately sent to the treatment centre to die”.

What steadies this is that the response now has a costed plan. The government and its partners launched a revised 180-day plan on 4 September priced at US$1.3 billion, the Kinshasa site 7sur7.cd reported.

The scale is a matter of record rather than of rhetoric. This is the largest Ebola epidemic recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whatever the species, and only the second caused by the Bundibugyo virus after 2012, the health agency said.

Then came a second kind of loss, in an unrelated place. An aircraft carrying two generals and their delegation from Kikwit towards Kinshasa came down at Kenge, the capital of Kwango province, early in the afternoon on Friday.

The toll rose through the evening. Rémy Saki, Kwango’s deputy governor, said that “Contrary to the initial toll of 13 deaths, we discovered 16 bodies of adults and the body of a baby, bringing the total to 17”.

Two of the dead were the army’s senior legal officers. Major-General Efomi Ekenge said that besides the two general officers, “twelve members of the delegation and the crew members also lost their lives in this accident”, the Associated Press reported.

One of the two headed the military court and the other audited the armed forces. Lieutenant-General Mutombo led the High Military Court and Lieutenant-General Likulia was the auditor general of the armed forces, the agency reported.

There was nowhere to put the aircraft down. Mr Saki said that “With no landing strip available in Kenge, the plane crashed into a residential plot”.

The cause has not been established. One early Congolese account reported that the aircraft had suffered a fault before it came down, while the armed forces’ general staff gave no cause in announcing an inquiry, 7sur7.cd reported.

Nigeria Is Handed A Forecast And A Promise

Nigeria ended the week reading a projection about its own heat and a pledge about its own bus fares. The two arrived within days of each other and point in opposite directions.

The projection is not a count of anything that has happened. The Climate Impact Lab, a research group led from the University of Chicago, published an estimate on 23 September of deaths from heat during the present El Niño.

El Niño is a warming of the tropical Pacific that shifts weather worldwide. This one is described as possibly the strongest on record, with sea temperatures running 2.7 °C above average last month.

The global figure is the one that travelled. The lab projects 451,000 additional deaths from heat over a nine-month window ending in February 2027.

Nigeria sits at the top of the country list. The lab puts 31,400 of those deaths in Nigeria before the end of February 2027, ahead of Indonesia’s 19,300, with Nigeria, Sudan, Niger and Chad together accounting for 66,800 across the Sahel.

The reason given is poverty and power rather than temperature alone. Nigeria has about 237.5 million people, more than 60 per cent of whom lived below the national poverty line in 2025, and cooling a room needs electricity that many households do not reliably have.

One of the authors addressed the arithmetic of being numbed. Michael Greenstone, an economist at the University of Chicago, said the estimate “is such a large number that it can be numbing, but it is made up of parents and children, grandparents and neighbours”.

Not every scientist accepts the country-by-country split. Akshay Deoras of the University of Reading called the report’s figures “subjective” and said he was sceptical about its regional distribution, Al Jazeera reported.

A critic from the opposite direction says the number is too small. Tom Burke of E3G, a climate policy institute, argued that it counts only deaths from heat and leaves out fires, floods and the price of food, the same outlet reported.

Nigeria’s own forecasters have been issuing heat notices for months. The Nigerian Meteorological Agency, the federal weather service, warned in May that rising temperatures “may pose health risks, particularly in some northern states”, with 40 to 45 °C expected in the north.

The federal health ministry had published no statement on the projection by 12.45 UTC on Saturday. A comment piece in The Punch, a Lagos daily, argued on 24 September that extreme heat should be treated as a public health emergency.

The pledge is about transport, and it has a date on it. President Bola Tinubu said on 19 September that cheaper fares were already arriving, and that state governors had agreed on 27 August to deliver measurable cuts by 1 October.

He put it as a fact rather than a forecast. Mr Tinubu wrote that Nigerians “are already experiencing these savings”, Legit.ng, a Nigerian news site, reported.

Fares in Borno fall from between N300 and N600 (about US$0.23 to US$0.45) to between N50 and N100 (about US$0.04 to US$0.08), the presidency’s own list says. In Oyo the Lagos to Ibadan fare falls from N8,000 (about US$6) to N3,200 (about US$2.40).

Daily Trust, an Abuja daily, reported on 26 September that the plan rests on converting vehicles to run on compressed natural gas. In Lagos the conversion now costs between N250,000 (about US$189) and N1.5 million (about US$1,130), depending on the vehicle and the size of its gas tank.

The same paper counted the places where it cannot yet work. Taraba, Benue and Plateau states have no gas filling station at all, while Lagos has more than fifteen and Edo six.

The trade’s own voices are sceptical about the date. A transport engineer, Baffah Saleh Yusuf, said “There are so many things to be done before the transition to CNG or even electric option will succeed”.

A driver in Abuja had already given up on the equipment. Kehinde Gboyega said “The CNG was becoming a burden for me”, and that he removed and sold it after queueing for hours for the fuel.

The presidency answers with the places where fares have already moved. It cited Kaduna’s hundred free gas buses and the Enugu to Nsukka route, where the fare fell from N2,500 (about US$1.90) to N1,500 (about US$1.13).

Africa Asks Again For The Chair It Has Never Had

The continent’s leaders spent the week in New York making an old request in sharper language. They want permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, the fifteen-member body that can impose sanctions and authorise the use of force.

Ten of its members are elected for two years and five are permanent, each with a veto. Those five are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and none of them is African.

The imbalance is easiest to see in the Council’s own workload. Of the 24 resolutions adopted in 2025 under the Charter chapter that authorises sanctions or force, 18 concerned Africa, Al Jazeera reported.

Kenya’s president made it a question of equality. William Ruto said that “Every nation is sovereign and equal under the (U.N.) charter”, yet on war and peace five nations hold a permanent power the other 188 do not, the Associated Press reported.

He also gave the arithmetic of membership. Mr Ruto said Africa has “54 member states, more than a quarter of this assembly, yet no permanent voice” in the body charged with peace and security, africanews reported.

Ethiopia’s president made it a moral question. Taye Atske Selassie asked “How can a world led with a right conscience justify the denial of 1.6 billion Africans, the right to equal representation?”, the agency reported.

Namibia’s president said the talking had gone on long enough. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said “The time has come for us to recognize that we have been negotiating for too long”.

Ghana’s president denied that any favour was being requested. John Mahama called Security Council reform “not a favour to Africa” but “an imperative for the legitimacy, credibility and survival of the United Nations”.

Nigeria named a figure. Vice-President Kashim Shettima, delivering President Bola Tinubu’s national statement, called for at least two permanent African seats with veto powers for as long as the veto exists, and five non-permanent ones, Al Jazeera reported.

The outgoing secretary-general is on their side. António Guterres said in his address to the General Assembly that a “21st century Security Council without permanent African representation is unjust and indefensible”, africanews reported.

Agreement is not the obstacle. Amending the Charter needs two-thirds of the General Assembly and ratification by all five permanent members, which gives each of them a veto over its own dilution.

The African Union’s own position adds a second difficulty. Its Ezulwini Consensus of 2005 asks that new African permanent members hold the same veto, which is the part the present holders are least willing to share.

The permanent members are not resisting in the same way. The United States supports new African seats without veto rights, while France and the United Kingdom favour enlargement and press to restrict the veto’s use, Atalayar, a Madrid review of international affairs, reported.

Moscow and Beijing answer differently. The same review said the two align with the Global South in their language while showing little appetite for altering the privileges of the present five.

There is also a question Africa has not answered. The Union has not designated which states would take the seats, and Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa are all candidates.

A veteran Nigerian diplomat doubts the willingness on the other side. Ibrahim Gambari said “The status quo is not really interested in change”, the same outlet reported.

Not every African commentator wants the campaign continued in this form, and one made that case on 25 September. Kefa Senoga wrote in the Nile Post, a Kampala news site, that “almost half of all the wars and crises the UN Security Council discusses are about Africa”.

His conclusion is about power rather than protocol. He argued that the continent would gain more from regional trade, integration and infrastructure than from concentrating on New York.

The same month produced a measurement of African weight at the United Nations. The Security Council held its third informal ballot on the next secretary-general on 18 September, and the two African candidates finished behind the contenders from Costa Rica, Guyana and Argentina.

The numbers are not encouraging for either of them. Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica had nine members encouraging her and five discouraging, while Macky Sall of Senegal had five encouraging and nine discouraging, PassBlue, a news site covering the United Nations, reported.

Uganda’s candidate did little better. Olara Otunnu had five members encouraging him and seven discouraging, the same site reported, and no candidate has emerged as a clear choice.

The timetable now runs into October. A fourth ballot could follow the close of the Assembly’s high-level week on 28 September, and Greece takes the Council’s presidency in October, when a recommendation to the General Assembly could be announced.

Eastern Chad Counts Four Hundred A Day

Chad spent the week absorbing a sudden increase in the number of people walking across its eastern border. More than 400 Sudanese a day arrived over the past week, about twenty times the rate of recent months, the United Nations refugee agency said on 25 September.

The arrivals are the fourth year of a war next door. Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have fought since April 2023, and the new arrivals come from Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile.

The cumulative numbers are heavy for a poor host. More than 55,000 Sudanese have crossed into Chad this year and close to a million have arrived since the war began, Reuters reported.

The transit points are past their capacity. More than 4,300 people were at the Tine transit centre and about 31,000 families lacked adequate shelter, Al Jazeera reported.

Water is the shortage the agency names first. Refugees are receiving less than half the minimum daily requirement, alongside gaps in sanitation and protection, the same outlet reported.

The agency’s regional coordinator described the gap in domestic terms. Mamadou Dian Balde said it “means less food” and “less capacity for people to be relocated to safer areas”.

The appeal is a long way from funded. The agency has received about US$288 million of the US$1.6 billion it asked for this year, which is less than a fifth, Reuters reported.

The cause is a change in donor policy rather than a change in need. Aid groups face the shortfall after the United States administration and other donor countries cut billions in foreign assistance over the past year, Reuters reported.

The refugee agency also made an argument aimed at Europe. It said that without more money more Sudanese would attempt the journey there, noting 14,100 arrivals last year, a rise of 245 per cent on 2024.

Dar es Salaam Keeps Its Hand In Its Pocket

Tanzania measured its own habits this week and found them stubborn. Four years into a push to move bus fares onto electronic channels, almost all of them are still paid in notes and coins.

The body behind the push is a licensing authority rather than a bank. The Land Transport Regulatory Authority licenses and supervises buses, ferries and ride-hailing services, and its director-general briefed reporters in Dar es Salaam on 24 September.

The passenger figures are the clearest part of it. Habibu Suluo said that “Only 2.91 million passengers, or 4.7 per cent, used digital payment channels” out of 62.18 million recorded through online ticketing over four years.

The money followed the passengers. Electronic payments accounted for about 6.8 per cent of fares taken over the same period, Tanzania Daily News reported.

The authority is not short of equipment. Fourteen operators had connected to its digital ticketing platform by June 2026, and its online ticketing service, which includes the Safari Tiketi application, has run since 2022, The Respondent, a Tanzanian news site, reported.

Mr Suluo framed the gap as a software problem rather than a hardware one. He asked “Hardware is ready, but what about software?” at the briefing on 24 September, the same site reported.

The fleet itself has grown quickly over the same four years. Commercial vehicle licences rose from 239,953 to 590,468, a rise of 146.1 per cent, and buses on the authority’s tracking system went from 5,979 to 14,743.

The rules behind it have teeth on paper. The requirements rest on the Electronic Transactions Act and cover rapid transit, long-distance buses, ferries and ride-hailing.

The regulator’s own reading is that resistance is fading. Mr Suluo said operators and the government were gradually recognising the transparency that electronic payment brings, Tanzania Daily News reported.

Kampala Loses A Saxophone At Half Past Five

Uganda lost one of its best-known musicians this week in a domestic quarrel rather than on a stage. Moses Matovu, 77, a founder and the saxophonist of Afrigo Band, died on 24 September after a fight outside a house in the capital.

Afrigo Band is close to a national institution. It has performed for decades and its songs are a fixture at Ugandan weddings and on Ugandan radio.

The police account is precise about the hour. Rachael Kawala, who speaks for the Kampala Metropolitan Police, said the musician had gone at about 5.30 a.m. local time to the home of a woman police identified only as Rose, in Kibuli.

What happened next was a confrontation at the gate. Ms Kawala said that as the two were leaving the residence “they were confronted by a male suspect”, and a physical fight followed.

The fatal injury was to the head. Mr Matovu was taken by motorcycle taxi to Kibuli Hospital, where he died, the Daily Monitor, a Kampala daily, reported.

The force was careful at first about who the man was. Ms Kawala said “Preliminary findings indicate that the suspect works with a private security company; however, we are yet to establish and verify”.

She was careful too about what is known. Ms Kawala said “The exact circumstances surrounding the confrontation, however, are yet to be fully established”.

An arrest followed the same day. Vincent Nsamba, a 41-year-old private security guard, was detained on Thursday evening at Nansana Division, in Wakiso district beside the capital, PML Daily, a Kampala news site, and the Daily Monitor reported.

A second person is held as a witness rather than as the accused. Ms Kawala said one female suspect who had been in the company of the deceased remained in custody and was assisting the investigation.

The force is treating it as a killing over a relationship. The Daily Monitor reported that police were investigating it as a crime of passion, and Ms Kawala said investigations were continuing into the full circumstances of the death.

Asaba Stops Work Over One Man’s Death

A Nigerian state government spent the weekend without its own workforce. Organised labour declared an indefinite strike in Delta State, in the oil-producing south, after a senior civil servant died following an altercation at a commissioner’s office.

The dead man was a deputy director. Unity Ekpevbughe Adeda, 54, was allegedly beaten and tied up at the office of the commissioner for secondary education and died later in hospital, Vanguard, a Lagos daily, reported on 26 September.

The union’s language was contractual rather than furious. Goodluck Ofobruku, state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress, said “We’re declaring dispute with the Delta State Government”, and that services were withdrawn with immediate effect.

The commissioner denies ordering anything. Kingsley Ashibogwu said “I never ordered any person to touch him, I never touched him”, and said Mr Adeda had attacked him and others in the room.

The family’s account is the opposite of his. Mr Adeda’s sister, Ovwigho, said she had seen him “tied up like a criminal”, Blueprint, an Abuja daily, reported.

One arrest has been made, and an inquiry has been set up. The police have detained a man named Lucky Adoh, and an administrative panel chaired by a permanent secretary, Charity Ehimen, has two weeks to report, the same paper reported.

The state’s answer was an assurance rather than a suspension. It told workers their safety at work was guaranteed and restated its commitment to the dignity and sanctity of life, the paper reported.

Addis Ababa Is Asked To Step Back From The North

Ethiopia’s north is the region’s most dangerous file and it moved again this week. The United Nations said on 25 September that it was watching a continued deterioration across the Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions.

The organisation’s objection was about the weapons as much as the fighting. Stéphane Dujarric, the secretary-general’s spokesman, said it was “particularly troubled by reports of the use of drones as well as incidents of harm to civilians”.

The appeal was addressed to both sides. He urged the parties to “exercise maximum restraint and address their differences through dialogue”, UN News reported.

The incidents cited are specific and recent. Airstrikes hit five schools in Tigray on 22 September, a mortar strike killed civilians at Kobo in Amhara on 24 September, and a drone struck a truck carrying food aid in north-western Tigray.

The human rights office went further than concern. Volker Türk, the United Nations human rights chief, said he was deeply alarmed at the escalation and called on all parties to prevent a return to full-scale conflict.

The insurgent side has a new shape. Seven armed groups formed an alliance against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government on 21 September, and Tigrayan forces have taken three local airports.

The government says its counter-attack is working. The Ethiopian National Defence Force said its counter-offensive had inflicted heavy losses of personnel and equipment on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Al Jazeera reported.

The Tigrayan side calls the same fighting a response. Tigrayan authorities said their forces had been pushed into a “defensive war” after drone strikes on Tigray, Shafaq News, a Baghdad news agency, reported.

Washington put the blame for starting it on the Tigrayan leadership. Ervin Massinga, the American ambassador in Addis Ababa, said on 23 September that “Rejecting dialogue sponsored by the AU under President Obasanjo and engaging in an unwinnable fight does nothing for the people”.

He also held out the possibility of more sanctions. The ambassador said the United States has tools to sanction additional leaders, while adding that he still believes a reasonable political dialogue is the right way to go.

What is least steady here is the information. Internet outages have continued across Tigray, and aid convoys have been stopped by road closures and by armed groups seizing vehicles.

What This Means From Latin America

Latin America has a direct stake in one of this week’s African arguments, because it is competing for the same job. The two African candidates to succeed the United Nations secretary-general are trailing three contenders from the Americas.

The informal ballot of 18 September made that plain. Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica led with nine members encouraging her, ahead of Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett of Guyana and Rafael Grossi of Argentina, PassBlue reported.

Brazil has a hand in the wider field. Michelle Bachelet of Chile was nominated by Brazil, Mexico and Chile, and she drew one encouragement against eleven discouragements in the same ballot.

The heat projection also has a Brazilian line in it. The same research group puts 13,300 additional deaths from heat in Brazil over the next six months, against 31,400 in Nigeria.

The comparison is set out at greater length elsewhere. The dossier carries the leader, the country health check and the outcome table with its Latin America column — open the Africa Intelligence Dossier.

There is a monetary contrast worth holding beside it. Brazil cut its Selic rate (the benchmark its central bank sets) by a quarter point on 16 September, while South Africa raised its own by the same amount on 23 September.

A last parallel is about paying for a bus. São Paulo moved its own fares onto a card years ago, and Dar es Salaam has just published the figures that show how slowly that change travels.

What We Are Watching

• Sunday 27 September: Cairo reopens — The Egyptian exchange trades from Sunday to Thursday and did not open on Friday or Saturday. Thursday 24 September’s close of 53,776.70 on the EGX 30, down 0.83 per cent on Wednesday, is still the current Egyptian level.
• Monday 28 September: the high-level week closes — The General Assembly’s high-level week ends on this date, and a fourth informal ballot on the next secretary-general could follow it, PassBlue reported. The African candidates trailed in the third.
• Thursday 1 October: Nigeria’s fare deadline — This is the date by which state governors agreed on 27 August to deliver measurable cuts in transport fares. Three states still have no compressed natural gas filling station, Daily Trust reported.
• During October: Greece takes the Council chair — Greece assumes the presidency of the Security Council and could announce a recommendation to the General Assembly on the next secretary-general. António Guterres leaves office on 31 December 2026.
• About Saturday 10 October: Delta’s panel reports — The administrative panel set up over the death of a deputy director in Delta State was given two weeks to report. Organised labour has withdrawn its services until then.
• Undated: the Fund’s board takes up Senegal — The staff-level agreement of 1 September on a US$2.2 billion facility still needs approval by the International Monetary Fund’s Executive Board. Corrective action on a misreporting case comes first.
• Undated: Senegal’s corrective budget — A corrective finance bill has reached the National Assembly and has not yet been examined. The chamber is chaired by Ousmane Sonko, the prime minister the president dismissed in May.
• Undated: the Kenge accident inquiry — The general staff of the Congolese armed forces announced an investigation into the aircraft that came down at Kenge on Friday. It gave no cause, and none has been established.
• 24 to 26 November: Tanzania’s transport week — The authority holds its second Sustainable Land Transport Week at Mlimani City in Dar es Salaam on these dates, The Respondent reported. Its own figures show fewer than five passengers in every hundred paying electronically.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Senegal’s president break with his own prime minister?

Bassirou Diomaye Faye dismissed Ousmane Sonko on 23 May, during a debt crisis and stalled talks with the International Monetary Fund, and said this week that the two had persistent disagreements. Mr Sonko was elected speaker of the National Assembly three days later, so the government’s bills now go to a chamber he chairs.

Why is Congo’s Ebola outbreak harder to stop than earlier ones?

It is caused by Bundibugyo virus, for which no vaccine and no specific treatment are approved, unlike the Zaire strain behind previous Congolese outbreaks. The World Health Organization counted 7,890 confirmed cases and 3,799 deaths to 23 September, and its director-general said the response is affected by conflict, displacement and problems of access.

What would a permanent African seat on the Security Council change?

Africa has 54 of the 193 member states and 18 of the 24 resolutions authorising sanctions or force in 2025 concerned the continent, yet it holds none of the five permanent seats. Amending the Charter requires two-thirds of the General Assembly and ratification by all five current permanent members, and the African Union has not said which African states would take the seats.

Is the figure of 31,400 heat deaths in Nigeria a count or an estimate?

It is a projection published on 23 September by the Climate Impact Lab, a research group led from the University of Chicago, covering September 2026 to February 2027. A researcher at the University of Reading has called the figures subjective, while a critic at the E3G institute argues the total is too low because it omits fires, floods and food prices.

The Big Picture

Africa: The New Scramble — why the world’s powers are competing for the continent

Read More from The Rio Times

• Shakira Giza Pyramids: One Concert in Egypt on 28 November, Entry from EGP 7,055
• Fatboy Slim Nairobi: Kenya Show Moves to MUZE Open Air at Wilson Airport, 11 December
• Detty December Fest Lagos Runs 18 to 30 December in Nigeria, Opening Night from ₦50,000