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What It Means to Grow Up Counting Generators Instead of Dreams
When I think about the childhoods many African children are living today, I am transported back to my own: a small house, a kerosene lantern that flickered more than it shone, and the low, constant...
Africa’s Energy Crisis Is Killing People. Here’s the Data Behind the Emergency
Some crises announce themselves loudly, while others unfold quietly, suffocating people long before the world names them. Africa’s energy crisis belongs to the latter. It is spoken of in terms of...
Who Really Benefits From Africa’s Transition Minerals? Winners, Losers, and the New Global Power Map
There is a growing conviction in global energy circles that Africa holds the keys to the world’s decarbonisation. The minerals essential to electric vehicles, battery storage, and renewable...
Africa Cannot Afford to Repeat the Mistakes of the Oil Era in the Critical Minerals Boom
There is a photograph I keep in my mind, a memory rather than an image. It is of a dusty road in the Niger Delta, the air thick with the smell of gas flaring in the distance. As a young boy, I...
Can Africa Really Lead the Global Battery Race? Here’s What It Will Take
For years, Africa has been described as a continent rich in minerals but poor in manufacturing. A place where the world mines, ships and profits, while local communities wait for trickle-down...
In Africa’s Mining Towns, I’ve Seen Wealth Leave and Dust Remain
I have walked through towns where the ground is rich, but the people are not. Places where the earth underneath your feet could power the world’s clean-energy future, yet the homes beside the road...
Africa’s Critical Minerals Boom Won’t Change Our Future Unless We Build Factories Not Just Mines
When the world talks about the clean-energy transition, Africa suddenly finds itself at the centre of the conversation. Not because we are the world’s largest emitters, we are not. And not because we...
The G20 Wants a Green Energy Future But What Does That Mean for Africa’s Gas Ambitions?
On the morning the G20 released its South Africa Declaration, a senior official in Abuja joked quietly to a colleague: “Let me guess, they want us to be green, but not too green; use gas, but not too...
Africa’s Solar Skills Crisis: Why the Continent’s Clean Energy Future Depends on the People We’re Leaving Behind
Not long ago, I stood near a primary school building in northern Nigeria. A technician was fastening a solar panel to the roof of one of the school buildings. The schoolyard buzzed with the laughter...
COP30 Launched a Just Transition Mechanism, But Will It Change Anything for African Workers?
COP30 introduced a new global Just Transition Mechanism, a framework meant to protect workers and communities as the world accelerates away from fossil fuels. It sounded momentous, the kind of policy...
The Lights Are Still Off: What COP30’s Promises Mean for the African Child
When negotiators at COP30 announced new climate-finance commitments in Belém, my mind went to the children I met earlier this year in a village outside Makurdi, Nigeria, six boys and girls bent over...
Why Africa Still Has Millions Without Electricity Despite Its Solar Boom
On the outskirts of a village in northern Kenya, the sun sets over a newly commissioned solar farm and a dozen new battery storage containers. Contractors toast the completion: “This is Africa’s...