By 
In the face of regional turmoil, rising extremism, and heightened geopolitical tensions, Africa urgently needs strong leadership. But its two most significant regional powers, Nigeria and South Africa, are too constrained by domestic challenges to represent Africa’s interests effectively on the world stage.
LAGOS – Nigeria and South Africa account for one-third of Africa’s economic production and have also spearheaded many of the continent’s peacemaking efforts over the past three decades, including the establishment of the African Union (AU). As I noted in my 2023 book The Eagle and the Springbok, Africa’s security and development rest heavily on the leadership of these two regional powers.
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Nowadays, however, both countries are too preoccupied with domestic economic challenges and political turmoil to represent Africa’s interests effectively on the world stage. In Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu’s first year in office has been marked by a currency crisis and reports of the president’s ill health. In South Africa, the ruling African National Congress recently lost its majority for the first time since 1994, forcing President Cyril Ramaphosa to form a unity government with the ANC’s main political rival.
As Africa’s most influential powers, Nigeria and South Africa have a relationship that is both cooperative and competitive. This partly reflects their distinct cultural identities. Nigeria, home to the world’s largest black population, is the continent’s most linguistically diverse country; South Africa is its most Westernized.
Although both countries remain beset by corruption and crime, their growth trajectories have diverged considerably in recent years. South Africa is set to become the continent’s largest economy this year, while Nigeria – which held the title as recently as 2022 – is projected to fall to fourth place, behind Egypt and Algeria.
Instead of reversing Nigeria’s economic decline, Tinubu’s “Renewed Hope Agenda” has accelerated it. Having inherited a struggling economy with a national debt of $113 billion and 33% unemployment, Tinubu’s decision to remove fuel subsidies that kept gasoline prices low has triggered a massive cost-of-living crisis. Moreover, his administration’s attempt to float the naira by devaluing it has led the Nigerian currency to depreciate by roughly 70% against the US dollar over the past year.
These disastrous “shock therapy” policies, a misguided attempt to embrace economic orthodoxy, were initiated without much consultation or planning. After gasoline prices nearly tripled, inflation skyrocketed to 33%, and labor unions took to the streets, the government quietly reintroduced fuel subsidies.
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Fearing widespread labor unrest, Tinubu’s administration also announced cash transfers of $54 over three months to the country’s poorest households. But with 40% of the population living in extreme poverty, and bread prices nearly doubling since 2023, these payments fell far short of what was needed.
To be sure, Nigeria lacks the funds to do much else. The government currently spends more than 90% of its revenue on servicing the national debt – six times what it spends on health and education – and the reintroduced fuel subsidies are projected to consume half of its annual oil revenues. Compounding these challenges, the country loses 400,000 barrels of oil per day to theft and vandalism.
At the same time, while the naira has depreciated by 40% against the dollar in the first half of 2024 – making it the world’s worst-performing currency – devaluation has failed to achieve the government’s stated goal of attracting foreign investment. Instead, multinationals like GlaxoSmithKline and Procter & Gamble have exited the country.
Tinubu’s struggles extend to his foreign policy. As chair of the Economic Community of West African States in 2023, Tinubu threatened to intervene in Niger following the country’s military coup, vastly overestimating Nigeria’s military capabilities. This resulted in an embarrassing retreat after Niger’s junta defied his ultimatum and, together with Mali and Burkina Faso, withdrew from ECOWAS.
Shortly after assuming office, Tinubu unveiled his “4D” foreign-policy doctrine: democracy, development, demography, and diaspora. But this framework seems to be more about alliteration than action. In September 2023, as part of his foreign-policy overhaul, Tinubu recalled all of Nigeria’s ambassadors. Ten months later, many of these posts remain vacant.
Despite Nigeria’s declining economic weight and political influence, many Nigerians continue to cling to the outdated notion of the country as the “giant of Africa.” Meanwhile, the kleptocratic political elite shows blatant disregard for the plight of ordinary citizens, imposing austerity measures while continuing to spend lavishly.
By contrast, South Africa seems to have adopted a more measured approach. Following the election’s stunning outcome, the ANC has formed a coalition government with the business-friendly Democratic Alliance (DA), which won just 4% of the black vote. Confronting an external public-debt burden of $158 billion and the world’s highest income inequality, Ramaphosa’s administration is rightly focusing on addressing the country’s electricity crisis, infrastructure challenges, and corruption.
But tensions are already emerging. While many within the ANC want to boost social-welfare spending, the DA has consistently opposed the ANC’s welfare policies. Indeed, many ANC leaders would have preferred a coalition with two left-leaning ruling party offshoots: former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
As political commentators have repeatedly warned, the “markets” – meaning South Africa’s white-dominated corporations and foreign investors – would punish any coalition that included the MK and EFF, owing to both parties’ support for nationalizing financial institutions and land expropriation. Moreover, the fact that the ANC has been in power for three decades without shifting to the left suggests that such a move was unlikely.
Having garnered 15% of the national vote, the 82-year-old Zuma remains a powerful political player. Notably, MK won Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal with 45% of the vote, while support there for the ANC dwindled to 17%.
In an unexpected twist, the ANC, DA, and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) managed to form a coalition, effectively excluding MK from the provincial government. Considering that MK won nearly as many seats as the next three largest parties combined, its exclusion could fuel instability in the traditionally volatile province, which is home to Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest port.
With Islamist terrorism on the rise and the United States, Russia, France, and China expanding their respective military footprints in Africa, the continent urgently needs strong leadership. But Nigeria and South Africa are unlikely to provide it. Constrained by domestic crises, Africa’s major powers have become hobbled hegemons.
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