The Team House - Understanding Africa's Geopolitical Landscape | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm joined today with Jason Lyons, of course, and our special guest is Ladd-Sirwatt. I hope I got your last name right, Ladd. I'm praying. Yeah, Sirwatt. That's very good. All right.

Starting point is 00:00:14 Awesome. Thank God. How they're worrying about that for a week. It's great to have you here. Really appreciate it. Lad is an extremely accomplished analyst dealing with predominantly Africa. He's done some great work. I'm going to link everything he's done in description so you could check it out there.

Starting point is 00:00:35 Really, I mean, there's where to begin, right? Like, there's, you know, Africa is a vast continent of different things happening all the time. I guess let's start off with like what's been going on with the U.S. recently striking alleged jihadist camps and stuff like that in Nigeria. you know, what's your take on that? Like, what's your sense on what's going on and what's going to happen afterwards with it? Yeah, it's certainly one that I've been following for a while. Back in September, we saw a number of U.S. politicians, including President Trump, start discussing high levels of Christian targeting in Nigeria.

Starting point is 00:01:23 and that started sort of a snowball effect of more and more people talking about this. And I think the challenge is that Nigeria does have high levels of religious violence. But the figures of 100,000 or 50,000 Christian fatalities is really not supported by the data. I mean, 100,000 fatalities is more than the total number of fatalities in Nigeria from militants, from soldiers, from all civilians combined since the insurgency really escalated in 2009. You know, I think it's important to be accurate with the concerns to understand the conflict well in order to know, you know, what is driving religious violence? Nigeria, where is it happening, which groups are carrying it out? So I think that really is what prompted the US mobilizing airstrikes on Christmas Day last year. And those strikes seem to be targeted against the Islamic State Sahel province.

Starting point is 00:02:41 Many of the fighters in Nigeria are frequently referred to as Lakarawa, but hits numerous sites around Nigeria's northwest. Now, yes, that did strike IS Sahel. There's not confirmed fatalities around. It did strike in areas that Issael tends to operate. But I think, importantly, that's not an area that has had high levels of religious targeting. So we see more religious violence occurring elsewhere in the country. So I think kind of all of that combines, we have a number of factors to consider,

Starting point is 00:03:28 but that's kind of a general overview of how we got to those strikes. So, Lad, I'm hearing that, if I recall correctly, that the Nigerian leadership pushed back on the fact that these strikes were conducted because the violence was, focused on Christian. And I believe they push back and said that it's rampant, that there is no distinguishing the violence, that it's not just Christians. Is that true to your record? Well, I think what we see from numerous insurgents, you know, Islamic States or Boko Haram, is that they have an Islamist ideology. And they also have media outlets where they tend to frame the law.

Starting point is 00:04:14 violence that they carry out as being against Christian civilians primarily or make the military out to be a Christian force or something like this. And what we see from many on the ground, the reports that we receive is that the violence tends to be more often indiscriminate and affect entire communities. But then the media reports that come out from Islamic States or Boko Haram specifically focus on the Christians that are targeted. So they're trying to support the ideology that they have, and sometimes they do in targets Christians. And, you know, I don't want to diminish the fact that they do often carry out targeted violence against Christian communities.

Starting point is 00:05:05 But that being said, the scale and the way that the violence more often than not affects entire groups is something that I think we need to add to the conversation. No, no, go ahead. If you, yeah. Let me follow up with asking about, obviously you can't speak for everyone there, or even the government, but do you know if the Nigerians,

Starting point is 00:05:32 whether it's the government or the average person on the street welcomes U.S. intervention in this? As far as public supports, It's not something that I can generally speak to. On these specific strikes, it seems that Nigerian military and intelligence did collaborate with the U.S. So, you know, as far as, you know, the U.S. being in a position of power and being able to carry this out, kind of with or without the Nigerian support, that, you know, I don't have privyed access to.

Starting point is 00:06:13 too, but what I can say is that for these strikes, the U.S. carried out, it was done in collaboration with Nigerian officials. I mean, what, obviously Nigeria, you know, biggest country in Africa, they're going to be playing a major role in the next however many decades in terms of like their population is going to continue to grow. They're going to be like an actual, like a real deal powerhouse there. in terms of like fighting the Islamic State are like is their administration like committed to it like they really are like this is something that they take seriously and like really fight them well the Nigerian military has conducted ongoing campaigns against Islamic States and spoke of Iran now for you know, well over 10, 15 years. They have aerial capacity, so we do see their military carryout

Starting point is 00:07:17 air strikes in ways the U.S. was trying to accomplish with these missile strikes. They also have joint forces with other countries in the region, so they're collaborating with countries like Shad and Cameroon and Niger to, especially where we see Islamists being able to move across borders and retreat from military offensives. I think that's where we see this kind of regional collaboration really become crucial. Some of that regional collaboration has been strained. And I think another point that makes it difficult for Nigeria is they've always struggled with local police forces. And I think with Islamic State or Boko Haram, they're

Starting point is 00:08:12 quite embedded in local areas. They tend to interact with civilians in the region. And I think the ongoing ability to push out militants and truly have long-term solutions is going to come down to Nigeria's ability to adapt and work properly with more localized forms of policing. To your knowledge, what's the relationship between Boko Haram and Islamist state-like? Is there a lot of fighting between them, or do they collaborate a lot? It's more contentious. So we see a fair amount and actually increasing in the past year the number of clashes between the two groups. So within the Lake Shad region, Boko Haram and Iswap have been contesting for territory, for influence, kind of strategic areas, especially cross-border area between Nigeria and Cameroon.

Starting point is 00:09:25 Genim also has a very contentious relationship with the Islamic State Sahel further in the northwest part of Nigeria and into the Sahelian states. So we don't see evidence of collaboration. Quite unlike that, we see high levels of fighting. Yeah, you would think that when these groups have their contentious relationships, that it's, would make it easier to counter them. But, you know, if you can't get your own house in order, then it's a little bit harder. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And like I said, I think a big part of this is the ways that we see more localized mechanisms,

Starting point is 00:10:17 stronger intelligence from local communities. A big concern across the Sahel, in Nigeria, and even other parts of Africa has been, the lack of local police, rather in many cases, a more federal or central police force that's then deployed, is instead arming local civilians to form these kind of like community or self-defense groups. And what that has a negative effect on is now insurgents move into a community, and the assumption is every civilian is now armed. Every civilian is now a target. So we're seeing higher and higher levels of civilians that are targeted by insurgent groups

Starting point is 00:11:05 as these countries look to form what kind of self-protection groups as their military struggle to combat insurgents. Actually, that's nice into what I was going to ask about. I was looking at one of your, from December, I think it was an article you wrote about. It says the M23s offensive throughout South Kivu culminates in capturing Uvira. It was an expert comment by you. So my question as far as Nigeria is concerned is basically across Africa. I know the Israelis have had an issue in Gaza, and we, the United States, did the same thing in Vietnam, with fighting for and capturing a city or a hill or whatever,

Starting point is 00:11:53 and then within 24 hours they're abandoning it for the next. the next objective, is that an issue with, you know, in Nigeria, with the military, where they'll take a city, you know, from Boko Haram or Islamic State and then kind of just push through and leave it and leave the people vulnerable? Yeah, that's certainly something and especially in Nigeria's northwest where we see not only Islamic State's Hell and now Jainim, the al-Qaeda affiliates in that region, but also over a hundred distinct and fragmented bandit groups that constantly are able to contest the states. I mean, as soon as the military forces are moving, these bandit groups are able to quickly move in and not always take control, but loot or pillage from set up roadblocks in order to carry out extortion from civilians. along these areas where the military doesn't have a strong presence at that time.

Starting point is 00:13:04 So I think the Northwest is particularly vulnerable to that. Now, is that due to a lack of numbers on the part of the military, or is it just their objectives are kind of fleeting? There probably is some capacity lacking for the Nigerian military. But, yeah, I guess no comment on, On that one, I can't claim to be a specialist per se on the Nigerian north. Gotcha. Okay.

Starting point is 00:13:38 Yeah, it seems in a lot of these places it's body count, you know, kill as many as you can and call to, you know, call to victory and move on when there's no follow on logistics to either rebuild the population, you know, the infrastructure or bring aid to the people that you just supposedly liberated. And that just seems to be a common theme. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think part of the capacity challenge with the Nigerian military is the required service that people, you know, tend to do for, I believe, two years within the Nigerian military. And so, I mean, with that, you have a large population, but also a large proportion of the military. that's relatively, yeah, less trained and is not there for long-term service, but would kind of do their time and then leave. Sorry, Dee, if I'm cutting you off if you have questions. I can't hear you.

Starting point is 00:14:47 Yeah, no, not at all. This is incredible. I'm learning a lot. Yeah. So stepping away from the Nigerian military, but still in that area, what about foreign influence as far as China, Russia. I know Wagner Group is a big subject for you that you're an expert on. Where do you see that all coming in the place? I think for Nigeria, they're quite a key economic player in the region. They have a massive economy. They're a big oil producer. So I think

Starting point is 00:15:25 they do have numerous economic partners. But from a security perspective, I think the biggest challenge for Nigeria has really been foreign influence in the Sahelian states. So what we see across the Sahel has been kind of an anti-French sentiment that Russia has actively cultivated. So Russia has supported disinformation campaigns. They've supported many of the coup now military junta. as you mentioned, also sent Wagner, now Africa Corps, into supports various military missions. With that, we've seen rather than a contraction of Islamist violence in the Sahel, an expansion, especially the Al-Qaeda affiliate, Jeannin, has been rapidly growing,

Starting point is 00:16:24 now carrying out widespread economic embargoes, and moving across the border. into Nigeria. So with that, we're seeing the Nigeria face this kind of impending threat from weakening Sahelian states that they're now already having to respond to with insurgents coming across the border and new groups forming. That'll say they've long faced challenges kind of internationally with the Lake Shad region. Cameroon's northern area, the extreme north of that country, is insecure and they've struggled to contain militants moving across the border there. So maintaining those positive relationships with Cameroon, with Chad, as well as Niger has also been really, really important, but is currently strained, especially on the side of Chad's. that is threatening exiting the joint partnership in the region.

Starting point is 00:17:40 I'm sorry. I know you mentioned France. Do you have any insight on what Western European countries who have traditionally been had a colonial presence in Nigeria, Africa as a whole? Are they kind of taking their hands off the wheel or does it look like they're going to you know, maybe either resurge back into Africa to counter the Chinese and Russian threat, or, you know, I just wanted to see what your opinion on that is. Yeah, with a lot of the kind of Western European former colonial powers,

Starting point is 00:18:20 I mean, France being one that has really been pushed out of the Sahel and no longer has the strong presence that they once did in those states. We also see some anti-British sentiment, anti-colonial sentiment across the continents that's been, I think, challenging for not only those former colonial states to pivot and kind of understand their new role. Also for these states, how do they adapt to no longer

Starting point is 00:18:57 having that former security partner? And with the kind of rollback of development aid and humanitarian aid in the U.S., we've seen that simultaneously occur with a number of Western European countries that were former strong partners for numerous African countries. The UK, France, you know, kind of go down the list of strong donor countries, many of which aid budgets have been shrunk in order to deal with the war with Ukraine and to pivot some of those finances into those military budgets. Not saying that that was the right move or the wrong move to take from that sort of development and humanitarian aid pot and transfer it over to military spending, but I think in effect

Starting point is 00:19:56 That's what's happened and the kind of with that waning influence of a lot of these former colonial powers. You just mentioned military and humanitarian aid. To your knowledge, are countries like China or Russia offering that humanitarian aid that the United States seem to have pulled back on in order to advance their influence, or is it kind of like, hey, here's the guns and the bullets, you know, handle the rest on your own? In the cases that I'm most familiar with, Russia's involvement in the Sahel, in Central African Republic, that has largely been really contractual, where Russia offers, say, Wagner mercenary forces, or they offer support politically economically, they want something in return.

Starting point is 00:21:02 Especially in Central African Republic, they're receiving rights to various mining sites. They're logging in various forested areas. So they're pulling out natural resources in exchange for their services. I think similar arrangements are true elsewhere. Although in somewhere like Mali, where they're also deeply involved, it's been more financial that the Malian government is simply paying Russia for their services. And I think with China, we do see various aid packages, but it's different in each

Starting point is 00:21:45 country. With some of the Chinese loans or aid, they're quite beneficial to local countries in the form of aid where they're not required to repay on those, on the financial distributions or for the support that's given, whether it's building roads or infrastructure. But in other cases, I think Zambia being the big one, you know, there is expectation to repay on those debts and for the Zambian government, those debts are rapidly accumulating. Okay. So I know that a place, a big story, I don't know, big being relative, has been the recognition of Somaliland. Is, are any of the Gulf states, do they have any sort of influence in places like Nigeria or, you know, more of the interlands? Or do they really stick towards to the, the coastal areas in their influence?

Starting point is 00:23:01 I think the Gulf states, you know, I think about Qatar, for example, currently involved in mediating between the M23 and the Congolese government. So they're relatively active in playing this mediative role. Qatar has actually been involved even recently in Libya, wanting to have stronger economic ties. United Arab Emirates has been another one with really fascinating relations across the continent. I mean, when we look at the UAE, doing everything from supporting or carrying out strikes in Somalia to supporting the rapid support forces in Sudan, which completely throws off the logic of traditional

Starting point is 00:23:57 UAE partnerships. The UAE is actively supporting a group that the U.S. and many Western countries are against. So I think some of these Gulf relations across the continent are definitely not confined to the country's nearest to them, but sometimes they don't exactly fit into our common you know, international relations picture or narrative, you know, isn't it bizarre that the U.S. and Iran would be supporting the same side in Sudan while UAE is on the other side? I mean, that, you know, defies much of our thinking around the way that international relations normally. Yeah, I was looking at. I'm going to give a quick plug for your organization's website, which is

Starting point is 00:24:57 the, I'm going to make sure I get this right, the ACLED, armed conflict, location, and event data. Really awesome organization and website. And one of the things that you have is a, like, it's an overview map. So I would really like played with the Africa overview map. And so I was looking at some of the routes between the UAE and the Gulf States and into Africa for arms and things. And so it's like watching a flight go from UAE all the way up to Libya and then come down into the interlands. And it's just, it's like all over the place. It's like mismatch.

Starting point is 00:25:37 And it's pretty fascinating how these things are happening in real time. And like you said, it's like a partnership that you would never think of, you know, us as well as Iran backing, you know, not necessarily together, but seemed to be backing. the same sides in conflicts and it's just it's very wild so i um would uh encourage everyone to check out the the website so and d can we put that link in the description yeah absolutely that's going to be in the description awesome check it out right now so um do you have anything else d before we switch i'm i am locked in as a listener basically right now fanning comes up i will scream it yeah awesome yeah this is great um so let's move to uh the sedan um to sedan um to sedan What's the overview?

Starting point is 00:26:30 Yeah, I think, you know, in the last year, oh, my gosh. Sudan has really kind of continued to be extremely deadly as a conflict. You know, it was amazing going over the data for the kind of 2025 as a whole and seeing the rapid support forces be the deadliest. globally when it comes to targeting civilians. I mean, that is really concerning. And while we, I think, have a lot of conflicts in the world to be concerned about or to follow, the fact that we do have an armed group carrying out such widespread killing of civilians

Starting point is 00:27:19 is one that I think makes Sudan one that we need focus on. a resolution too. And I think unfortunately where we're at at the moment is kind of an increasingly de facto partition between East and West. Sudanese armed forces were able to capture Khartoum and solidify some of their territorial gains across much of eastern Sudan and the rapid support forces kind of in the area of traditional influence in Darfur also was able to take kind of major areas across that region. And so we're seeing this kind of east and west splits take place. One thing I would say has been a development that's happened across the last year is that the Sudanese armed forces

Starting point is 00:28:20 have traditionally maintained hegemony with their aerial combat. They've had fighter jets, They've had much better air power in general, better long-range missile systems. And that is kind of changing. It's not that it's completely tipped the scales. But last year, the rapid support courses did receive quite a large shipment of the Chinese, if I get this right, FH-95 drones. And so with that, they've been able to carry out a number of drone strikes. And we saw just the RSF in this last year really escalates in their aerial capacity.

Starting point is 00:29:07 So I guess the concern is you have both this partitioning where you have a kind of east-west division with fighting in the Cordifon region in between. But now the rapid support forces are able to carry out farther and. farther strikes into SAF territory So these drones are I mean it's obvious it's pretty much globally that drones are making a huge difference in the way warfare is conducted

Starting point is 00:29:37 and the shift in the tide. Yeah it's it's amazing and it's something that I think with ACLEB we're actively working to understand and monitor these changes I mean, for a long time, I think we could monitor kind of air and drone strikes in general, because military-grade drones would be able to carry kind of similar payloads to fighter jets,

Starting point is 00:30:07 although there's, you know, obviously tactical differences and there's nuance to that, but both, you know, carrying large weapons. Now, with commercially available quadcopter drones, armed groups can get a hold of these relatively cheaply, broken fashion, explosive devices to them, and carry out, although much smaller, explosives remotely and further away from their own position. So we see that, I mean, to scale in Ukraine,

Starting point is 00:30:43 but that's also happening throughout different conflicts in Africa. And, Smith, taking a step back, because we, D and I were joking just before the, we started taping that we are not the Brookings Institute or Heritage Foundation. So we kind of have people who literally just come off the streets and are like, you know, and listen. So could you explain the differences and maybe similarities between the RSF and the SAF? Because I think most people are think when they think of Africa and they think of these kind of groups, they just think rebels. Just like non-uniforms, just walking around with AK-47s, and they're just killing everybody.

Starting point is 00:31:30 So can you explain a little bit about the differences? Yeah, with the Sudanese armed forces, I mean, this was the military forces of the country that are being led by, the general but for a number of years within Sudan there was a power sharing agreement between kind of another many people refer to them as a paramilitary but really they were a bit more integrated

Starting point is 00:32:00 into the security apparatus of the state and that's the rapid support forces so three years ago now in April 2020 we saw this sort of power sharing arrangement breakdown And so unlike what we see in other conflicts where it's very different, there's a big power gap between the military forces of a country and, you know, a much smaller rebel group that are kind of relying on more insurgent style tactics, kind of one-sided combats, just kind of moving into an area quickly and then retreating. with the

Starting point is 00:32:44 Sudanese conflicts, we have two sides that each have their own tactical advantages, but are very much kind of two parts of the former, say, former military forces, but former security apparatus

Starting point is 00:33:01 within the country. Basically, it's like parallel governments? Well, just in the last year, we have seen both sides set up parallel governments. So both the Sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces now have their own kind of parallel administrations within the country.

Starting point is 00:33:29 Okay. So I, again, I was all over this Africa overview map. So I remember, I'm an old guy. So when I was in the Marine Corps, you know, in the 90s, a big thing besides Somalia, where I was, was like, Liberia, Western Africa, things like that. I'm not going to use the word quiet, but how are things in Western Africa? Are they as bad, or is it quieter, if that's a word, you know? Yeah, I would say as we kind of move down, you know, many of those states that were formalized. in conflict. You mentioned Liberia, Sierra Leone,

Starting point is 00:34:15 these states that were very turbulent in the 90s. They, in general, are much, I mean, levels of violence have definitely decreased, would be considered

Starting point is 00:34:31 peaceful states at this point. Obviously, at different levels of development, we've seen different regime changes or democratic elections, the ability for these states to undergo free and fair democratic or political party changes. But at the moment, the one that's probably most at risk is Benin. They've been the most subject to spillover from the Sahel.

Starting point is 00:35:08 So for Benin, the northern parts of the country have faced increasing presence of Genim. They have struggled militarily to repel that and to kind of keep insurgents at their doorstep. Togo to some extent as well, and even less so in somewhere like Cote d'Ivoire. So for many of the West African states, we certainly don't see the conflict that we did, you know, 30 years ago. Yeah. It's really wild for, again, someone my age who served during that time because those were, you know, like I said, you have Somalia on one side. And then it was like Liberia, Cote d'I, all those places were, they were the hotspots. So it's refreshing.

Starting point is 00:36:03 I mean, I don't live there, but relatively speaking, it's nice to see that there is some piece coming to some of these regions. But now I'm going to drag you as far south as we can go. Do you have any insight on what's going on in South Africa? I can't say I have too much recent research on South Africa. You know, a few years ago, I did look into their election cycle two years ago now, just in terms of some of the local administrative areas that were struggling with violence and some political party dynamics. But, yeah, it's been a couple years now since I've focused on that area.

Starting point is 00:36:53 Okay. Okay. So now we're going to go get a little personal here. when you're researching these places and maybe you were able to do this before and you're not now, are you able to get feet on the ground in these places, like, you know, to be able to, you know, talk to the people on the ground? Yeah, I mean, from my perspective, I've lived in the Great Lakes region of Africa for most of my life since 2012.

Starting point is 00:37:26 So I've been here for, you know, over 10 years now and been based in Burundi for most of that. But travel a lot in the region with Ackleds, we try to develop, you know, local networks of monitors, especially where we don't have organizations that are able to share security reports with us. So with that, I've been able to, you know, recently travel to places like the northern parts of Ghana or over to Benin. You know, the list kind of goes on in places where we're actively working to set up these partnerships and develop security networks because I think, you know, there's always bias in your reporting and in the sources. but having kind of local monitors on the ground that aren't subject to kind of the news cycle that journalists are often subject to just kind of sharing reports that, again, subject to their own interpretation, but don't necessarily need to meet certain criteria to make it onto the

Starting point is 00:38:43 front page of a website. I'll have one last question. Lestie, you have something? I love to talk about what's going down in Uganda. I was reading a little bit about that, and it seems like there's a bit of, for lack of a better term, shit show happening with the election

Starting point is 00:39:05 and the internet's been cut out and 2000 plus opposition people have been arrested and stuff like that. I would just love to get your rundown on what went down there. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a somewhat concerning trend in East Africa.

Starting point is 00:39:21 after Tanzania's turbulent election. We saw some similar dynamics in Tanzania with really harsh crackdowns against protesters and opposition figures, internet shutdowns in a country

Starting point is 00:39:38 that's traditionally regarded as very stable and to some extent democratic. Uganda has had much fewer transitions of power. Mussovenia has been in power for a very long time. He's going on his now on his seventh term in office. So, you know, with that, we did see pretty fierce repression of especially the opposition.

Starting point is 00:40:10 The kind of tactics that we saw the most were police forces going into campaign rallies and firing tear gas. and dispersing the political opposition from Gavin. So I think that was interesting where it wasn't necessarily going in and disrupting protests, but even keeping opposition parties from being able to meet and share kind of whatever their party narrative ones. But this was a tactic. And then, too, that happened across over 22 districts of the country districts of the country. country. So for me, I think it really spoke to the popularity of Bobby Wine across the country. You know, it wasn't confined to a single kind of urban hub. It was very widespread.

Starting point is 00:41:05 And also, you know, the ruling parties reach to stop campaigns even from happening in rural places. Are there any other areas of the continent that we have not touched on that you think that the public should know about? Well, I mean, like I said, I'm based in the Great Lakes. So I think, you know, the M23 rebellion has certainly upended quite a lot of dynamics in the region. The U.S. is actively involved in peace negotiations between DRC and Rwanda, but Burundi is also deployed across the border.

Starting point is 00:41:52 Ugandan troops are deployed across the border, so it is very much regional conflicts with regional implications. And then we didn't touch too much on the Islamic State's presence in Mozambique, which continues to threaten the northern parts of the country there. With the Great Lakes is that Rwanda has deployed troops to northern parts of Mozambique in order to defend against Islamic States, Mozambique. So with that, its levels of violence in Mozambique are not as high as they were a few years ago, but ISM is a persistent threat. Yeah, again, Mozambique, the name, it's like, brings back like 80s memories for me, you know, because it's like, these things are like hotspots. They're in the news, and then they just kind of, you don't hear anything, and now they pop up again. So it's like, you know, these are probably places that some people have never. heard in their life because they're so young but I definitely remember the the

Starting point is 00:43:00 stories coming out of there but so that segues into a last question for me unless Dee you've got something else so this is kind of a broad question and it's your opinion on it I recently watched a video I can not remember the name of the historian but he basically dealt into the question of why the Africa the continent itself and as well as these conflicts does not make the level, reach the level of media coverage that say Ukraine or, you know, what's happening with Greenland do. And he said that it's not, in his opinion, it's, it's not as simple as people make it. Some people will say it's racism. Some people will say it's

Starting point is 00:43:43 economics. Some people will say it's the rampant, their view of rampant corruption, things like that. So in your opinion, why are these things underreported? Which, is why I bought you on, because I believe it's underreported as well. Yeah, I do think that conflicts are underreported here. Part of that probably comes from, you know, the very ground level where journalists often do struggle with, one, adequate funding, and then two, functioning within many rather repressive media environments. So I think having local-based journalists is something that's rather difficult.

Starting point is 00:44:30 We even see large media organizations. I'm not going to throw any under the bus, but I work with them often. They have like one or two people for an entire continent. So part of the coverage issue is also that, you know, these big organizations don't have, you know, an adequate number of journalists to pick up on these stories. So, you know, there's probably the journalistic side, probably a lack of understanding as well, you know, even coming back to that last point on Mozambique, I mean,

Starting point is 00:45:07 most people might not be aware of the Islamic State's influence there, nor the fact that they're disrupting one of the world's biggest supplies of liquid natural gaps. And have they disrupted for years the ability for a big French company, Total, to extract from that LNG project. So I think that is rather big news. It's as much an economic resource as we see with the war in Ukraine. But, yeah, certainly not reported on. Anything else, do you?

Starting point is 00:45:47 I can't hear you. Hey, apologies, guys. My computer's on the fritz. No, this is, uh, it's incredible.

Starting point is 00:45:53 I mean, La, we need to have you back us. Yes. Again, um, and like really deep dive, maybe into like singular issues and stuff like that.

Starting point is 00:46:01 Because, you know, we could be here for 10 hours talking about what's going on. You know, let's say massive continent. Um, I want to remind everybody to go and check out Lad. I want to have links in the description for everything.

Starting point is 00:46:13 Um, Lad is the A-C-L-E-D. these Africa senior analyst. He knows what's going on. So, and I can't, I'm going to check out that, that interactive map you mentioned, Jason. That sounds pretty cool. You know, you're doing stuff that people need to hear, I think not just regionally, but internationally.

Starting point is 00:46:34 And I think it's important what you're doing. And I hope you continue to do it, man, because we need experts like you, educating, you know, like the layman like me who has a passing interest and stuff like that. who wants to know more, I think being able to communicate it in a way that you do is extremely important. So I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And I think with the, you know, U.S. strikes in Nigeria coming full circle to that point, I think it just highlights, you know, the desperate need that we have to understand the drivers of conflict, who's carrying it out.

Starting point is 00:47:17 is specifically taking place. So, yeah, thanks for having me on. One last thing, which is, like, I was just thinking about it when you guys were talking about it, like how the UAE and Saudi and Qatar are all involved, right, in different places on the continent. It really, like, kind of echoes how Syria was, where it's, like, there are all these, like, different, you know, countries and organizations that are fighting each other. some hate each other but some hate this one a little bit more so like they're working together

Starting point is 00:47:49 it's like this incredibly complicated thing that uh you know it's it's just it's kind of mind boggling how unbelievably complicated this is like because syria too like most people can't tell you like exactly what went down during the syrian civil war like whose side was you know turkey hates the kurds but we like the kurds and it's like it's just absolutely mind-numbing uh so i really appreciate bringing a little bit of clarity to it. I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House podcast, the Aiz On podcast, and the High Side News outlet, which I run with

Starting point is 00:48:30 Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Aizon and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the high side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week. It's really good, man.

Starting point is 00:49:00 Checking it out. The website for it is teamhousepodcast.com slash join. Teamhousepodcast.com.com slash join. You go there and you enter into your email list. you enter your email into the little thing on the website and you're good to go and that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support and hope you'll consider signing up. Where's the link? The link will also be down in the description if you're looking for it there.

Starting point is 00:49:30 And that's teamhousepodcast.com.k.k.kiloindia tango.com. backslash join

The Team House - Understanding Africa's Geopolitical Landscape | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

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