The war in Ukraine could have a devastating effect on some African states, threatening their economic strength, and seeing governments come under diplomatic pressure to take sides in the escalating feud between Russia and the Western Powers.

Some African countries have taken sides already, releasing official statements on who they are standing with during the course of the war. This will definitely have effects on the African states.

South Africa's position might be a strong blow to Russia as her position was declared through a statement recently; demanding that Russia "Immediately withdraw it's forces from Ukraine". South Africa and Russia have strong economic ties, with both being members of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). According to BBC Africa, South Africa has investments in Russia amounting to nearly 80bn South African rand ($5bn), while Russia investments in South Africa total around 23bn rand.

Kenya and Nigeria have also gone further in declaring their stand with Ukraine, thereby condemning Russia's invasion. No African country has so far come out in support of Russia's invasion, not even Central African Republic and Mali, where Russian forces are helping their governments fight insurgencies. This seem like a future default in South Africa and Russia's ties. Russia could even end up withdrawing their forces from Mali and Central African Republic.

WHAT ABOUT NIGERIA?

A few countries are sensing long term growth opportunities from the crisis, specifically Africa's natural gas could replace Europe's dependency on Russian energy.

Nigeria, already a supplier of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to several European countries, is also embarking with Niger and Algeria on the Trans-Saharan Gas pipeline to increase exports of natural gas to European markets. In Nigeria, we are poised to gain from the situation, only if we can put in place all and everything that will allow us to make full use of whatever capacity that exists.

Although, Nigeria relies mainly on imported wheat, impacting 650,000 tonnes in 2020 and Russia & Ukraine being the largest exporters of wheat might be a problem in the market.

Source: BBC-Africa & The Guardian