Geopolitical Briefing: Sub‑Saharan Africa – 24 August 2025

• South Africa opens its freight rail to private operators, selecting 11 train companies across 41 routes to revive bulk‑commodity corridors. (Reuters, SAnews)
• Eswatini faces a court challenge over a secret U.S. deportee deal; hearing postponed to 25 September amid constitutional claims by civil society. (Reuters Connect, Africanews)
• Nigeria conducts precision airstrikes near the Cameroon border, claiming at least 35 militants killed amid a renewed northeast insurgent tempo. (AP News, Al Jazeera)
• Interpol’s ‘Serengeti 2.0’ cybercrime sweep nets 1,209 arrests across 18 African states and recovers ~$97 m in illicit proceeds. (Interpol, AP News)
• Sudan’s Burhan reshuffles top command and centralises allied armed groups under SAF control, tightening hold over the east/center war zone. (Reuters, Sudan Tribune)

Rail liberalisation in South Africa
 Opening Transnet’s network to vetted private train operators is a hard pivot from state‑only haulage toward a mixed‑access model aimed at restoring coal, iron‑ore, chrome, fuel and manganese flows to ports. Strategically, this reduces a single‑point logistical choke, bolsters sovereignty over export corridors, and should deepen SADC‑area trade if slot allocation and port interface improve. The move also lessens reliance on Western lenders by crowding in private capital to rail assets, though governance and security (cable theft) remain execution risks. (Reuters, SAnews)

Eswatini’s pushback over U.S. deportees
 The High Court case challenges the legality and transparency of accepting third‑country deportees under a bilateral arrangement with Washington. For the region’s sovereignty calculus, this tests the ability of smaller states to resist external security off‑loading that can import risk and humanitarian burdens. The postponement signals judicial caution but also creates space for mobilised civil society—an internal check on neocolonial‑style deals that bypass parliamentary scrutiny. (Reuters Connect, Africanews)

Nigeria’s cross‑border air campaign
 Airstrikes around Kumshe (Borno) underscore Abuja’s emphasis on airpower to blunt Boko Haram/ISWAP mobility along the Cameroon frontier. Tactical gains support border integrity and can free up ground forces for hold‑and‑build operations. Strategically, sustained tempo reduces dependency on external trainers while keeping the Multinational Joint Task Force framework viable; the risk is displacement across porous borders if Cameroon‑side coordination lags. (AP News, Al Jazeera)

Pan‑African cyber enforcement surge
 Interpol’s Serengeti 2.0 operation—18 African states plus the UK—targeted BEC, ransomware, and scam networks, yielding 1,209 arrests and ~$97 m in recoveries. Beyond immediate disruption, this evidences growing African‑led coordination and forensic capacity, key to financial sovereignty and to insulating resource revenues from criminal leakage. Follow‑through (asset seizures, prosecutions, restitution) will determine whether this becomes a durable deterrent rather than a periodic sweep. (Interpol, AP News)

Sudan’s command consolidation
 By re‑staffing the Joint Chiefs, naming a new inspector general and air‑force lead, and placing allied formations under SAF command, Burhan is closing parallel chains of command to stabilise the state’s east‑center heartland. This can harden regime control and reduce fragmentation, but it also cements personalised rule and raises the likelihood of deeper external alignment from patrons on both sides of the war. The net effect on sovereignty hinges on whether centralisation translates into territorial gains without widening the humanitarian catastrophe. (Reuters, Sudan Tribune)