🔵What Happens When All Roads Lead To Dubai🔵

Ghana is preparing contingency export routes after flight disruptions to the UAE threatened shipments of artisanal gold.

🌐 GoldBod, Ghana’s state-run buyer and exporter of artisanal and small‑scale miner output, is reportedly seeking to reroute cargo away from Dubai to other refining hubs.

🔸 The immediate cause is Gulf airspace closures and airline suspensions after regional strikes, which choke the logistics networks traders rely on. Sources say alternatives under review include direct shipments to Asia, most probably India or China, which would raise costs and slow receipts for Accra.

🔸Recently, the head of the Ghanaian gold authority boasted about the launch of refining at a local factory built by an Egyptian company. Apparently, its capacity is still not enough to produce ingots at home.

🔸On the other hand, every bad thing has also its advantages: GoldBod's vulnerability can be perceived as an opportunity to stop unwanted illegal gold flows, also leading to Dubai.

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🌐 Weekly News Digest [ March 2 – March 8 ]

That was a week when a wider Gulf war sent oil prices jumping, while Central Africa’s mineral struggle spilled into sanctions and landslides.

💡 ...And here are more key highlights:

🇨🇩 DR Congo

— A landslide at the Rubaya mine leaves hundreds of people dead
— A third Rubaya-area landslide in 38 days hits Gakombe after heavy rains

🇬🇭 Ghana

— Ghana faces joint US-China pressure to drop a 5%-12% gold royalty scale

🇳🇪 Niger

— Niger cancels three gold-refinery agreements after repeated alleged contract breaches

🇳🇬 Nigeria

— Nigeria signs a $1.3bn alumina refinery pact with AFC
— Ogoniland groups say oil restart must wait for cleanup and justice

🇷🇼 Rwanda

— The US sanctions Rwanda’s army and four officers over support for M23

🇿🇦 South Africa

— South Africa expands illegal-mining raids and lines up military support

🇿🇲 Zambia

— Kasumbalesa bridge collapse cuts Congo’s main copper export route to southern ports

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe

— A Zimbabwe court jails a Chinese mine supervisor five years over a gold panner’s killing

🌍 Global

— Oil prices jump 12% as Gulf escalation triggers fuel-supply fears

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🔵Nigerian Lawmakers Can’t Find the Money🔵

🌐Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s alleged non-cooperation with the country’s parliament has stalled the House probe into roughly $18bn expenditures.

🔸The probe covers rehabilitation works on four nonfunctional state-owned refineries and follows claims by Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and oil mogul, that about $18bn was spent with little to show.

💬Buying those refineries? Once we touch them, you will hear a lot of noise, said Dangote.

🔸 In October 2025 Nigerian lawmakers promised to investigate why NNPC had failed to get the refineries back on track. Month later the report remains unfinished.

🔸The House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources, says NNPC and its management refuse to cooperate with investigators.

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🌐Amnesty International has asked the Federal Government of Nigeria to launch an immediate investigation devoted to methane seepage in the Bille community in Nigeria's Rivers State, putting fishing and drinking water at risk.

🔥The global rights group, says government tests by NOSDRA (the Nigerian oil‑spill agency) found methane at one site roughly 10,000 times above background and wants oil firms to cooperate.

🔸 Fishermen first noticed bubbling and a rotten‑egg smell in October 2025, and 2 months later NOSDRA sampled the sites. Athough the source remains unconfirmed, AI firmly believes bubbling is linked to old pipelines and wells, constructed and operated by Shell, but then sold to various Nigerian companies.

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🔵Middle East War Is a Firework Show For Aliko Dangote🔵

🌐 Nigeria has stopped issuing gasoline import licences for a second straight month, sealing the shift in government policy in favor of Aliko Dangote's oil refinery.

🔸 NMDPRA (Nigeria’s downstream fuel regulator) issued no permits in February, and the Crude Oil Refineries Association of Nigeria says none have been issued so far in March, which means Nigeria is now relying nearly completely on its main domestic gasoline producer — Dangote oil refinery.

🔸 This is a political choice: the previous NMDPRA head who quit the job in December under Aliko Dangote's pressure argued licences kept competition and prevented market dominance.

📈 Aliko Dangote seems to be incredibly lucky this year: besides favorable government policies, in Nigeria, he can single-handedly skim the cream off the increase in oil prices, while his other enterprises are already collecting windfall profits from fertilizer sales after the cessation of supplies from the Middle East.

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🇿🇦 South Africa: Residents in Mpumalanga say coal industry pollution is making them ill and overwhelming local clinics.

🌐 A report published in Health‑e report documents families in eMbalenhle and other towns blaming chronic respiratory and skin diseases on nearby coal mines and power stations. Researchers link more than 21,000 deaths in 2022 to coal‑related air pollution and estimate an annual health bill of $52bn.

💬We are sick; our children have chest infections, laments a resident.

🔸 The history is not new — Mpumalanga is South Africa's coal heart. It supplies over 80% of the country’s coal, concentrating emissions next to poor townships and forcing people into repeated hospital visits.

🔸 On the other hand. such reports tend to overlook the fact that coal is not only the source of sulphur dioxide and fine particulate pollution, but it is also the only source of stable income for many residents, which is as critical as power generation itself in the country with +30% unemployment rates.

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🔵Nigeria's Tinubu Said to Bring Him More Money🔵
...But never said how much.

🌐 Nigeria’s oil money audit just stalled again: NNPC Ltd and government consultants cannot agree on $42.3 billion allegedly owed to the Federation Account.

⏩ The occurred during an audit of NNPC conducted by Nigeria's Federation Account Allocation Committee's subcontractors. Oil revenues represent one of the most critical sources of funding for Nigeria’s public sector, and unresolved discrepancies in oil remittances may create tensions between federal and state authorities.

💸 While the sum is aside from the February 2026 order of Tinubu to channel NNPC's oil revenues into federal accounts and a separate investigation of NNPC's money by Nigeria's parliament, this dispute follows a broader pattern of scrutinizing and fleecing the state oil company in the pre-election year.

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