GOOD MORNING CHOP FAMILY!
We spent some time in the kitchen while you were busy — new format, new sections, tighter writing, bigger stories. The newsletter you're reading today is not the same one you opened last month. Good. It shouldn't be.
June 1st. The FIFA World Cup kicks off in 10 days with a record 10 African nations.
Dangote's refinery IPO window opens this summer, and for the first time, you can actually buy in.
Safaricom just posted the biggest corporate profit in East and Central African history.
Africa's four biggest tech economies formally declared they are done letting Silicon Valley own their AI future. And Accra just reminded the world that Africa's property market has a story worth telling.
Big things are happening. The continent is not waiting. Neither are we. Let's chop.
⚡ Oil just had its worst month since 2020: Brent crude has fallen from $109 to ~$92 this month — a 15% drop — on reports of a preliminary US-Iran ceasefire extension and possible reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump hasn't approved the deal yet, and Iran says nothing is finalized. But the market moved anyway. For African oil-importing nations that have been paying elevated fuel prices all year, this could be the relief they've been waiting for.
For the Dangote refinery, which became Europe's critical swing supplier precisely because the Strait was disrupted ,watch this space closely
African Proverb of the Day
However long the night, the dawn will break.
— West African Proverb
Dangote Just Put the Biggest Refinery on Earth Up for Sale. The Diaspora Is Invited.
For the first time in Nigeria's history, retail investors — including the diaspora — can own equity in the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals. Dangote confirmed a September IPO to CNBC Africa this month — 10% stake on the Nigerian Exchange, multi-exchange listing across Africa, dividends paid in dollars.
The numbers first: the Lekki facility runs at 99.4% capacity, processing 648,500 barrels per day. It's the world's largest single-train refinery.
Operational, profitable, and already exporting to Ghana, Cameroon, Togo, Tanzania, and European airports. Zedcrest's investor guide notes that jet fuel exports to Europe grew 770% between 2024 and 2026 — not because it was planned, but because the Middle East conflict disrupted global supply and made Lekki the world's most important swing supplier.
He built the world's largest single-train refinery in Lagos. He made Nigeria a net fuel exporter. Now he wants you to own a piece of it. The question is whether you'll still be explaining to your relatives why you didn't buy in 10 years from now.
IPO window: June–July for subscription, September listing. Advisers: Stanbic IBTC Capital, Vetiva Advisory Services, FirstCap. Dabafinance has the full diaspora investor breakdown → If you're serious about this, read it before the window opens.
Power Moves
Safaricom Posted the Biggest Profit in East and Central African History. Nobody Is Talking About It.
Let's fix that. The Kenyan Wall Street's breakdown is unambiguous: FY2026 is Safaricom's strongest year in its 25-year history and the strongest of any company in the region.
Net income: KSh 99.7 billion, up 67.3%. Dividend: KSh 80.13 billion — a 66.7% jump and the largest corporate payout in Kenyan history. That single dividend exceeds the entire 2025 annual profit of Equity Group, East and Central Africa's second most profitable company.
M-PESA processed KSh 41.68 trillion in transactions. Safaricom is no longer a telecom with a mobile money side project. It is a financial infrastructure platform that happens to also run a very good phone network.
M-PESA now contributes 45.6% of Kenyan service revenue, growing 13.4% year-on-year. As Khusoko reports, Ethiopia — the painful bet that depressed the stock for years — is heading to EBITDA breakeven in FY2027.
A 25-year operating license is secured. For anyone who bought at the 2008 IPO and held: your total return is 889%. Before reinvested dividends.
Real Estate
Africa's Housing Crisis Got Its Own Festival. Here's What 1,500 People Said in Accra.
In a continent where cities are growing faster than the buildings can keep up, Africa's property market finally got its own dedicated conversation.
The inaugural Africa Real Estate Festival 2026 brought 1,500 delegates — developers, government officials, regulators, and diaspora investors — to Accra under the theme "Innovation Meets Identity: Designing Africa's Next Living Experience."
The fact that it needed a festival for this to happen is itself a commentary on how underserved the conversation has been.
Ghana's housing deficit: 1.8 million units. Not a projection , that is today's gap between the homes that exist and the people who need them, growing every year as rural-urban migration accelerates and household formation rises.
Across the continent, Africa's urban population is expected to double by 2050, adding roughly 950 million people to cities already stretched on infrastructure. The demand is structural, not cyclical.
Quick Bites
→ World Cup 2026: Africa Has Never Done This Before. A record 10 African nations — Algeria, Cape Verde (debut!), Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, and DR Congo — are in the tournament. DR Congo returns for the first time since the 1970s. Squad lists officially drop tomorrow. Tournament opens June 11. Full squad guide at ESPN → The continent is about to get very loud.
→ Africa is home to 12 of the world's 20 fastest-growing economies. The AfDB's 2026 African Economic Outlook, released this week in Brazzaville, projects 4.2% GDP growth for Africa in 2026. East Africa leads the continent at 5.9%. A new African Credit Rating Agency, launched in January 2026, aims to end the era of African sovereign debt being mispriced by Western rating agencies. The narrative is shifting.
→ Equity Group expansion: James Mwangi is accelerating Equity Group's push into Central Africa — new banking licenses, new markets, and a target of 15 countries by 2030. Billionaires Africa has the latest →
Global Angle
Africa Is Dreaming of AI Sovereignty. The Infrastructure Belongs to Someone Else.
Four of Africa's biggest tech economies — Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa — have all formally drafted AI strategies with one uncomfortable shared conclusion: their dependence on Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Meta for AI infrastructure is a threat to national security and economic survival. Rest of World published the full picture on May 21. It is worth reading.
A PwC report released May 18 puts numbers on the gap: African organizations invest just 2% of revenue in AI, against a global benchmark of 5%. 82% are running pilots. Very few are scaling.
A proposed $60 billion continental AI fund and a pan-African AI council aim to unify countries currently competing against each other for the same foreign investment.
Meanwhile, a US-Africa AI Symposium in Nairobi this week brought Google, Meta, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, and GE HealthCare to the table. The conversations are happening. The gap is not closing fast enough.
Dish of the Day 🥘
To celebrate DR Congo making the World Cup, we decided to try one of their famous dishes, Moambe Chicken. We have had this before, and it never disappoints.
Palm nut oil, slow cooked with local spices, smothered tender chicken loaded with flavor. This national favorite is usually served over rice or even fufu. I chased my dish with a nice big ginger beer, then I took a long nap 😀.
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