The current issue of the Journal of African Foreign Affairs (JoAFA) comes at a particularly important moment in the international context. From South Africa’s national and municipal diplomacy to Nigeria’s security predicaments, the authors have aptly analyzed current issues in the state of African affairs. The inclusion of the global phenomenon of forced migration, the geopolitics of BRICS+, and the vicissitudes of ECOWAS is a testimony that JoAFA firmly participates in the geopolitics of the production of innovative ideas. Each of the original BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has a different kind of issue with United States. ECOWAS countries face security challenges with the proliferation of non-state armed groups in the Sahara-Sahel. While developed countries are likely to experience eventually a “geriatric peace” due the loss of and increasingly aging population, youth bulge is a factor of instability in the continent of Africa. Imagination is crucial in the governance of African states, and innovative ideas should be encouraged for citizens. This implies an inclusive and deliberative democracy. Contrary to previous periods when empires, including the colonial ones, emerged due to newfound power, no country in today’s world is experiencing galloping economic and technological progress ahead of everyone else that could allow an imperial impulse.