In the evening of July 18, a quiet notice appeared in the Government Gazette of Mauritius. It was not a headline. It was not breaking news. It did not need to be. In a moment where the fate of a continental institution hung in balance, this short legal text carried more weight than any speech or summit. Mauritius had declared the African Network Information Centre, AfriNIC, a “Declared Company” under Section 230 of its Companies Act. The effect was immediate. The pending judicial liquidation was frozen. A line had been drawn.

For months, the legal proceedings in Port Louis had dragged on with ominous weight. What appeared to some as a shareholder dispute had, by July, become something far more dangerous. AfriNIC is not an ordinary company. It is the only Regional Internet Registry serving Africa, responsible for the allocation of IP addresses and the coordination of technical resources that underpin the continent’s digital future. The move to liquidate AfriNIC, led by a private company with an outsized allocation of IPv4 addresses, threatened not only a registry but an entire regional architecture.

In the final week before the Gazette, the tone of the crisis changed. The courtroom drama had reached a level of global attention that could no longer be ignored. Ministers across Africa held discreet calls. Regulatory authorities exchanged legal memoranda. Smart Africa worked through quiet diplomatic channels. International partners began to knock, gently but firmly, on the doors of the Mauritian government. And in Los Angeles, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers sent a letter.

The letter was 15-pages long, signed by ICANN’s President and CEO, Kurt Erik Lindqvist. It was addressed to the Honorable Avinash Ramtohul, Mauritius’s Minister of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation. It was copied to the appointed Receiver of AfriNIC, Mr. Gowtamsingh Dabee. Though carefully worded and diplomatically cautious, the message was unmistakable. The liquidation of AfriNIC would have cascading consequences for Internet stability across Africa and beyond. The paralysis of governance, the freezing of its operations, and the erosion of trust in its institutional core posed a systemic risk. ICANN urged that the matter be treated not as a commercial dissolution but as a challenge to global public infrastructure.

That letter became the final signal. In parallel, a continent-wide network of technologists, legal experts, and civil society actors were preparing an amicus curiae brief for submission to the Supreme Court of Mauritius. The document argued that AfriNIC’s role extended beyond the legal language of incorporation. It had been entrusted by the African community with a public mandate. That mandate could not be undone by private litigation alone. The signatures were still being gathered when the Gazette was issued.

The Gazette did not deliver a solution. It created space. It did not restore AfriNIC to full functionality. It interrupted its dismemberment. It allowed the legal process to continue, but under a different frame, one shaped by public interest and institutional responsibility. It signaled that the Republic of Mauritius, despite its legal caution and diplomatic restraint, was not prepared to let the matter collapse into procedural fatalism.

No statements were issued. No press conference followed. But the message was unmistakable. This was the language of contemporary diplomacy, quiet, juridical, and deliberate. This intervention was not an act of charity toward AfriNIC. It was a decision to prevent institutional humiliation. It was a way for Mauritius to distance itself from the perception that it could be used as a jurisdictional shortcut in a battle over Africa’s digital sovereignty. For a country still navigating the diplomatic legacy of the Diego Garcia agreement, where sovereignty and exclusion continue to cast long shadows , this was a moment of recalibration.

And for Africa, it was a reminder of something deeper. The continent does not always speak in unison. But it can act in rhythm. What unfolded in July was not a victory. It was not even a reprieve. It is a legal fact, a political principle, and a civic demand. And sometimes, all it takes to defend it is a signature in a Gazette.

In the evening of July 18, a quiet notice appeared in the Government Gazette of Mauritius. It was not a headline. It was not breaking news. It did not need to be. In a moment where the fate of a continental institution hung in balance, this short legal text carried more weight than any speech or summit. Mauritius had declared the African Network Information Centre, AfriNIC, a “Declared Company” under Section 230 of its Companies Act. The effect was immediate. The pending judicial liquidation was frozen. A line had been drawn.

For months, the legal proceedings in Port Louis had dragged on with ominous weight. What appeared to some as a shareholder dispute had, by July, become something far more dangerous. AfriNIC is not an ordinary company. It is the only Regional Internet Registry serving Africa, responsible for the allocation of IP addresses and the coordination of technical resources that underpin the continent’s digital future. The move to liquidate AfriNIC, led by a private company with an outsized allocation of IPv4 addresses, threatened not only a registry but an entire regional architecture.

In the final week before the Gazette, the tone of the crisis changed. The courtroom drama had reached a level of global attention that could no longer be ignored. Ministers across Africa held discreet calls. Regulatory authorities exchanged legal memoranda. Smart Africa worked through quiet diplomatic channels. International partners began to knock, gently but firmly, on the doors of the Mauritian government. And in Los Angeles, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers sent a letter.

The letter was 15-pages long, signed by ICANN’s President and CEO, Kurt Erik Lindqvist. It was addressed to the Honorable Avinash Ramtohul, Mauritius’s Minister of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation. It was copied to the appointed Receiver of AfriNIC, Mr. Gowtamsingh Dabee. Though carefully worded and diplomatically cautious, the message was unmistakable. The liquidation of AfriNIC would have cascading consequences for Internet stability across Africa and beyond. The paralysis of governance, the freezing of its operations, and the erosion of trust in its institutional core posed a systemic risk. ICANN urged that the matter be treated not as a commercial dissolution but as a challenge to global public infrastructure.

That letter became the final signal. In parallel, a continent-wide network of technologists, legal experts, and civil society actors were preparing an amicus curiae brief for submission to the Supreme Court of Mauritius. The document argued that AfriNIC’s role extended beyond the legal language of incorporation. It had been entrusted by the African community with a public mandate. That mandate could not be undone by private litigation alone. The signatures were still being gathered when the Gazette was issued.

The Gazette did not deliver a solution. It created space. It did not restore AfriNIC to full functionality. It interrupted its dismemberment. It allowed the legal process to continue, but under a different frame, one shaped by public interest and institutional responsibility. It signaled that the Republic of Mauritius, despite its legal caution and diplomatic restraint, was not prepared to let the matter collapse into procedural fatalism.

No statements were issued. No press conference followed. But the message was unmistakable. This was the language of contemporary diplomacy, quiet, juridical, and deliberate. This intervention was not an act of charity toward AfriNIC. It was a decision to prevent institutional humiliation. It was a way for Mauritius to distance itself from the perception that it could be used as a jurisdictional shortcut in a battle over Africa’s digital sovereignty. For a country still navigating the diplomatic legacy of the Diego Garcia agreement, where sovereignty and exclusion continue to cast long shadows , this was a moment of recalibration.

And for Africa, it was a reminder of something deeper. The continent does not always speak in unison. But it can act in rhythm. What unfolded in July was not a victory. It was not even a reprieve. It is a legal fact, a political principle, and a civic demand. And sometimes, all it takes to defend it is a signature in a Gazette.

Winds from Diego Garcia Shifted the Verdict

Mauritius found itself at the edge of two storms. One was geopolitical, unfolding from the volcanic atolls of the Chagos Archipelago to the corridors of the White House. The other was institutional, anchored in the quiet administrative offices of the Supreme Court of Mauritius, where the fate of AfriNIC was being decided not in plenaries but in gazettes.

To many observers, the two stories appeared disconnected. Yet for those versed in diplomacy and law, they converged upon a single, pressing concern. Could a small island state uphold its hard-earned international standing while presiding, even indirectly, over the collapse of a continental institution vital to African digital sovereignty? Could Mauritius speak the language of justice in The Hague and remain silent in Port Louis?

The question answered itself through silence. There was no press conference, no official statement, only a line in the Government Gazette. A simple administrative act with the resonance of a drumbeat in a council of elders. The liquidation was stayed. Not overturned, not erased, but suspended. This, too, was diplomacy. Quiet, deliberate, and dignified.

Mauritius had claimed sovereignty over Chagos through international law. But sovereignty must be practiced with consistency. You cannot plead for decolonisation on one side of the ocean while risking association with a judicial manoeuvre that could be seen as allowing the strategic capture of an African institution. Timing mattered. In London, critics of the Chagos handover warned of geopolitical leakage. In Washington, concern stirred around the growing reach of Chinese influence through legal and commercial routes. In this climate, allowing the liquidation of AfriNIC to proceed, amid African protests and global silence, would have compromised more than an institution. It would have called into question the very coherence of Mauritius’ international identity.

What the Gazette offered was not a resolution but a reprieve. A moment for reflection. A moment for Africa to realign its voice, for allies to recalculate their steps, and for legal remedies to surface not as weapons but as instruments of repair. The African Internet community read that act not as an ending but as a breath held, a door left ajar.

Mauritius has long positioned itself as a lawful actor, a bridge between continents, and a guardian of small state dignity. In this moment of convergence between Chagos and AfriNIC, it defended not only its legal integrity but its geopolitical soul.

The ceasefire cannot be mistaken for victory

The Extraordinary Gazette of Mauritius halted the liquidation process of AfriNIC. It does so not by withdrawing the insolvency petition but by reclassifying the registry as a Declared Company under Section 230 of the Companies Act. This legal move permits the government to intervene temporarily in the affairs of a company considered vital to the public interest. It is, at best, a statutory pause. Not an annulment. Not a resolution. Not a return to normalcy.