In September 2026, an African oil company set its minimum investment threshold at $3.94 — the price of a cup of coffee — inviting ordinary citizens across the continent and beyond to hold a stake in energy infrastructure that has long belonged to institutions, elites, and foreign capital. The offering, backed by one of Africa's most prominent entrepreneurs, was not merely a financial instrument but a philosophical proposition: that the wealth beneath African soil need not flow only upward. Whether this democratization of ownership marks a durable shift in how resource wealth is distributed, or