It seems you’re not really familar with what’s happening in Africa right now and I can’t fault you for that because Western media has been terrible about reporting about what we’re doing to Africa. (Please excuse me if I’m completely off here, I can only go with what you provided thus far.)
According to my research a lot of countries on the African continent are actively working towards dedollarization by building independent central bank transfer infrastructure to finally get rid of the shackles of Western neo-colonial soft power and China/Russia/BRICS are a god-sent for them.
And thinking that Putin doesn’t have influence (and thus, he has to pretend otherwise) is kinda… ignorant?