Likeliest African countries to begin industrializing in the 19th century?

From what I hear, the Sokoto caliphate wouldn't be a bad choice, had good administration, guns, access to coal, I hear they had a good road network, textile industry and rapid urbanization, but they were landlocked, didn't have very good infrastructure besides those roads and lacked a lot of unity and cohesion.
 
What would be the best POD for Ethiopia?

(For some reason this keeps being my answer in every thread)

Something that creates a Christian Egypt. This allows European trade and ideas to flow into Ethiopia in greater amounts than OTL. However, the PoD for this would be centuries, if not millennia, earlier than everything else talked about in this thread so far. In addition, Egypt itself might have an easier time industrializing in such a world.
 
You need to go back pretty far. There were kingdoms that rivaled if not greater than the European Powers in the 1400s. The real issue you had was with their inability to remain stable. Many kingdoms and tribes dominated large areas of Africa, but very few were able to hold onto and cultivate that powerbase. There are changes that made then could work towards and industrialised African Kingdom.

Without that Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia would be my best bets.
 
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