The East African Rift is a divergent plate boundary where the African plate is separating into the Somali and Nubian plates at approximately 8 millimeters per year, comparable to the growth rate of a fingernail. It is a genuine, measurable geological process.
Popular coverage often compresses this into claims that Africa is imminently splitting into two continents and birthing a new ocean. The long-run possibility is real, but the relevant timescale is on the order of tens of millions of years, with estimates that some low-lying regions could be flooded to form a new sea in perhaps 5 to 10 million years or more. Conflating that deep-time trajectory with the present day is the central error in sensational framing.
A concrete illustration came in 2018, when a large fissure opened in Kenya and was widely attributed to the rifting process in real time. Geologists offered a more measured interpretation: while the region is tectonically active, that specific crack was most plausibly the product of heavy rainfall and erosion acting on soft volcanic soils, a surface process, rather than direct, observable plate separation. Distinguishing a single surface event from the slow underlying tectonics is essential. Researchers further caution that a complete continental split is not guaranteed, as the driving forces might be too slow or could stall. Sound interpretation separates three distinct claims: an ongoing, slow, measured process; a contingent, far-future outcome; and the misleading suggestion that the transformation is occurring on a human timescale.