The African Ten

As best as I can tell, Africa will eliminate five teams before the November preliminary draw in Durban in order to get its membership down to 48 teams. In order to do this, there would have to be a series of home-and-away ties between Africa's worst 10 teams according to FIFA rankings. I would assume that the draw for these five ties would take a form similar to Asia's first round. Pot A would have the higher-ranked teams, and they would randomly be parternered with a team from Pot B.

Pot A: Swaziland/Niger, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Comoros
Pot B: Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Djibouti, São Tomé e Príncipe

Niger and Swaziland are only two ranking points apart in FIFA's rankings. Both teams have games on September 8 which may influence their rankings enough to alter Pot A. Swaziland plays Eritrea and Niger faces Uganda. Currently, Niger is ranked high enough to move straight through to the draw at Durban.