Tropical lands play an important role in the global carbon cycle yet their contribution remains uncertain owing to sparse observations. Satellite observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) have greatly increased spatial coverage over tropical regions, providing the potential for improved estimates of terrestrial fluxes. Despite this advancement, the spread among satellite-based and in-situ atmospheric CO₂ flux inversions over northern tropical Africa (NTA), spanning 0-24◦N, remains large. Satellite-based estimates of an annual source of 0.8-1.45 PgC yr⁻¹ challenge our understanding of tropical and global carbon cycling. Here, we compare posterior mole fractions from the suite of inversions participating in the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) Version 10 Model Intercomparison Project (v10 MIP) with independent in-situ airborne observations made over the tropical Atlantic Ocean by the NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission during four seasons. We develop emergent constraints on tropical African CO₂ fluxes using flux-concentration relationships defined by the model suite. We find an annual flux of 0.14 ± 0.39 PgC yr⁻¹ (mean and standard deviation) for NTA, 2016-2018. The satellite-based flux bias suggests a potential positive concentration bias in OCO-2 B10 and earlier version retrievals over land in NTA during the dry season. Nevertheless, the OCO-2 observations provide improved flux estimates relative to the in situ observing network at other times of year, indicating stronger uptake in NTA during the wet season than the in-situ inversion estimates.