From Collins Olayinka, Abuja
Nigeria gets $50 billion in 30 years
African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has concluded plans to invest $12 billion to bridge the funding gaps created by the exit of foreign investors as the world shifts energy focus to green energy.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja at the official unveiling of the Afreximbank African Trade Centre (AATC), the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the continental bank, Prof. Benedict Oramah, decried the shift, saying the step put many African countries at risk hence the decision of the bank.
He said: “We took this decision because until President Trump came to power, all banks had abandoned financing fossil fuels on the continent. Yet, many countries, including Nigeria, depended a lot on it. And we found ourselves investing over $12 billion of funding in that direction.”
He added that the Energy Bank, established by the African Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO), which Nigeria would house, was thus expected to address the financing constraints in the oil, gas, and other energy sectors, saying the bank will position Nigeria as a continental hub for mobilising energy financing.
Underscoring the financial assistance extended to Nigeria’s old and gas sector, Oramah disclosed that such facilities had helped boost Nigeria’s oil refining capacity to about 1.2 million barrels per day.
While stressing the urgent need for Africa to become a manufacturing hub, Oramah argued that the present state of most African countries exposed them to economic shocks, explaining why they ran to the Bretton Woods institutions in times of economic trouble.
He said: “Have we asked ourselves why whenever we have a shock, the people in Europe and Asia never go cry to the IMF? It is only Africans that go. We are perpetual debtors to those, who sell manufactured goods to us and that is what makes Africa a commodity-dependent continent. We, therefore, think that one big way to begin to change this is to change the oil sector. Not only in Nigeria but in the Gulf of Guinea.”
He further stated that there was no justification for African countries to be refining less than one million barrels out of about five million barrels that are produced in the Gulf of Guinea.
Oramah pointed out that until recently, African oil was supporting refineries in countries that were not producing even a litre of crude oil. In Nigeria, he hinted that Afreximbank had agreed to provide a dedicated $200 million creative industry facility, saying: “Over the last decade alone, total investment in Nigeria amounted to about $50 billion, spreading across various sectors of energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, healthcare, transport, and financial services. As a result, the Nigerian financial services industry, amounting to $19 billion in the past decade, has helped to deepen and expand the sector and eliminate the impact on the local and global economy.”
