The President and Chairman of Afreximbank, Prof. Benedict Oramah disclosed this at the Commissioning of the Afreximbank African Trade Centre (AATC) in Abuja on Thursday.

Oramah said the sectors included energy, infrastructural, manufacturing, healthcare, transport and financial services.

He added that in the last 10 years, the bank’s support to the Nigerian financial services industry amounted to 19 billion dollars.

“This has helped to deepen and expand the sector and elevated their impact on the local economy.”

According to Oramah, the bank is set to commission a 750 million dollar 500-bed African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE) in Abuja in June.

He said the 500-bed medical centre was a quaternary medical facility built to avail top-class care to Africans in the vital areas of oncology, cardiology, and haematology.

Oramah said other interventions by the bank in Nigeria included the operationalisation of the African Quality Assurance Centre (AQAC) in Ogun State.

He said the centre was designed to ease quality infrastructure constraints of exporting agricultural and value-added goods into regional and international markets.

Oramah said similar projects were under development in the states of Imo and Kaduna.

He said in 2024, Nigeria was selected to host the Africa Energy Bank, which was established by Afreximbank and the African Petroleum Producer’s Organisation (APPO).

Oramah explained that the bank was also expected to address the financing constraints in the oil, gas and other energy sectors.

“The Energy Bank will position Nigeria as the continental hub for mobilising energy financing.”

He added that in Ogun, a Special Economic Zone was being developed by Afreximbank’s investee company, Arise Integrated Industrial Platform.

“This over 300 million dollar project is being developed to promote export manufacturing and similar projects are expected in Cross Rivers, Imo, Enugu and Kano States.”

Oramah said the bank’s financing support to Nigeria had also helped to boost the oil refining capacity to about 1.2 million barrels per day.

He added that it also helped to boost urea fertiliser production to 7.5 million tonnes per annum, up from under four million tonnes in 2019.

“We expect urea capacity to rise to about 11 million tonnes by 2027 when Dangote Petrochemical company opens the new lines under development.

“These are remarkable and are contributing significantly to Nigeria’s non-oil export revenues.”

He said Afreximbank was also investing in growing the country’s creative sector, through credit lines support, capacity-building initiatives and market access opportunities.

Oramah said recently the bank opened a dedicated 200 million facility to support the sector under an ongoing partnership with the Federal Ministry of Culture and Creative Industry.

He said the support had helped Nigeria to boost the export of its creative content to the rest of Africa and the world while boosting youth employment.

“These projects and interventions add to the significant investments committed by Afreximbank since its inception some 32 years ago.

“ I am most pleased to put on record that the relationship between the Bank and the Federal Government of Nigeria has been truly mutually beneficial and most cordial.

“Over the last three decades, successive governments have accorded unflinching support to Afreximbank by responding most positively to capital calls.

“Also creating a congenial environment for its smooth operations while providing the bank significant domestic policy support that helped to execute many of the development programmes in Nigeria.”(NAN)

The community disclosed its position at a press conference in Port Harcourt on Thursday following the recent takeover of SPDC of joint venture operations by Renaissance.

Renaissance, a consortium of indigenous and international oil firms, acquired SPDC following recent divestment by Shell UK from onshore operations.

Speaking on behalf of Kula people, Chief Anabs Sara-Igba, said that SPDC incurred liabilities while operating OML-25, an oil facility in the community.

Sara-Igbe, further said that liabilities arising from decades of oil exploration by Shell halted resumption of operations on the facility.

He said that OML-25, with a production capacity of 45,000, barrels of crude oil per day, had been shutdown for about 15 years.

“This followed gross neglect and failure of the firm to employ, undertake social responsibility and environmental preservation projects for more than 67 years.

“We insist that the new operator should inherit all liabilities of SPDC before they will be allowed to operate.

”We are requesting for a stakeholders’ engagement with them to enable us to understand the company’s obligations and models of implementation.

“These moves will enable us to avoid the unfair treatment meted on the community by SPDC,” he said.

Sara-Igbe urged the Federal Government to ensure prompt environmental remediation activities by the operators to restore the ecosystem and livelihoods in the community

Also speaking, the President, National Youth Council of Nigeria, Mr Sukubo Sara-Igbe, expressed worries that the new company had already inherited SPDC staff.

“Retaining SPDC staff who were complicit in the dispute with the host communities may undermine trust and sincere engagement,” he said.(NAN)