BY CHUKWUEMEKA UWANAKA
AT the recently concluded Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) of May 5-8, 2025, in Texas, USA, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), confirmed that the African Export– Import Bank (Afreximbank), led by Nigerian-born Prof. Benedict Okey Oramah, would invest $19 billion to fund the African Energy Bank (AEB). Established in 2024 by Afreximbank and Africa Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (APPO) to address the impending funding crisis in the African oil and gas industry, the opportunities that the Abuja-Nigeria based AEB, which has plans to scale up its capital to $120 billion by 2028 provides for Nigeria, Africa’s leading oil producer, is further testament to the advantages that the country’s human capital in strategic multilateral organisations has provided to the country with a 2025 budget of $36.6 billion (N54.99 trillion). Given the unfolding but defined leadership changes in some of these multilateral economic organisations such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Afreximbank, it further raises concerns on how the country’s foreign affairs establishment is strategically managing such competitive multilateral economic engagements, to ensure sustainable beneficial multilateralism.
To better understand the implications of the changes in these multilateral economic institutions, there is need for a global perspective on what these organisations can mean for leading economies of the world- or those aspiring to. The United States of America retains leadership of the World Bank (WB), similar to how Europe leads the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and China leads the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). There is clarity on what leadership and influence in leading multilateral economic institutions means for their domestic economic development. The same can also apply to Nigeria regarding multilateral economic organisations, especially in Africa.
And what are the unfolding changes in the leadership of some of these African economic organisations?
Dr. Akinwumi Adesina will conclude his ten-year tenure as President of AfDB on September 1, 2025, while Prof. Benedict Okey Oramah will also complete his ten-year tenure as President and Chairman of the Board of Afreximbank in September 2025. There is therefore the need to assess next steps for Nigeria, within the nexus of multilateral economic human capital and domestic economic development. That both men emerged as Presidents and leaders of Africa’s leading multilateral financial institutions in 2015, says a lot about the capacity and comprehension of Nigeria’s political leadership at the time, regarding the relationship between multilateral economic organisations and domestic economic development, especially former President Goodluck Jonathan, under whose tenure, Nigeria emerged as Africa’s largest economy, the continent’s leading investment destination and also a global destination for investment. That Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the then Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of Economy under President Jonathan had a previous career in multilateral economic institutions especially as Managing Director of the World Bank, would have also been an influencing factor, as she successfully led Dr. Adesina’s campaign for the AfDB presidency in 2015, following his nomination by President Jonathan.
Nigeria’s economic history further buttresses the importance of multilateral economic capacity. With the return to democracy in 1999, Nigeria under President Olusegun Obasanjo advocated internationally for foreign debt relief, as foreign debt servicing consumed a large chunk of government revenue. Obasanjo in a strategic move, appointed the then World Bank Vice President, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Nigeria’s Finance Minister. She then led economic efforts to negotiate the liquidation of Nigeria’s foreign debt of $30 billion, with a huge discount of $18 billion. A foreign debt-free Nigeria was subsequently able to fund its most comprehensive energy expansion programme, alongside other socioeconomic reforms.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala returned to the World Bank as Managing Director and number two position in 2007, before returning as Finance Minister under President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011 to 2015, during which sustained economic reforms culminated in Nigeria emerging as Africa’s largest economy in 2014, and among the leading investment destinations in the world. That she subsequently emerged as World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director General in 2021 where she is currently serving her second term, comes as no surprise about the distinguished Nigerian, whose father and Professor of Statistics/Economics Obi (Prof ) Chukwuka Okonjo, had a working stint at the United Nations from 1974 to 1985. During the period, he installed the first African population information network known as the Population Information and Documentation System for Africa (POSA) in Ghana, and was conferred with the Companion of the Order of the Star of Ghana (CSG), the highest civil national award from the Government of Ghana in 2016. In his later role as Education Adviser to Ghana’s Minister of Education and Culture from 1985, he was instrumental in conceptualizing and implementing several reforms that reduced the length of pre-tertiary education from 17 to 12 years, increasing secondary school admission from 26,000 to 260,000 and 12 per cent per annum growth in primary school enrolment- twice the rate approved by the World Bank for Ghana.
Back to Adesina, Oramah, and Nigeria. As he ends his tenure as President of AfDB in September 2025, which is owned by 54 African states and G7 nations such as the US and Japan- with Nigeria as its largest shareholder at 9.3 percent, Dr. Adesina has had a successful tenure. Beginning in 2015 with the launch of the ‘High 5s’ development priorities: Light Up and Power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa, he led the bank to the largest capital increase in its history, from $93 billion in 2015 to $318 billion; the record replenishment of the African Development Fund, raising it to $8.9 billion; with over 565 million Africans benefitting directly and indirectly from the Bank’s investments under his leadership. The disbursements during this time were about $10 billion annually to reach $100 billion in 2025 ending.
The Bank launched a $1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF) in 2022 to prevent a food crisis from the Russia-Ukraine war, by supporting 20 million farmers to access climate resilient agricultural technologies and produce 38 million metric tons of food valued at $12 billion. The Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) program was initiated across 18 African countries, while food security was enhanced on the continent, with over 101 million people becoming food secure, and $72 billion mobilized for food and agriculture delivery compacts. While about 127 million gained access to better health services, 61 million to clean water, 28 million more people to electricity, 121 million people to improved transport, and 33 million to improved sanitation, the Affirmative Finance Action for Women (AFAWA) initiative provided $2.5 billion for 24,000 women-owned businesses.
The Bank spent over $55 billion in infrastructure within the ten-year period to make AfDB Africa’s largest multilateral financier of infrastructure.
Still on infrastructure, while Africa50 was established and has raised over $1 billion to accelerate private sector investment in infrastructure, the Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa (AGIA) has mobilized $10 billion for green infrastructure, while $3 billion was invested in quality health infrastructure, and another $3 billion to enhance the continent’s pharmaceutical capacity. The Mission 300 Energy Summit of 2025 by AfDB, World Bank Group, and other partners, is designed to provide 300 million more Africans with access to electricity by 2030. While the Africa Investment Forum was established in 2018 and has mobilized over $200 billion of investment interest, the African Financing Stability Mechanism was established with the mandate of the African Union Assembly to provide at least $20 billion in debt refinancing for African countries.
