The new Afreximbank President, Dr. George Elombi, made the commitment during his swearing-in ceremony, where he outlined an ambitious industrialisation agenda aimed at halting the export of unprocessed commodities across the continent.
Declaring an end to Africa’s role as a supplier of raw materials, Elombi said the bank will prioritise domestic processing and manufacturing to drive job creation, infrastructure development, and sustainable economic growth.
“No more Nigerian bauxite, or Gabonese manganese, or Cameroonian bauxite, or South African bauxite, raw. We are not interested. We will focus on domestic processing. This has numerous benefits,” Elombi stated.
He reaffirmed Afreximbank’s commitment to partnering with Ogun State on the development of a fabric processing zone, describing it as a model project aligned with the bank’s goal of promoting industrial clusters across Africa.
According to Elombi, Afreximbank will create a new high-impact financing window to support industries that convert raw minerals and materials into semi-finished or finished products. He also announced plans for a Strategic Minerals Development Programme to finance entire value chains—from extraction and refining to manufacturing finished components.
The Afreximbank president highlighted that while less than 20% of investments in Africa typically go to mineral extraction, the remaining 80% is directed toward enabling infrastructure such as roads, ports, railways, and power stations. He said the bank will channel funds into bridging these gaps to support industrialisation.
“We will accelerate investments in critical trade-enabling infrastructure projects that directly connect African markets to one another,” Elombi said.
He added that Afreximbank will invest in modernising seaports, building logistics hubs, constructing highways and rail lines, and developing pipelines and warehousing facilities—with a special focus on linking production centres to markets to reduce logistics costs and improve competitiveness.
Elombi also revealed that the bank is working with African nations that generate excess electricity to build transmission lines to power-deficient regions, as part of a continent-wide energy integration plan.
With Ogun State already positioning itself as a manufacturing hub, the partnership with Afreximbank is expected to accelerate Nigeria’s drive toward value-added production, create jobs, and strengthen Africa’s collective march toward industrial self-reliance.