Nigeria has secured over $8 billion (approximately ₦12.8 trillion) in investments in deepwater and gas projects over the past year, according to the Presidency. Olu Verheijen, Special Adviser on Energy to President Bola Tinubu, disclosed this during the 2025 Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, on Wednesday. The announcement was shared in a statement by Senan Murray, Communications Lead in her office.
Verheijen attributed the milestone to strategic policy reforms initiated by the Tinubu administration. These included improvements in fiscal terms, streamlined contracting processes, clearer local content regulations, and reforms in the power sector that enhanced the commercial viability of gas-to-power initiatives.
“These reforms moved us from gridlock to greenlight, and investors responded,” she said, addressing policymakers, investors, and industry leaders at the forum.
Highlighting the shift in ownership, Verheijen noted that Nigeria’s indigenous equity in the gas sector has grown from 69% to 83%, describing it as “a seismic shift in ownership and control of Africa’s energy future.”
She called on African nations to position themselves as investment-ready destinations by designing policies rooted in commercial logic and strategic intent, rather than relying solely on external support.
“Africa must partner smartly—not from a place of dependency but based on aligned strategic interests,” Verheijen emphasized. “Capital doesn’t need convincing when policy, commercial logic, and strategy align. It will pursue us.”
The Special Adviser also praised African private sector players like Seplat, Oando, and Renaissance for evolving from local participants to continental energy champions. She specifically hailed the Renaissance Africa Energy Consortium’s acquisition of Shell’s onshore joint venture as a “symbolic transition from colonial-era concessions to indigenous control.”
She spotlighted the Dangote Refinery—a 650,000 barrels-per-day facility and the largest single-train refinery in the world—as a testament to African ambition and capability.
“Built with African capital, African hands, and African ambition, the Dangote Refinery is more than just infrastructure—it’s evidence that industrial scale in Africa is not aspirational, but operational,” she said.
Verheijen concluded by urging African stakeholders—governments, DFIs, banks, pension funds, and sovereign investors—to fill the gap left by international oil companies, not just with financing, but with appropriate instruments and risk-sharing structures.
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