FID on $25bn Nigeria-Morocco pipeline for Dec — Kyari
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari has said that the Final Investment Decision for the $25bn Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline Project will be made in December 2024.
Kyari made the disclosure while speaking during a Leadership Dialogue Session at the ongoing CERAWeek Conference in Houston, United States, on Tuesday.
According to him, the project, which is at an advanced stage, will create a pipeline that will pass through thirteen African countries to Europe.
Kyari stated that the NNPC Ltd’s focus is to build its capacity to deliver gas to the domestic market and beyond.
He pointed out that as a gas-endowed country, Nigeria must utilise its abundant gas resources to provide the alternative fuel that it needs.
“We understand the arguments towards attaining energy transition, but the cheapest way to achieve that is through gas. We see clear opportunities that gas creates. Today we are building a number of trunklines and other gas infrastructure that will supply gas to a number of gas networks,” Kyari said.
Kyari also said Nigeria was fighting the menace of crude oil theft frontally and through the joint efforts of government and private security agencies, there have been some reasonable improvements in the restoration of the nation’s crude oil production.
He added, “It is an abnormal situation, but it is well within control. We were able to recover some of our production and build back confidence so that investors could bring in their money. We are also doing global advocacy to governments and institutions because stolen oil has to be taken to the market.”
He said an example of the improved security situation was when in 2022, Nigeria’s production fell below one million barrels per day but has now been restored to 1.7 million barrels per day.
As global calls for transition to cleaner energy fuels continue to grow, Kyari also advocated for a differentiated approach to attaining energy transition for the African continent.
According to him, energy transition is a very difficult subject for countries especially in sub-Saharan Africa because geographically, the situations are different as a number of the countries are dealing with energy availability, not transition.
“The world has seen all the challenges thrown up recently by geopolitical events. It is clear that before the energy transition, countries must first attain security of energy supply in their countries. You cannot talk about energy security when it is not even available.
“In most of sub-Saharan Africa, 70 per cent of the population doesn’t have access to clean cooking fuels. Therefore, you must fill the supply gap first,” the NNPCL GCEO stated.
Organised by S&P Global, the conference has grown in recent years to accommodate new energy technologies and climate issues. The 2024 conference is expected to have participants from over 90 countries and will feature 1,400 speakers.
Under the theme “Multidimensional Energy Transition: Markets, Climate, Technology and Geopolitics” the CERAWeek 2024 will explore “strategies for a multidimensional, multispeed and multifuel energy transition,” as the global energy industry tries to respond to, and offer insight into the roadmap towards, growing demand for emissions reductions and moving towards cleaner forms of energy.
Savannah Energy to acquire Nigerian unit of China’s Sinopec
British energy company, Savannah Energy Plc, has signed separate Share Purchase Agreements with Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Corporation and Jagal Ventures Limited to acquire 100 per cent of the outstanding share capital of its Nigerian unit, Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Nigeria Limited.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the firm said that the Nigerian unit’s principal asset was a 49 per cent non-operated interest in the Stubb Creek oil and gas field located in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.
It added that an affiliate of Savannah, Universal Energy Resources Limited, is the 51 per cent owner and operator.
The statement read, “The SIPC SPA will see Savannah Energy SC Limited (a wholly owned subsidiary of Savannah) acquire a 75 per cent equity interest in SIPEC for cash consideration of $52m, payable on completion and subject to customary adjustments for a transaction of this nature from 1 September 2023.
“The Jagal SPA will see Savannah Energy SC Limited acquire a 25 per cent equity interest in SIPEC for cash consideration of $7.5m (without adjustment), payable on completion, plus $2m in deferred cash consideration payable in eight equal quarterly instalments post-completion.
“The transaction consideration is expected to be funded through a new bank debt facility arranged by The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited and the existing cash resources of the Company. Completion under each of the SPAs is subject to the parties’ satisfaction of customary conditions precedent, including certain regulatory approvals, as well as a mechanism ensuring that completion under both SPAs occurs simultaneously.”
The Chief Executive Officer of Savannah Energy, Andrew Knott, commenting on the deal said, “Savannah remains committed to growing our core business in Nigeria through a combination of both value accretive acquisitions and organic projects. This is reflected in this announcement of the SIPEC Acquisition.
“The base case acquisition has been priced in line with our expected returns criteria, with the identified upside cases (the oil de-bottlenecking and new gas sales to Accugas projects) hoped to add significant value to the Stubb Creek field over time.”
As of December 2023, SIPEC had an estimated 8.1 MMstb of 2P oil reserves and 227 Bscf of 2C Contingent gas resources.
SIPEC oil production is estimated at an average for 2024 of 1.4 Kbopd. Savannah’s Reserve and Resource base will increase by approximately 46 MMboe following the completion of the SIPEC Acquisition.
The firm said that it anticipates that within 12 months following the completion of the SIPEC Acquisition, Stubb Creek’s gross production should increase by approximately 2.7 Kbopd to approximately 4.7 Kbopd through the implementation of a de-bottlenecking programme.
This deal will secure significant additional feedstock gas available for sale to Savannah’s 80 per cent-owned Nigerian gas processing and distribution subsidiary, Accugas Limited.
Currently, Accugas has eight principal gas customers, including large thermal power stations, such as Calabar Generation Company Limited, as well as key industrial players, such as Lafarge Africa PLC and Central Horizon Gas Company Limited.
‘3% growth rate may double poverty level by 2050’
A member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Aloysius Ordu, has warned that if the Nigerian economy continues to grow at three per cent, the country’s level of poverty may double by 2050.
He stated this was at the last MPC meeting, which was published on the website of the apex bank on Monday.
During the meeting, Ordu voted to increase the monetary policy rate by 450 basis points to 23.25 per cent and raise the Cash Reserve Ratio of banks to 45 per cent.
Ordu had insisted that a robust plan from the authorities would be instrumental to getting the Nigerian economy back on its feet.
He said, “To address the associated challenges, it would thus require a whole-government approach to map out and execute a programme of economic diversification and structural transformation. A robust revival of Nigeria’s economy is needed simply to prevent the number of poor people from increasing beyond the current 133 million multi-dimensionally poor in 2022 (National Bureau of Statistics).
“Based on the performance of comparable lower middle-income countries, even an ambitious growth target of six to seven per cent throughout the next two and a half decades would still leave millions of poor people by 2050, when Nigeria will rank as the third most populous country in the world.
“More troubling, if growth continues at around the current three per cent a year, the number of people living in absolute poverty would likely double by 2050.”
The International Monetary Fund had downgraded Nigeria’s economic growth projections for 2024 to three per cent from the 3.1 per cent it forecast in October.
In its ‘World Economic Outlook Update, January 2024,’ the IMF estimated that Nigeria’s economy grew by 2.8 per cent, a slight decline from the 2.9 per cent it forecasted in October.
The international lender expected Nigeria’s economy to grow by a percentage point to 3.1 per cent in 2025.
Its 2024 projection was less than the 3.76 per cent the country’s government expects in 2024.
Ordu is one of the 12 members of the MPC, who meet to determine the country’s benchmark borrowing rate.
The next MPC meeting is scheduled to take place later this month.
Speaking on Ordu’s fears, an economist with the School of Management and Social Sciences, Pan-Atlantic University, Professor Bright Eregha, maintained that the indices looked gloomy for Nigeria if cogent steps were not taken to reverse the current trend.
Eregha told the Newsmen, “If we are going to grow by three per cent, the highest that can happen is that our GDP will double. Currently, our GDP is about $400bn, which is about $800bn when doubled, but don’t forget that our population will grow.
“If GDP doubles and population remains the same way in terms of growth level, it is fair to project that poverty will double, especially with the current fiscal stance of the government, which is not prudent enough and is even causing what I call money growth because money supply is increasing by the day and it is coming from recent FAAC allocations, which indicates that we have too much naira chasing dollars.”
According to the don, the money growth is inflationary to the economy and causes exchange rate instability, and by implication, purchasing power will keep falling.
He reiterated that Ordu’s fears may yet come to pass but offered up some solutions.
“Maybe we can come out of this if we are able to grow by about seven to 10 per cent. Maybe in the next five years, we can say we will grow by about seven per cent but we have to grow to double digits.
“We have to ensure that our inflation rate is checked and our policy stance is coordinated to drive productivity in the long run and that will take us from the major source of our export, which is oil, to the non-oil sector,” Eregha said.
Pan African Towers has appointed Oladipo Badru as its new Chief Financial Officer
In a statement on Tuesday, the firm said the appointment comes at a key moment in the company’s growth, with the recent influx of fresh investments from Development Partners International and Verod Capital to solidify its position as Nigeria’s largest homegrown digital infrastructure provider.
It said Badru would play a key role in tracking cash flow and managing investments and capital structure for sustained profitability.
According to the firm, Badru brings a robust skill set and an excellent reputation in financial management from over two decades of experience across diverse industries, where he has led significant transformation and change initiatives.
Until his appointment, Badru was the Group Director of Finance at Etisalat Dubai, leading the finance, commercial and business development teams.
He previously served as the Head of Budget and Planning and Director of Finance at 9mobile. He was formerly the General Manager of Financial Reporting and Planning at Helios Towers Nigeria and Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at Pan African Towers, Azeez Amida, said, “We are delighted to have Oladipo join the management team at PAT.
“We are confident in Oladipo’s capabilities and look forward to the immense value his experience will bring to PAT’s executive team.”
In his response, Badru said, “These are very exciting times for the Nigerian telecom industry. I look forward to contributing my quota to Nigeria’s largest homegrown digital infrastructure provider, especially at such an interesting time as this.
“Nigeria is a huge market, and I am optimistic about the growth we can achieve in collaboration with our clients.”
Incompatibility impedes cross-border financial transactions in Africa despite opportunities
SODIQ OJUROUNGBE writes on how the lack of compatibility between different banking systems across African countries makes cross-border payments a frustrating and time-consuming process.
Laolu Adegoke was one of the Nigerian football fans who attended the just concluded African Cup of Nations held in Côte d’Ivoire. He needed to send money home to his family, so he headed to the local branch of a Nigerian bank in Abidjan. However, when he tried to make a transfer, he was told that it was not possible because of the lack of interoperability between different payment systems; the bank could not access his information registered with the branch of the bank in Nigeria.
Adegoke felt frustrated and anxious, knowing that his family was relying on the money to pay for an emergency. He spent the next few hours walking around Abidjan in search of a way to send money home.
He visited several money transfer agents, but none of them could process the transfer because he had not been able to convert the money to the local legal tender in Cote d’Ivoire.
He later resorted to calling a friend in Nigeria, who assisted him in sending the money to his family, while he promised to refund it when he returned.
Narrating his experience to our correspondent, Adegoke expressed displeasure that a customer care representative at the bank he went to told him he could not send money back home as there was no way they could access his account despite being domiciled in the same bank.
“They told me there is no link between my bank in Nigeria and that of Cote d’Ivoire. My family was counting on this money for the emergency, and I was just powerless to help them. I had to just beg my friend who came through for me.
“I was disappointed this could happen because I was thinking there should be some level of connectivity that allows cross-border interaction among the banks. Sadly, that was not the case.
“There is no interoperability among the banks, thus making transactions somewhat difficult for foreigners who want to operate their local bank accounts,” Adegoke lamented.
In Africa, sending money across African borders has long been a source of frustration for both individuals and businesses.
Findings by the Newsmen showed that the lack of interoperability between different payment systems meant that payments could take weeks or even months to arrive, and tracking them down could be a nightmare.
Experts, who spoke with our correspondent, noted that the incompatibility of payment systems was the root cause of issues faced in financial payment across African countries.
They stressed the importance of interoperability which would enable efficient and secure transfer of funds between individuals, businesses, and financial institutions from different countries.
According to them, despite the widespread use of digital payment solutions, financial inclusion and economic efficiency in Africa’s payments environment are hampered by the lack of interoperability between platforms, providers, and nations.
Similar challenges
The Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr Kenneth Ashigbey, narrated how he was unable to transfer funds from his Ghana account due to the incompatibility of payment systems between Nigeria and his country’s bank.
He added, “I had an almost similar case recently when I visited Nigeria. At the hotel I lodged in Nigeria, while I was checking out, the attendant undercharged me but I didn’t know. So, when I got back to Ghana, I received a call from the lady begging me to make the payment.
“I tried all I could from Ghana just to send the money, but nothing worked until I called a friend in Nigeria to help me make the payment.”
The telecommunication expert noted that cross-border payments, or transfers of money between payers and recipients located in separate nations, were expanding globally along with digital transactions.
He explained that cross-border payment interoperability allows different payment systems and networks to work seamlessly with one another across national borders.
AU’s intervention
Aside from fintech solutions, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System popularly called PAPSS, created by the African Continental Free Trade Area, was introduced by the African Union in 2023 to reduce payment barriers throughout the continent.
According to the AU, PAPSS is a centralised financial market infrastructure that reduces risk and promotes financial integration throughout the continent of Africa by facilitating the safe and effective movement of funds across borders.
It further stated that PAPSS would support financial inclusion, improve inter-African trade, and advance the goals of the ACFTA as additional central banks and financial institutions joined this network.
During the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Nigerian Exchange Limited and PAPSS in 2023, the President of Afreximbank, Prof Benedict Oramah, said, “We cannot promote investment and growth on our continent without integrating our capital markets and our securities market. The role of PAPSS is critical in helping to achieve this.”
The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Exchange Limited, Temi Popoola, during the signing, also said, “There are not several mechanisms by which investors can carry out cross-border capital market investments on the African continent.”
According to him, one challenge that all of the mechanisms faced was local currency non-compatibility across African countries and, by extension, African exchanges.
“It is important to efficiently settle transactions in local currencies and this is where the collaboration between the NGX and PAPSS comes in,” he added.
PAPSS remains solution
Experts, however, noted that PAPSS’s rapid payment feature eliminates the need for participants to exchange their local currencies for hard currencies, which would have required sending the money out of Africa and back to the beneficiary bank.
According to them, PAPSS would enable financial intermediaries such as commercial banks, payment service providers, and others to connect to the network and support a streamlined procedure that lowers the expenses and complexity of foreign currency for cross-border transactions between African markets.
Experts believe that PAPSS will provide a number of benefits, including faster and more efficient payments, low costs, improved transparency, and greater access to financial services.
They noted that PAPSS was also expected to boost financial inclusion in Africa, by providing access to digital financial services for those who were currently excluded from the formal financial system.
According to them, PAPSS will not only make cross-border payments cheaper and faster, but it will also improve transparency and security.
The Chief Executive Officer of Cyberwarrior, Oladele Igbagboyemi, stated that PAPSS would help to promote financial inclusion in Africa.
The digital expert noted that PAPSS would make cross-border payments cheaper and more efficient, adding that it would encourage people to use formal financial services rather than relying on informal systems.
He further said, “This will help to bring more people into the financial system, and will improve their access to financial products and services.
“In addition, PAPSS is expected to stimulate economic growth in Africa by increasing trade and investment. It will make it easier for businesses to pay suppliers and receive payments from customers, which will encourage them to expand their operations.
“PAPSS is also expected to benefit the African diaspora, by making it easier for them to send money home. Currently, it can be expensive and difficult for people living outside of Africa to send money to their families back home. PAPSS will make this process much simpler and cheaper.”
Corroborating this, an economist, Ibrahim Usman, noted that PAPSS had the potential to transform the way people and businesses sent and received money across Africa.
“PAPSS will help to reduce the cost of remittances and improve financial inclusion in Africa. This will make it easier for Africans to send and receive money and will encourage more investment in the continent. PAPSS is a very promising initiative, and I am excited to see how it will impact the lives of ordinary Africans.
“It has the potential to revolutionise the way we do business in Africa and to bring about much-needed economic growth. I am convinced that PAPSS will make a real difference to the lives of ordinary Africans,” he concluded.
This report is produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop.
Largest UK aid package to feed 275,000 people in Gaza amid warnings of ‘imminent famine’
The UK has provided food for 275,000 people in Gaza as Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron called for “sustained humanitarian access” to the territory’s besieged population.
More than 2,000 tonnes of food aid distributed by the UK has crossed the border and will be distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP).
It comes as a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a partnership of more than a dozen governments, UN aid and other agencies that determines the severity of food crises, warned “famine is imminent” in Gaza.
Lord Cameron urged Israel to allow more aid into the war-torn territory.
“It’s crucial that we keep the flow of aid moving into Gaza to end the suffering, and that’s why this latest delivery of aid by WFP is so vitally important,” he said.
“The IPC’s report warns of imminent famine. We need sustained humanitarian access by road to get more aid in.
“We continue to push Israel to allow more crossings to open and for longer, and for healthcare, water and sanitation to be restored.”
The foreign secretary wants Israel to increase capacity to safely distribute aid within Gaza, such as by opening a land crossing in the north and issuing more visas to UN staff to deliver supplies.
What does the delivery contain?
The latest UK-funded delivery was facilitated by Jordan, which has played a key role in supporting the UK’s humanitarian response to the crisis.
The delivery includes fortified wheat flour for use in bakeries and food parcels which will be used to feed more than 275,000 people.
Each food parcel is designed for a family of five and consists of canned vegetables, meat and fish, and date bars.
The parcel can supply half of the daily calorie needs of a family for 15 days.
It follows 150 tonnes of UK-funded relief items including blankets and tents, as well as a full field hospital run by UK-Med which is now operational and providing life-saving care.
Libya coastguard accused of hampering attempt to save more than 170 people
An NGO performing search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean has accused the Libyan coastguard of hampering an attempt to save more than 170 people making the perilous journey across the sea to Europe.
In a statement, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said its ship had come to the rescue of two boats in international waters on Saturday: a small fibreglass boat carrying 28 people and a double-deck wooden vessel with 143 people onboard, which appeared to be in distress.
The organisation said that as it approached the larger boat, the Libyan coastguard (LCG) also came near and “performed dangerous manoeuvres” that put the people onboard, mostly Syrian refugees, at even greater risk.
In a video taken by crew on a support aircraft operated by the maritime rescue NGOSea-Watch, a patrol vessel moves into position between two rigid dinghies operated by MSF, one of which has already started taking people onboard. The positioning makes it impossible for the second dinghy to move towards the vessel in distress.
A man on the aircraft footage is heard saying: “They are trying to intimidate the second RIB.” A woman’s voice on the plane is heard saying: “What they are doing is, like, really, really, really dangerous.”
Juan Matías Gil, the head of the MSF’s search and rescue mission in Rome, said the Libyan coastguard had attempted to tow away one of the dinghies. “We were never going to allow this. We [the ship Geo Barents] are running under the Norwegian flag so the boat is Norwegian territory in international water. We don’t know where we would have ended up if they had managed to board our boat,” he said.
Gil said the interference with its mission lasted “for around two hours” despite communicating in English and Arabic with the Libyan coastguard, which under international law is obliged to rescue anyone in distress. “It was only after tense negotiations and calls to the Norwegian and the Italian and Libyan authorities did they finally leave but not before making further threats towards us,” MSF said.
The people onboard the ships were “mostly from Syria” and included a number of children under 13 and a number of unaccompanied minors, Gil added.
The incident came after survivors said as many as 60 people had died last week in the Mediterranean after setting out from Zawiya on the Libyan coast. The 25 survivors said their dinghy’s engine had broken down after three days, leaving the group adrift for days before being rescued by another humanitarian group, SOS Méditerranée.
Improved weather has prompted an increase in the number of people being smuggled across the Mediterranean in dangerously ill-suited vessels.
Later on Saturday, with the assistance of the maritime rescue coordination centre in Libya and the Italian authorities, MSF recused 75 people from an overcrowded fibreglass boat that had capsized, 45 of whom had fallen into the water.
According to the latest data from Frontex, the EU border agency, 4,315 people made the crossing from north Africa to the EU across the Mediterranean in January and February, with an increase in numbers expected in the coming weeks.
The International Organization for Migration said last week the Mediterranean continued to be the most dangerous route for migrants and refugees with more than 3,000 deaths and disappearances in 2023 and 300 so far this year.
The EU, which provides financial support to the Libyan coastguard for training and for vessels, said all authorities had acted in compliance with international law.
A spokesperson for the European Commission said: “We are not able to control the actions by individuals. When it comes to search and rescue it is clear that search and rescue is an international obligation for everyone and international maritime law is very clear. All actions that put people’s lives at risk must be avoided at all times.”
South Sudan closes schools in preparation for 45C heatwave
South Sudan is closing all schools from Monday in preparation for an extreme heatwave expected to last two weeks.
The health and education ministries have advised parents to keep all children indoors as temperatures are expected to soar to 45C (113F).
They warned that any school found open during the warning period would have its registration withdrawn, but the statement issued late on Saturday did not specify how long schools would remain closed.
The ministries said they “will continue to monitor the situation and inform the public accordingly”.
Peter Garang, who lives in the capital, Juba, welcomed the decision. He said schools should be connected to the electricity grid to enable the installation of air conditioners.
South Sudan, one of the world’s youngest nations, is particularly vulnerable to the climate crisis with heatwaves common but rarely exceeding 40C (104F). Civil conflict has plagued the east African country, which also suffers drought and flooding, making living conditions difficult.
The World Food Programme in its latest country brief said South Sudan “continues to face a dire humanitarian crisis” due to violence, economic instability, climate change and an influx of people fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Sudan. It also stated that 818,000 vulnerable people were given food and cash-based transfers in January.
EU seals €7.4bn deal with Egypt in effort to avert another migration crisis
EU leaders have sealed a €7.4bn (£6.3bn) deal with Egypt to help boost the country’s faltering economy, in an attempt to bring stability to the “troubled” region and avert another migration crisis in Europe.
The three-year EU-Egypt strategic partnership involves €5bn in soft loans to support economic changes, €1.8bn to support investments from the private sector and €600m in grants including €200m for migration management.
It comes just days after members of the European parliament accused Brussels of “bankrolling dictators” as a result of a similar deal with Tunisia last year.
Six EU leaders made the trip to Cairo on Sunday after “intense, effective diplomatic work” between the EU and Egypt in the past few months, said the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, who led the delegation, said the deal underlined the “strategic location” of Egypt in a “very troubled neighbourhood” and the “vital role” it played in the “stability of the region”.
She used the occasion to renew a plea for a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages and urgent aid for Palestinians. “We are all extremely concerned about the war in Gaza and the unfolding catastrophic humanitarian situation. Gaza is facing famine and we cannot accept this. It is critical to achieve an agreement on a ceasefire rapidly now that frees the hostages and allows more humanitarian aid to reach Gaza,” she said.
She and Meloni were joined in their meeting with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, by the prime ministers of Greece, Austria, Cyprus and Belgium.
“The presence of six European leaders today shows how deeply we value our relationship. We share our strategic interests in stability and prosperity,” Von der Leyen told Sisi. “And given your political and economic weight as well as your strategic location in a very troubled neighbourhood, the importance of our relations will only increase over time.”
The three-year agreement is part of the bloc’s latest attempt to stop people crossing the Mediterranean but is much broader in scope than last year’s controversial €150m deal with Tunisia.
Meloni praised Sisi for Egypt’s role along with the US and Qatar in continuing efforts to end the war in Gaza and also touched on migration, a significant political issue domestically.
She said the best way the global north could persuade people in the global south not to emigrate to Europe was not just to dismantle people-smuggling gangs but to “reaffirm their rights” in the African continent and to help develop their economies. “It is exactly what we’re doing today,” she said.
The Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, also used the occasion to pressure Israel. “The current situation in Gaza is unacceptable,” he said, adding that the international court of justice had already made a provisional ruling demanding Israel increase access for humanitarian aid. “What we have seen in practice is the opposite,” he said.
European governments have long been worried about the risk of instability in Egypt, a country of 106 million people that has been struggling to raise foreign currency. Economic adversity and poverty have pushed increasing numbers to leave the country in recent years.
Idris Elba reveals ‘dream’ of building eco city on island off Sierra Leone
Idris Elba has shared details of his “dream” to turn an island off the coast of Sierra Leone, the country where his father was born, into an environmentally friendly smart city.
The actor is working with his childhood friend to develop Sherbro, which is roughly the size of the Isle of Man, after the island was given enough autonomy by the west African nation’s government to allow the work to go ahead.
“Originally, we went there thinking how could we bring tourism to the most incredible 19 miles of beachfront,” Elba told the BBC. But his friend Siaka Stevens said it became apparent Sierra Leone was not yet prepared for such an influx of tourists.
Instead, the pair – who grew up together in east London – decided to embark on a more ambitious project. Their company, Sherbro Alliance Partners (SAP), has reached agreements with the Sierra Leonean government, as well as several major firms, to build an eco city as a public-private partnership.
They have agreed a deal with the energy company Octopus to build Sierra Leone’s first windfarm on the island, which lacks mains electricity and is a two-hour ferry trip from the mainland. Elba said a sustainable approach to developing the project would be central throughout the development.
Equally important will be respecting local culture and sensibilities, with Elba expressing his hope to create a “culturally diverse international city that blends African tradition, dynamism, and pride with state-of-the-art infrastructure and services”.
“The character of the island hopefully will remain intact. It’s a beautiful, green part of the world and we don’t want to disturb that,” he said.
He added: “It’s about being self-reliant, it’s about bringing an economy that feeds itself and has growth potential. I’m very keen to reframe the way Africa is viewed … as an aid model. This opportunity is completely different.”
He and Stevens have defined three key principles for the project. Among them is developing “based on African cultural values and principles, which prioritise community, collaboration, and respect for nature”.
They also said they planned to design the infrastructure in a way that was adaptable to “changing social, economic and environmental conditions” and to follow “eco city principles”, such as building in a way that is “environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, and resilient to climate change”.
Stevens said that the development on the island would be “fuelled by clean energy sources”.
The pair said they had also sought to consult residents of the island; saying they have each visited several times to meet local leaders.
Last month, Lloyds of London announced it was to take up a role in the project, but said at the time that Stevens and Elba’s company was still in the process of putting together feasibility studies with the government of Sierra Leone.
Elba and Stevens have said they hoped to break ground on the project within about a year of those studies starting, but they have stressed that this is a process that is likely to last decades.
Feasibility is a key question for the project, for which SAP reportedly hopes to raise billions of dollars from various sources.
The US-Senegalese singer Akon is another artist who announced a plan to build a futuristic city in his ancestral homeland. The first phase of his project was due to be completed by late last year. But, as the Guardian reported in December, the project has been beset by delays and controversy – with only a youth centre and the shell of what is planned to be the “welcome centre” having been built so far.
While Akon received praise for the planned city’s Afrofuturistic aesthetic, there has been scepticism as to whether it will ever come to pass, fuelled by a lack of detail around the plans.
Elba, for his part, has been clear about where his strengths lie. “Never in my lifetime would I have thought I could build the foundation for a new smart-city … I’m not qualified for that. But I am qualified to dream big,” he said.
“It’s a dream, you know, but I work in the make-believe business.”
He added: “Part of me wants to build that beautiful retirement home for my mum.”
The actor told the broadcaster his late father would probably think the dream too big. But he said he would be proud, and tell his son “If you’re going to do it, make sure you do it properly. You do it good, you do it with all your heart because that’s the best you can do”.
