President Bola Tinubu has conferred one of Nigeria’s highest honour, Grand Commander of the Order of Niger (GCON) on the outgoing president of African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) for his outstanding contributions to the development of Nigeria and African region.
“I have the honour and privilege to recognise you, the outstanding contribution of Professor Benedict Oramah, by conferring on you one of Nigeria’s highest honours, the Grand Commander of the Order of Niger,” Tinubu stated yesterday at the 32nd Afreximbank Annual Meetings in Abuja.
The president also urged all African countries to adopt the Pan-African payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), championed by Afreximbank in partnership with AfCFTA Secretariat and African
Union Commission (AUC). The payment system is designed to integrate the 42 payment systems that exist in Africa, enabling real-time payments in local currencies.
Professor Oramah also claimed that PAPSS eliminates the need for currency conversion through external intermediaries, saving billions in transaction costs annually. The System is supported by a 3 billion US dollars clearing and settlement fund from Afreximbank.
One of the greatest barriers to intra-African trade has been the lack of efficient cross-border payment systems which have created leakages of around 5 billion US dollars annually.
Tinubu said “Africa must double down on its institutions and capabilities, and capabilities. Afreximbank by committed member states, must remain agile, bold, and grounded in African realities.”
He said Nigeria has proudly benefited from over $52 billion in support directed into energy, agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing, healthcare, and creative industry.
Under the leadership of Professor Oramah, Afreximbank became the trusted
institution for mitigating the adverse impacts of economic shocks and the primary source of vital medium- to long-term financing for the African
private sector and critical sectors of the African economy.
President Tinubu said Oramah’s innovative and purposeful leadership has made Afrexbank the pillar of African Development. Tinubu noted that Afreximbank under Professor Oramah, has grown its assets from $5 billion to over $43 billion in a good time.
The President said the Abuja forum is a moment to “reflect on our shared resilience and renew our commitment to shaping Africa’s future boldly and deliberately.” The meeting was tagged “Building the Future on Decades of Resilience.”
Under Oramah, Afreximbank built its East and West Africa regional trade Centre in Nigeria and built its first Afreximbank African Trade Centre (AATC). The bank is also a major partner in the establishment of the proposed African energy bank that would headquartered in Nigeria.
Afreximbank has provided significant credit facilities to Nigeria, with a total of approximately $52 billion in trade and development financing over the past 10 years. This makes Nigeria the bank’s largest beneficiary in Africa.
Oramah’s successor would be unveiled on Saturday, June 28th 2025 by the shareholders of the bank in Abuja.
Earlier, Professor Oramah said his team at Afreximbank, over the past
decade, built a solid financial institution that is good for Global Africa. According to him, the total assets and guarantees grew more than eight-fold between September 2015 and April 2025, to reach 43.5 billion US dollars.
Total Revenues also rose seven folds, reaching 3.24 billion US dollars, from 408 million US dollars in 2025. Net income amounted to about $1 billion last year, about 700% increase, from its level of $125 million in 2015. Internal capital generation and very strong support of shareholders through significant additional equity investments, saw shareholders’ funds rise from about $1 billion in September 2015 to $7.5 billion in April 2025, with callable capital reaching $4.5 billion from $450 million US dollars in September 2015.
$Liquidity remained strong, with sources of
funding much more diversified in 2024 than in 2015, due to activities of the Africa Resource Mobilisation Unit, which saw the share of African sources of funding rise from 11.7 percent in 2015 to 36.6 percent in May 2025,” he stated.
