Giokos opens by reflecting on the journey of the show, “Over the last five years we’ve travelled across the African continent, meeting the business leaders, the changemakers, the trailblazers, and telling the stories that are driving Africa forward.”

She continues, “We launched Connecting Africa during the height of the global pandemic, and we quickly delved into the innovative new ways of doing business. Despite the shutdowns, we set out to showcase Africa’s economic transformation and integration under the world’s largest free trade deal, the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).”

Joining Giokos on stage in Nigeria were Wamkele Mene, Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area and Wale Tinubu, Group Chief Executive of Oando PLC. 

The Secretary General discusses the progress made over the last five years with the AfCFTA,

“We now have this task of integrating the continent of Africa, creating a single market, enhancing our industrial capacity, enhancing our digital economy. We have now concluded all of the protocols, which is to say, the legal foundation is there for this to transition into implementation. And so, I think we’ve come a long way. We have a long way to go. But five years down the line, certainly there is a great deal of success to be celebrated.”

One of the biggest challenges for businesses during the 2020s has been the coronavirus pandemic. Tinubu reflects on the impact of the pandemic on Africa,

“I think COVID forced us to understand that we need to create our own healthcare systems, our own vaccines, our own support system. The reality is that when we finally decide that setting up global standards and creating centres of excellence within our own environment is the way to go, then things will happen. The resources exist, but the question is the political will and the commitment to understand that we can’t keep exporting our resources when we need to start to build internally.”

As the AfCFTA continues to be implemented, Mene discusses the growth potential, “We have to grow our economy at sustainable rates year on year to ensure that by 2050 we have the jobs that are required for young people entering the job market. That means that we have to grow at a minimum 5% per annum year on year over a sustained period.”

Africa’s growth is tied to its energy potential. Tinubu explains, “There’s no doubt that we can’t flourish without solving the consumption of energy in the continent, because you can’t industrialise if you don’t have cheap, plentiful energy […] We have the resources to power the continent. We’ve got tremendous amount of gas. We have tremendous amounts of rivers and waterways that could be dammed to provide hydroelectricity and all the other sources. And the world today is putting pressure in terms of transitioning into cleaner energy and really Africa needs to use what it has to transition.”

In addition, Rubadiri speaks to young entrepreneurs and the next generation of innovators. This includes Terra Industries co-founder and CEO Nathan Nwachuku. The robotics and drone manufacturing startup is based in Abuja. Nwachuku tells CNN about their plans for the future, “We are deepening our distribution and naturally looking at scaling drone factories now in all the regions of Africa to serve the unique security cases that each region is seeing. So, I think that’s the next step for us over the next 24 months. And second is also improving our threat intelligence software, which is what enables our customers like mining companies, oil companies, to be able to spot out threats autonomously, identify these threats and track them across their assets. We must protect Africa and the only way Africa can be protected is by Africans.”

During the height of construction, the project was among Africa’s largest building sites.

Devakumar Edwin, vice president, Oil and Gas speaks about the construction, “At the peak we had 70,000 people working in the site. We bought 320 cranes, we invested in about 1,200 civil construction equipment, 1,050 trucks. And then we had to invest in 120 transit mixes, 80 concrete pumps, ready mix concrete batching plants and the world’s largest stone quarry to supply aggregate to this. So, we had to build in a lot of infrastructure.”

Mr Dangote welcomes Giokos to the refinery, a place he calls, “the eighth wonder of the world.” He talks about the importance of the project, “Significance of this refinery is that we will become self-sufficient in Nigeria and a lot of other, especially west and central African countries, will be also self-sufficient in products. So, the crude will not now leave the continent either from Nigeria or Angola. We will be able to take those crudes and be able to refine and distribute the products.”

When asked if there was any point at which he wanted to abandon the project, Mr Dangote replies, “There was actually no choice. It’s like we’re swimming across the ocean. So, if I stopped swimming, I would sink. We had to continue.” He continues, “I feel very proud as an African that we’ve been able to prove and demonstrate that it can be done and we’ve done it.”

Mr Dangote believes the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will be beneficial for the continent.

He tells Giokos, “The AfCFTA will be very, very beneficial and if you’re thinking about benefit, our company will almost be one of the top five in terms of benefiting from the free-trade agreement.”

However, Mr Dangote says he has yet to see an improvement in cross-border trade and wants more action on the AfCFTA, “We have petroleum projects to export. We have cement also to export. So, what makes sense is to have the free-trade agreement work. […] We have to make sure that all the regional markets they have to work. We have to remove these requirements of visas. We have to allow free movement of people, free movement of goods and services. Then the AfCFTA will work. Without that, it’s almost impossible.”

The petroleum production process also supports another vital sector, fertiliser. Urea is one of the most commonly used nitrogen-based fertilisers in the world made from the by-products of the oil and gas refining process.

Giokos visits the Dangote fertiliser plant near to the oil refinery where Adenike Fajemirokun, Group Executive Director at the Dangote Group, explains why the company branched out into the fertiliser market, “Fertiliser is a product that all African farmers, all farmers across the world need and use. When you look at Africa and the amount of arable land we have, agricultural land, the rains, the river networks that we also have, you can see the potential for food consumption. If you look at the core of what we stand for, self-reliance for not just our nation, but for the continent as a whole. So, food security is one of the top things on our agenda. So, it was a no-brainer.”

Although Mr Dangote has no plans for retirement, he tells Giokos that succession planning is on his agenda.

His three daughters work for the company, making their own impacts on the success of the Dangote Group.

Fatima Aliko-Dangote, group executive director of Commercial Operations speaks about her outlook, “It’s continuing to build on what he has built over the past 40 years. We have seen how he’s inspiring business audacity in running this African organisation. I call this company Africa’s Finest, where he has taken Dangote Group to be Africa’s finest, to be one of the most diversified conglomerates on the continent.”

Mr Dangote talks about his daughters’ roles and the future of the company, “They will take some departments, but we have also other professionals. They will run the business to the next level. They’re actually going to be the future. They’re well trained. I’m sure they do much better than myself.”

He concludes,

“We have a very good succession planning in the business where now we have myself. Then we divided the company now into two. We have myself as the group president. Then we have group president oil and gas, and we have the group president, other businesses. By the end of this year, we will have a group that will have 30 billion of revenue and that is big.”

In Lagos, Giokos meets Lawrence Nazare, the Group Managing Director (GMD) of Continental Reinsurance.  

He explains what the reinsurance industry does, “Reinsurance in a nutshell, is really insurance, for insurance companies.  

It is really the second level of insurance after the insurance company insures its direct client. The reinsurer takes whatever risk the insurance company cannot cover under its own balance sheet.”  

Intra-African trade has many challenges and Nazare believes that the size of the continent is one of the biggest hurdles, “Africa is a huge continent. So just the distances, I think makes it a daunting task. Traveling in Africa, when I started traveling was not easy, connectivity in Africa is not easy. So making sure that you are there on the ground, and interacting with your teams can be difficult. It’s proving to be a lot easier now post COVID doing it digitally, but at one point, we had to be physically traveling.” 

Nazare also says that fragmented regulatory framework across the continent has proved to be a barrier to trade.  

The GMD of Continental Reinsurance hopes that the African Continental Free Trade Area will solve this problem, “I see the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as an absolute imperative. I think for our business, it’s very exciting because of the promises that you’re seeing. One of which primarily is a promise of a level playing field, a modernised regulatory framework, no barriers to trade, free movement, free movement of labour, absolutely important.” 

Nazare is hopeful for the future of business and trade across Africa, “I think the script for Africa’s future success story must be written by great African businesses. Those great African businesses must be allowed to spread their wings, take advantages of opportunities across the continent. We are on a fairly steep growth trajectory in Africa, boundless opportunities, but I believe we must create an environment that allows those enterprises to grow and thrive.” 

This month’s programme also visits Ghana for a meeting of the Africa Economic Zones Organization, in Egypt energy and infrastructure giant Elsewedy Electric talk about their plans for a better-connected continent, and in South Africa Giokos explores South Africa’s wine industry. 

‘Connecting Africa’ featuring the GMD of Continental Reinsurance aired on Saturday 5th February at 0800 SAST on CNN International 

The show also airs at the following times: 

Monday 7th February at 0030 SAST and 2245 SAST 

Tuesday 8th February at 2245 SAST 

Saturday 12th February at 0830 SAST and 1300 SAST 

Sunday 13th February at 2000 SAST 

Monday 14th February at 0300 SAST