Africa–Gulf Cooperation Dialogue | Doha Forum

By Ken Etete

Your Excellencies, distinguished leaders, partners, and friends,

We meet today at a defining moment — a moment when the world is shifting under our feet.

Energy systems are shifting.

Global influence is shifting.

The centres of power are shifting.

And Africa and the Gulf stand not at the margins of these shifts, but at the heart of them.

For decades, our relationship has run on parallel tracks — connected by geography, by OPEC, by history and by faith — yet not fully aligned in purpose.

But today, those tracks are converging.

They must converge.

Because the future no longer belongs to regions that stand apart. It belongs to regions that stand together.

And so I ask the question that frames our era:

What happens when the world’s youngest continent meets the world’s most future-focused region?

What happens when Africa — rising, restless, ready — meets the Gulf — strategic, visionary, ambitious?

What happens when African scale meets Gulf capability?

When African energy meets Gulf investment?

When African youth meets Gulf ambition?

When those forces meet, the result is not charity.

It is not dependency.

It is possibility — possibility on a scale that can reshape the world.

Africa is entering its demographic prime. One billion new citizens will join our continent in the next quarter century. These young people are not a burden. They are a blessing — the world’s largest emerging workforce, market, and innovation pool.

But people need power.

Power needs infrastructure.

Infrastructure needs investment.

And investment needs trust.

The Gulf brings what Africa needs:

capital, capability, credibility.

Africa brings what the Gulf needs:

markets, momentum, and massive opportunity.

This is not cooperation. It is convergence — a convergence of strategic futures.

And at the centre of that convergence stands Nigeria.

Nigeria is not simply a participant in Africa’s rise. Nigeria is the anchor — the gravitational point where Africa’s population, culture, markets, and energy converge.

The gateway to West Africa’s 420 million people.

The launchpad into a 1.3-billion-person AfCFTA market.

The home of Africa’s largest gas reserves and one of its most dynamic innovation ecosystems.

For the Gulf, Nigeria is not just another investment destination.

Nigeria is a force multiplier.

A strategic lever.

A partner whose success enables continental success.

And the Gulf understands this.

Investments are rising.

Partnerships are deepening.

A new kind of relationship is emerging — not one that is transactional, but transformational.

But to realise this vision, we must embrace a new model of partnership — a partnership grounded in value creation, shared risk, and shared destiny.

First, value must be created at home.

Africa cannot remain a warehouse exporting raw minerals and crude.

We must refine, manufacture, process, and build industries on our own soil.

This is how prosperity sticks.

This is how dignity grows.

This is how nations rise.

Second, risk must be shared — and de-risked — together.

When Gulf capital combines with indigenous African capability, we unlock projects that once seemed impossible: pipelines, refineries, gas hubs, renewable grids, and modern logistics.

It is already happening — from cross-continental pipelines to hybrid energy projects to world-class ports rising along our coastlines.

And third, this must be a partnership of equals.

A partnership that trains our youth, transfers technology, respects communities, protects the environment, and delivers visible benefits to ordinary people.

Not exploitation.

Not extraction.

But equity — the only foundation strong enough to carry a century of cooperation.

Let me speak briefly about Century Group.

For over twenty years, we have worked at the sharp edge of Nigeria’s energy industry — FPSOs, gas processing, midstream operations.

We have delivered uptime in environments others walked away from.

We have kept assets running through storms, cycles, elections, and volatility.

And in those years we learned something profound:

Certainty is not discovered.

Certainty is engineered.

Certainty is built.

That is the capability we bring to this partnership — an ability to create stability inside uncertainty, to deliver performance inside complexity, and to turn ambition into operating reality.

Your Excellencies, the world is watching Africa.

The world is watching the Gulf.

But most importantly, the world is watching what we choose to build together.

Because Africa and the Gulf have a rare window — a window to step forward as the twin engines of a new global energy order. Not North versus South. Not East versus West.

But Africa and the Gulf — partners in power, partners in progress, partners in prosperity.

And the partnership is not abstract.

Africa offers the Gulf energy resilience — vast gas reserves that align with Gulf ambitions in LNG and hydrogen.

Africa offers the Gulf food resilience — agricultural belts that, once linked to Gulf logistics and investment, can stabilise supply for generations.

Africa offers the Gulf market expansion — cities doubling in population, sectors ready for investment, consumers rising in the millions.

Africa offers the Gulf geopolitical reach — as a growing diplomatic centre of gravity.

But above all, Africa offers the Gulf the most prized advantage of all:

the chance to lead.

To shape the next global growth frontier.

To co-design the corridors the world will one day rely on.

To be first movers in a century-defining partnership.

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

This is not a moment for caution.

This is a moment for courage.

For imagination.

For co-creation.

Because when the Gulf builds with Africa — not around it, not above it, but with it — something extraordinary happens:

Stability is engineered.

Returns become resilient.

Communities become partners.

And the future becomes something we forge — together.

So my call today is clear:

Let us build the bridge the next century will stand upon.

Let us move from cooperation to co-creation.

Let us build not tomorrow — but now.

The world is watching the rise of new alliances.

Let ours be the alliance that proves that when ambition meets opportunity, when capability meets scale, when courage meets purpose — nations are transformed.

*Ken Etete is Group CEO, Century Group

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