The African Business Roundtable (ABR) on January 31st 2018, held its Presidential Handover ceremony and dinner at the Trancorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja.
The occasion, which was well attended by representatives from Africa Development Bank (AfDB), the Nigerian presidency, ambassadors (Côte d’Ivoire, Congo, Senegal, Germany, France, USA, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic, Angola, South Africa, and Botswana), development partners, international business men and women and other dignitaries saw to the formal hand over of office from the former President and Chairman of the Board of ABR, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, to Mr. Samuel Dossou-Aworet.
Mr Dossou-Aworet is President of Petrolin Group, the Pan Africa Oil and Gas Exploration Company. As the former ABR Vice President, he was unanimously elected as President and Chairman of the Board in September 2017. Tukur has since assumed the position of grand patron of the ABR.
The New President, Dossou-Aworet, whom Grand patron Tukur described as “a passionate crusader for good corporate governance, an advocate for regional integration through cross border business and investment partnerships, a very successful business personality of high repute and integrity” had a very successful career in the public and private sector. This outstanding Engineer, of discreet character, graduated from the Etudes Approfondies de Pétroléochimie et Synthèse Organique Industrielle, Economist Engineer from the Institut Français du Pétrole started his career at the consulting company Sema Metra International in Paris. After ten years of high civil service in Gabon he started what would become a pan African group of companies covering over 12 African Countries.
The former chairman was applauded for his dedication and contribution to the ABR and the private sector development in Africa.
The Roundtable also made far reaching resolutions that will expand the frontiers of private African businesses in anticipation of an increasing stable political climate. Mr. Ebrima Faal, Senior Director, Nigeria for AfDB, representing the President of the Bank, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, in his keynote address highlighted the historical ties between the Bank and ABR, which it helped to set up in 1990. He further noted that ‘ABR is now Africa’s foremost and continent-wide association of businesses and business leaders, and truly a successful Pan-African institution’. He stated that the Bank will work closely with the public and private sector to unlock new sources of growth for Africa, while reducing inequality between countries and within countries, working together to unlock the enormous potentials of African economies and deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals for African with the Bank’s High 5s for Africa.
The ABR held a minute silence in the memory of late Dr. Babacar Ndiaye, a former President of the AfDB and founder of the ABR, who passed on last year.
- Download the address given by Dr. Bamanga Tukur HERE
- Download the address given by MR. SAMUEL DOSSOU-AWORET HERE at the Presidential Handing Over Ceremony and Dinner.
