Execution discipline: turning Nigeria’s energy potential into bankable projects and broader prosperity

The opportunity for Nigeria and Africa goes beyond what can be extracted or exported from its vast natural resources, says Chukwuemeka Osuji, a partner at leading African firm Olaniwun Ajayi. The far greater prize lies in the value chain that can be built around such resource riches, such as using oil and gas to power industry, strengthen infrastructure, and create wider economic and social value.

“The next decade should focus on greater integration, from oil and gas to power, infrastructure, and financing, and finding ways to link all those points into a comprehensive energy system,” adds Osuji. “While we’re talking about extractive industries, the energy deficit in Africa is still significantly lacking. It’s mind-boggling.”

To turn such huge potential into something tangible, however, will require what Osuji, who has worked on some of the most complex and high-value transactions in the Nigerian energy sector, calls ‘Execution Discipline’.

Much of the policy evolution and positioning has already happened, he argues.

African countries have grappled with their place in the global energy transition, while significant divestments have reshaped the industry and indigenous companies have taken on greater responsibilities. As Nigeria and Africa look to the future, the next phase must move from theoretical conversations towards measurable delivery.

“Things should start moving to real questions around what I call execution discipline,” says Osuji. “We should be having data-driven conversations around what are the new projects that are supposed to get to FID in the next two to five years. How are we mapping the transactions that should be reaching financial close? What new strategic infrastructure is likely to be built within the next decade or so?”

Capital is now flowing, and projects are progressing, says Osuji, but not yet at the necessary pace. That shifting focus is at the heart of the Energy Leadership Forum 2026, to be held on 14 October in Cape Town, alongside this year's African Energy Week, and themed “Positioning Nigeria for Energy Leadership in Africa: From Reforms to Results”.

While Osuji acknowledges Nigeria and other African nations have needed to modernise their regulatory frameworks to attract investment, and earlier in his own career he worked on Nigeria’s petroleum sector reforms, he does not believe further legal reform is the bridge to where Nigeria and the continent now need to go.

“Laws merely help to set the tone, laws don’t build projects,” he says. “Policies don’t even necessarily build projects. Projects rely on the commitment and consistency of both the private and public sector to work together to ensure execution discipline.”

Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act and greater regulatory predictability has given greater clarity around investment and licensing, but now the question is how the country and region builds on the foundation.

Osuji notes the impact of the Dangote Refinery, which began production in 2024 and has just received SEC approval for a $1.6 billion IPO, and the growing role of indigenous energy companies and opportunities around gas, and midstream and downstream projects.

Osuji argues Nigeria’s future advantage doesn’t depend on producing the most oil or gas. “I think in terms of the value-chain effect, of being able to drive more industrialisation, drive more gas-based industries, that’s where we’re going to get our advantage.” Over the next decade, Osuji sees a future of gas hubs and industrial clusters emerging around the massive value created by the energy sector.

Having lived in Oxfordshire since 2023, while remaining a key part of Olaniwun Ajayi’s Lagos-driven energy practice, Osuji also supports the firm’s London office on major energy development and infrastructure projects. His location also puts him closer to the international financing and investment that many large African projects need.

“The value flow follows the money,” says Osuji. “Africa has the resources. Africa has the talent.” But the continent, he adds, has “not quite gained the financing capacity”, nor fully integrated its different pockets of value into a seamless value chain.

For Osuji, that means African advisers and institutions should be involved throughout the international financing and procurement conversations surrounding African projects, rather than entering only at ‘the African end’ of a transaction.

“You shouldn’t just sit within Africa,” he says. “You should sit where the financing is happening, you should sit where the procurement is happening.”

Greater collaboration is a key part of the equation, and that’s something that the Energy Leadership Forum delivers, as it brings policymakers, investors, operators, financiers and advisers together to interrogate key issues and test assumptions, rather than simply “regurgitating the same points year after year”.

But Osuji is more interested in what follows the conversations at next month’s Forum. “Africa doesn’t have an energy resource problem,” he says. “Our biggest challenge is converting these resources into bankable projects, reliable infrastructure and, most importantly, affordable energy. The next chapter of Africa’s energy story has to be about disciplined execution.”

For more information on the Energy Leadership Forum, themed “Positioning Nigeria for Energy Leadership in Africa: From Reforms to Results”, visit here.