Cross River lines Afreximbank to hunt $3.5bn for Tinapa, Obudu, airport  

Ben Eguzozie

Cross River State is beginning the rebuilding of the multi-billion-naira Obudu Cattle Ranch resort, Tinapa Business & Leisure Resort and the Obudu International Airport with a $3.5 billion mandate facility from the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).

The three high-impact infrastructure facilities, with market worth of more than N300 billion, in their glory days (2002-2014), once projected the state as a credible service-driven economy. They combined to drive visitor traffic to the state — and revenue in tow. Today, they are pitiful, idle business enclaves.

Obudu Cattle Ranch resort was remodelled to an international hilltop tourist haven by former governor Donald Duke, while his successor Liyel Imoke consolidated things. Additionally, Tinapa Business Resort & Free Zone Calabar was also initiated by former governor Donald Duke as a way to boost business and tourism in Cross River. Over $350 million was spent on its initial development. The first phase of Tinapa was commissioned on 2 April 2007. It was viewed as a bespoke global trading and leisure estate. Former governor Imoke added more facilities like monorail and convention centre to the imposing business and leisure estate in Calabar, the state capital.

Between 2015 and 2023, under immediate past governor Ben Ayade, the fortunes of both facilities — and indeed most other tourist sites in the state — headed southward, no thanks to neglect and lack of corporate governance by the Ayade administration.

Today, Governor Bassey Otu, appears set to rejig the state’s economy with a sub-national GDP in excess of $9.3 billion, and perhaps take it out of Nigeria’s worst performing states — with its high unemployment rates, poor economic activity, lowering education, among others.

Francis Ntamu, special adviser to Governor Otu and director-general of Bureau for Public Private Partnership (BPPP), said the Afreximbank mandate instrument is strictly for the legacy projects.

He explained that under the arrangement, Afreximbank will source private sector equity partners/non-recourse finance of about $3.5 billion for some of the state’s legacy assets, stressing it was not a loan facility but rather an arrangement where the pan-African multilateral trade bank will bring in investors who will get money from them to execute the projects.

He listed projects covered by the arrangement to include Obudu Ranch Resort, Tinapa Business & Leisure Resort, Obudu International Airport and other infrastructural facilities.

A recent Business-to-Government (B2G) meeting between the Cross River and officials of Afreximbank held at the bank’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

By the initiative, the bank will earn success fees from footprints on the matching of equity partners with the respective project opportunities.

“Beyond the mandate; Afreximbank coordinated a far-reaching B2G session with the high-level mission delegation with Governor Bassey Otu in attendance. The quality of sessions and follow-up commitments were resounding,” Ntamu said.

Some development economists are of the view that the move signals Governor Otu government’s commitment, for the first time in recent past, to own, energise and actualize projects such as Tinapa, Obudu Ranch, initiated by previous administrations.

Additionally, the experts who spoke to Business a.m. noted that the new path is a strategy aimed at adopting plain vanilla ways-and-means in extinguishing the state’s debt in the long run with sustainable vista for socioeconomic growth and development.

Cross River is among Nigeria’s sub-nationals with a burgeoning debt portfolio. The Debt Management Office (DMO) said the state’s domestic debt jumped to N220.2 billion as of December 2023, up from N204.04 billion as of June 30, 2023. But the Otu government denied “the difference after subtracting N204 billion from N220.2 billion is the purported N16.2 billion reported as a fresh domestic loan allegedly obtained by Otu’s administration.

“It is not true. There’s no record in the annals of the state government suggesting that fresh borrowing was undertaken from the inception of the present administration (on May 29, 2023) both domestic and foreign debt,” Gill Nsa, chief press secretary to the governor, said recently.