For more than 40 years, GE has been expanding its footprint in Nigeria and during this time, its businesses have made a significant impact in a number of key sectors including aviation, power generation, oil and gas, healthcare and transportation.
GE employs more than 600 people in the country, 90% of whom are from Nigeria. The company services 100 public and private sector customers from its offices in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Onne and Abuja.
GE is committed to supporting the sustainable development of Nigeria with advanced infrastructure technologies, services and solutions, which are aligned to deliver on Nigeria’s infrastructure needs as well as to bolster economic development and improve the quality of life in the region.
In 2009, GE signed a country-to-company agreement with the Nigerian government to support the financing, design and building of infrastructure, and capacity across key sectors of the economy, including rail, power and healthcare. This agreement was recently renewed for another five years.
GE supports Nigeria’s Vision 2020 goals in the following ways:
Power generation
GE partnered with the ministry of power to support the development of 10GW of power over the next 10 years. They have also joined forces with a number of local power generation companies in Nigeria to ramp up electrical output throughout the country.
With GE’s help, the following power plants are now fully operational and producing electricity for the people of Nigeria:
– Ogorode Power Plant
– Benin Power Plant
– Omotosho Power Plant
– Olorunsogo Power Plant
– Alaoji Power Plant
Healthcare
Working with the ministry of health, GE supports the development of diagnostic centres in Nigeria. Recently, The Kaduna State Ministry of Health and GE Healthcare signed a partnership to expand primary and referral care services and build capacity at 255 primary healthcare centres and 23 secondary healthcare hospitals across the state.
The GE Healthcare footprint in Nigeria includes the following:
– Diagnostic imaging centres and specialist hospitals (American Hospital and Echo Scan)
– Training 300 clinicians on 16 GE courses across eight states in Nigeria
– Building the case and curriculum for trauma, and maternal health in partnership with the ministry of health
– Designing a robust curriculum for the training of paramedics
– Partnering with the Bank of Industry to finance healthcare development
Transportation
GE has partnered with the ministry of transportation to modernise and expand Nigeria’s locomotive fleet. GE is currently working with private sector participants to develop a locomotive assembly facility that would modernise 30 old locomotive engines and assemble 170 new locomotives. The company is also supplying locomotives to the Nigerian Rail Corporation (NRC) as part of the country’s fleet renewal programme.
Other significant rail milestones include:
– Consignment of 25 NRC locomotives
– Training 10 NRC engineers in Brazil
– Training more than 100 NRC maintenance and service engineers in Lagos
– Auditing facilities for locomotive assembly facility in Nigeria
– Supporting Eko Rail Company with the Lagos Metro Blue line light rail project
Aviation
GE’s CFM engines power 70% of Arik Air’s fleet. GE Aviation’s long-standing partnership with Arik Air has fast-tracked its expansion into a leading African airline company. This has enabled Arik Air to contribute to Nigeria’s economic growth and cement its role as an enabler of regional and international travel connectivity between Africa and the world.
GE also announced a multi-million-dollar investment in a multimodal manufacturing and assembly plant in Calabar, which will be a regional hub for manufacturing, service and innovation.
GE is fully committed to the economic, infrastructural and social development of Nigeria, and launched a permanent installation of the Lagos Garage, a hub for training, strategy development, advanced manufacturing-based innovation and collaboration. The aim is to train 200 Nigerian entrepreneurs in the first year of operation.
Image above: A GE engineer works on this highly sophisticated deep-sea mining equipment known as a “Christmas Tree” for its crude resemblance to a decorated tree. The sub-sea “tree” primarily controls the flow of oil and gas on a wellhead. Credit: Courtesy GE
