As part of his ongoing efforts to support regional sustainable industrial development and climate-resilient transportation infrastructure, across Africa, AFDB President, Akinwumi Adesina, visited Imota, Lagos-based Saglev EV Assembly plant on 31st July 2025.
Impressed with what he saw at the plant, he remarked: “we support entrepreneurs and Dr Sam Faleye, Chairman /CEO of Saglev EV is a great entrepreneur. We want to ensure we have companies that are also manufacturing automobiles in Africa. We can’t just be importing automobiles. So, manufacturing in Africa is a problem. For us, as African Development Bank, part of our work is industrialization. That is what we see here in Saglev plant.
“African manufacturers need power, infrastructure to be able to lower the cost of production. Even related to that, electric vehicles require power to charge. That is why, at the bank, in the last 10 years, we have connected more than 28 million people to electricity. We are investing heavily in energy, even right here in Nigeria.
‘’Saglev is doing the right thing in Nigeria. Helping him is going to be a good asset. Cost of capital is always a challenge. He has put his equity into this. Cost of capital is five times higher than any other part of the world. We are in a position to help in many ways to risk lending to Nigeria auto manufacturers like this with world class facilities to assemble and manufacture electric vehicles.
‘’We also have lines of credit we provide for many commercial banks in Nigeria to support companies like this and our role,my role is also to be a champion and make sure wherever I go, I champion a good course”.
Hear him….