African Energy Chamber executive chairperson NJ Ayuk’s speech at the Namibia International Energy Conference in Windhoek on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
We at the African Energy Chamber believe firmly in what Namibia’s promise can be, should be, and will be.
Over the last few months, we have gone around the world championing nothing but energy.
Suriname, Middle East, America, Europe, and across Africa. But certainly, nothing was more important than us being in Brazil with Selma, promoting Namibia, and driving investment into this country.
As we stand here today, 600 million Africans and even more don’t have access to electricity.
Nine hundred don’t have access to clean cooking technologies, most of them women. We need to take that into context as we discuss oil, gas, or energy.
We are a continent where we’ve seen energy deficiencies.
I know some talk about low carbon, but there’s nothing to decarbonize if you’re not carbonized—some talk about how we will move into green energies. I don’t really understand that, but I’m still learning.
But also, we have to be very clear. Africa, Namibia, deserves to produce all the oil or gas developed in this country. They will tell us it’s time to move to a different phase, leapfrog somewhere else.
Just don’t do like the others. Just don’t be like us. Don’t be like them.
Energy is what has driven humanity. It’s what has driven human flourishing. It’s what has made many developed nations what they are today.
At this moment, we cannot look at an African country like Namibia that is still trying to develop that energy, that wants to drive that energy, not just for Namibia alone, but for the Saudi region, and also across the world, and meet global demand.
We can’t tell that nation to abandon it. My message to you this week today is very simple – produce every drop of hydrocarbons you can find and build the life of your people. And urge the industry to do only one thing—drill, baby, drill.
That’s what we need to do. But as we sit here as an industry, proclaiming our right to drill every prospect we find, it’s also important that we proclaim that Namibians need to be part of it. That’s why we drive up local content.
That’s why Namibians must never apologize for pushing local content legislation and policies; it is right. We cannot have an industry where local content is not part and parcel. Don’t back down on local content.
That’s how you get Namibians being part and parcel. Some would say, you don’t need local content, let’s just go ahead. No.
I would not be standing here without local content. We work hard. You’ve got to give Namibians every right to be on these tables and in those rooms.
That’s how we drive an industry. And our industry is better when we have local content. So we drive that.
However, we also have to take steps to create local content.
We’ve got to be a little bit pragmatic.
We’ve got to integrate people, but integration without preparation is frustration.
So we’ve got to embark on training and capacity-building programs. But we’ve got to pull young people in the room. It’s important that we in this industry turn around, look at the young people and say, eat at my table.
Be part of this. Somehow, we thank you for the future leaders. They represent the future.
You started that path, saying eat at my table. And it is here. But while we talk about local content, it’s also important to back these conferences.
You can’t tell me that Namibians should run oil and gas wells, drive oil and gas fields, and then run over to London to bring somebody to come to a conference in this country. When you have a qualified Namibian doing it year in, year out, doing it well, you go to London and say, let’s import someone to a conference. If you can’t do a conference right, how do you want to hope to run a company? How do you want to drill a well? That’s why somehow we stand with you.
We’re going to continue backing you. And I promise you, as long as I’m the chamber chair, we are going to back this conference, and we’re going to back Namibia. Don’t know if we’re not going to support it.
If they take me out, I don’t think they would any time soon. They tried, and I’m still standing. I’m still standing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m still standing. If it’s a promise, I’m going to ask for some things, though.
We’re not just going to stand here and let it go away. We need better discounts. We can’t produce those wells if we don’t look at stability.
We can’t produce those wells if we don’t look at those stabilization clauses—that certainty, those guarantees and investment that will need this industry to flourish. We should not just take and say we are ready and forget those struggles of the past.
We’ve seen African countries that have developed, gotten, drilled, and brought great discoveries but never produced. Case in point: Ghana made significant discoveries. Three months later, Uganda had great discoveries.
Ghana produced three and a half years later. Uganda didn’t make it for 17 years. They argued it was stability, value-added taxes, and transfer pricing, but 17 years later, the world had changed.
You had this really beautiful little girl out of Scandinavia and a bartender in New York. They started talking about climate change and all of this stuff. They said you can’t build a pipeline in Africa when you’re doing that.
So we have to produce fast. We’ve got to give the companies what is needed because everything on the ground has no value. Not all have to get outside and change the lives of these people.
So certainty is going to be important. Stability is going to be important. Fiscals are going to be looked at.
It is tough to say this, but you don’t put me on stage and say if you know I’m going to say it. We need to go and do tough issues. And our industry, working hand in hand with the government, is how we produce when we take on challenging problems with them.
And we should not shy away from taking on those tough issues. They hit me if they want, but I say it. But our industry can’t get better when we don’t look at what we have seen.
A conference led by women, but an industry where women are still the last hired and the first fired. It’s not the way to go. We’ve got to turn that around.
We need to see more moving. We need to see Namibia growing strong. We thank you for bringing us here.
We thank you for inviting a guy like Andy from Woodside. Andy, when are you going to drill? So please drill, Andy. We want Woodside to drill tomorrow.
Matthew, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. And also, I couldn’t leave without saying we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Giants who led us even during troubling times through COVID. Seeing former Minister Tom Alweendo and former deputy minister Kornelius Shilunga in the room is an honour. Thank you so much for your service to Namibia and Africa.
We are anxious for peace and progress. Thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you, Namibia, for inviting me.
And thank you for being here. Thank you so much.
*Speech has been slightly edited.
