This week, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan announced the reappointment of the Managing Director of Nigeria Export-Import Bank, Robert Orya for another five year term effective August 17 2014. However, the president’s handing of a second term to Orya, who first assumed office in 2009, did not come as a surprise. Here are five reasons why.

Now NEXIM Knows Thyself

NEXIM, before 2009, was a failing bank plagued with issues of non-adherence to corporate governance tenets, non-existent risk management framework, lack of strategic focus and digression from core mandate, lack of visibility of the Bank, amongst several others; Orya has changed all that.

Appointed in 2009, the former Afribank (now Mainstreet Bank) Executive Director, under the leadership of former Board Chairman, Dr. Kingsley C. Moghalu, led the Management to, in 2010,  reposition the NEXIM Bank by initiating a Corporate Transformation exercise centred on the key perspectives of Strategy, Risk Management and Corporate Governance, Financial Performance, Operations, Organization and People, with assistance from KPMG Professional Services.

The outcome of the exercise was the Corporate Transformation Project (Project Spring) which led to the re-definition of the Bank’s Mission, Vision and Strategic Objectives targeting four sectors, namely, Manufacturing, Agro-processing, Solid Minerals & Services, which have high employment and foreign exchange earning potentials in the non-oil sector of the Nigerian economy. This has become the MASS Agenda of the NEXIM Bank.

He’s NEXIM’s Nexus;

NEXIM is currently on course to expand its pivot role in Nigeria’s non-oil exports and imports across West and Central Africa signified by Orya’s dogged initiation of a sea-link project that would facilitate exports, not just for Nigeria but across West and Central African regions.

But before Orya’s MD-ship, NEXIM, established in 1991 to facilitate the diversification of the Nigerian economy from over-dependence on crude oil and to deepen the non-oil sector, was nowhere close to doing the aforementioned.

Now NEXIM is doing just that, two years ago, the MD told interviewers; “What we have done over the years toward the realization of the Bank’s mandate was to enhance the contribution of the non-oil sector to the GDP and the external sector of the economy through funding interventions to various non-oil sectors with high exports potentials and comparative advantage”.

The flesh of Orya’s above statement is; NEXIM concentrated on hitherto unattended export sectors by supporting the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) with N35.46 billion ($219 million), issuing guarantees valued at $27.30 million, generating an estimated annual foreign exchange earnings of $325.25 million, and through interventions helping create and sustain an estimated 24,139 direct jobs; all between August 2009 and May 2014.

From a baggage of losses to a bank of profits:

When Orya assumed office as NEXIM bank’s MD, the bank had a total loan portfolio of N14.6 billion ($90.1 million) of which 72 percent was non-performing. Within that category, N10.03 billion ($62 million) or 69.05 percent was classified as completely lost.

That all changed within 18 months of Orya’s stay in office. NEXIM bank achieved an audited profit of N189.00 million in 2010 as against the loss of N5.46 billion incurred in 2009. The bank has not looked back in profits since then, achieving profit consecutively for four years (2010-2013), for the first time since NEXIM’s establishment in 1991. What’s more, the bank, Orya revealed, declared dividends for its two shareholders, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Federal Ministry of Finance Incorporated (FMFI).

There’s no way those two shareholders are letting go of the man bringing them profits, at least not at the moment.

You Don’t Change a Winning Team;

Not even President Jonathan will do that; change a man who is leading the charge in sectors that Nigeria desperately needs better performance from. Orya’s leadership of NEXIM has taken the bank from the pre-2009 dump yards of negative ratings to a ‘B’ rating in 2012, then to the high pedestal of ‘Best Performing African DFI’ in 2013 awarded the bank by The Association of African Development Finance Institutions (AADFI).

Neither would Nigeria’s President want to obstruct or distract Orya’s succeeding NEXIM 2015 target, among which are raising the contribution of Nigeria to regional and emerging markets trades by 70 percent, and the attainment of an ‘A’ Credit Rating by a reputable rating agency.

Orya Pushed For it, and He’s got Presidential and Finance Ministry’s Backing:

Robert Orya never hid his desire to have a second term. He told Financial Nigeria in July “There is no doubt that NEXIM Bank has been transformed into an institution of significance in the Nigerian development financing space. But much of what we have been able to do in the last five years was to first reverse the misfortune of the Bank as a result of unfocused management of the immediate past. However, we have also put in place the framework to scale up the results we have been able to achieve. Therefore, in that sense, there is a lot of motivation for me to drive the growth of the Bank, on the back of the measures we have put in place”.

One of the main reasons for Orya’s desire to remain in office is to see through his ‘golden’ Sealink Project- the transnational shipping company being facilitated in collaboration with the Organized Private Sector Associations in West and Central Africa in partnership with the Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FEWACCI) and Transimex S. A. Cameroun.

On the Project, Orya enthused, “I hope to see the process through, as well as ensure that the Sealink is run in tandem with the objective of facilitating Nigerian exports, which has necessitated my commitment and that of my executive team to actualizing the Project”.

And as proven by the re-appointment by the presidency and congratulatory letter of the ministry of Finance, Robert Orya always had the blessings of Nigeria’s President Goodluck and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance Okonjo Iweala.