Renaissance Africa Energy Company has called for a development model in the Niger Delta that links economic growth, environmental stewardship and community prosperity, stressing that investment, innovation and industrial expansion in the region are a national necessity.

The company’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Tony Attah, stated this on Wednesday on the sidelines of the ongoing Niger Delta Economic and Investment Summit (NDEIS) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Attah said the region’s future prosperity depended on its ability to convert its resource wealth into broad-based economic opportunities for its people.

According to him, while the Niger Delta remains central to Nigeria’s economy and generates most of the country’s oil revenues, its future must be anchored on a broader economic vision encompassing gas, petrochemicals, agriculture, the blue economy and the digital economy.

He described Renaissance as a good fit for addressing the region’s economic development gap through its shared prosperity philosophy, which seeks to promote energy security, industrialisation, employment generation and the empowerment of people in host communities.

“Investment, innovation, and industrial growth in the Niger Delta are not a regional preference, but a national necessity,” Attah said.

“The principle is simple: value created in the Niger Delta must be felt in the Niger Delta.”

Highlighting steps taken by the company to implement its shared prosperity model, Attah said Renaissance had established 32 Host Community Development Trusts (HCDTs) covering more than 300 communities across Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta and Imo States.

He said the company had remitted more than ₦149 billion to support community-led development initiatives, adding that 473 projects and programmes had been completed through the trusts as of August 2026.

Attah said Renaissance’s investments extended beyond its statutory obligations to include healthcare, education, access to energy, enterprise development and rural infrastructure.

“Our Community Health Insurance Schemes widen access to care. Our educational scholarships prepare the engineers and entrepreneurs this region needs. Our enterprise development programmes back the small businesses that sustain any economy. None of it is required by law. All of it is deliberate,” he said.

At a plenary session at the summit, Renaissance’s Vice President, Relations and Sustainable Development, Igo Weli, said the need to meet growing global energy demand and the imperative of environmental protection should not be treated as competing objectives.

“Nature and the need for energy are not necessarily in conflict. They can coexist and serve everyone well,” Weli said.

He said Renaissance was promoting environmental sustainability through initiatives including the cultivation of a 1,000-tree green belt at the University of Benin under the Campus GreenBelt initiative.

Weli said the company also had an ambition to establish one million trees across Nigerian universities and secondary schools, while working to repurpose disused borrow pits into fishponds and other economically viable assets before returning them to their original owners.

However, he identified collective action as a critical missing ingredient in accelerating development in the Niger Delta.

“We have a lot of talk and plans, but not enough cohesive action. At Renaissance, we are about action. Plans alone will not create employment for the many trained young people across the Niger Delta. Action will,” Weli said.

He cited Renaissance’s partnership with the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) to equip young people with employability skills and improve workforce readiness among Niger Delta youths seeking career opportunities in the energy sector.

Looking ahead, Weli called for the establishment of a major industrial park within the next three years, saying such a facility could stimulate investment, create jobs and support economic diversification in the region.

Both Attah and Weli stressed the importance of stronger collaboration among governments, regulators, businesses, development institutions, academia and host communities in shaping the future of the Niger Delta.

Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited is an energy company focused on supporting Nigeria’s and Africa’s energy security and industrialisation through sustainable energy solutions. It operates Nigeria’s largest oil and gas joint venture assets, covering onshore, swamp and shallow-water locations in parts of the Niger Delta.

The joint venture’s participating interests are NNPC, 55 per cent; Renaissance, 30 per cent; TotalEnergies, 10 per cent; and AENR, five per cent.