By Afreximbank

The shareholders of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) have appointed Dr. George Elombi as the next President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the continental financial institution. He becomes the fourth President to lead the Bank since its establishment in 1993.

His appointment was one of the key decisions of the 32^nd Afreximbank group annual meetings and associated events held in Abuja, Nigeria, from 25 to 28 June, with the formal annual general meeting of shareholders taking place on Saturday, 28 June 2025.

He succeeds Professor Benedict Oramah, who has served as President and Chairman of the Board of Directors since 2015, and who will be stepping down in September 2025.

A Cameroonian national, George Elombi has been with Afreximbank since 1996, joining as a Legal Officer. He rose through the ranks to become Executive Vice President, Governance, Legal and Corporate Services. Over his nearly three decades at the Bank, he has served as Director and Executive Secretary (2010–2015); Deputy Director, Legal Services / Executive Secretary (2008–2010); Chief Legal Officer (2003–2008); and Senior Legal Officer (2001–2003).

Prior to joining Afreximbank, he taught law at the University of Hull, United Kingdom.

Dr. Elombi played a pivotal role in establishing Afreximbank group’s structure, including the formation of key subsidiaries that have expanded the Bank’s capacity to deliver on its mandate. As Chair of the Emergency Response Committee, he led the Bank’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, mobilising over $2 billion for vaccine acquisition and deployment across African and Caribbean nations. Under his supervision of the Equity Mobilisation and Investor Relations department, the Bank’s total ordinary equity mobilised amounted to USD 3.6 billion as at April 2025.

In his acceptance speech, Dr. Elombi expressed a deep commitment to the Bank’s mission and future, stating:

“I have worked alongside remarkable colleagues and extraordinary leaders to help shape this institution’s vision, its mandate as well as its growth.  As we look to the future, I see Afreximbank as a force for industrialising Africa and for re-gaining the dignity of Africans wherever they are.  I will work to preserve this important asset.”

He accepted the shareholders’ desire as expressed by his predecessor to make the institution a US$250 billion bank in ten years.

Dr. George Elombi holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the London School of Economics, University of London, and a Ph.D. in commercial arbitration from the same university. He obtained a ‘Maitrise-en-Droit’ from the University of Yaoundé in 1989.

His appointment followed a rigorous selection process initiated in January 2025, which included a global call for applications published in international media and on the Afreximbank website. Shortlisted candidates were interviewed by an international human resource executive search firm. The top candidates were presented to the Board of Directors, which recommended Dr. Elombi to the General Meeting of Shareholders for final approval.

Under the Afreximbank Charter, a president is appointed by the general meeting of shareholders upon the recommendation of the Board of Directors for a term of five years, renewable once.

The Trump administration has been allowed to restart swift removals of migrants to countries other than their homelands very soon, following a divided Supreme Court order requiring that they get a chance to challenge the deportations.

All three liberal justices dissented from the order, and the high court majority did not detail its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket.

The ruling came after immigration officials put eight people on a plane to South Sudan in May, a decision which U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston found violated his court order giving people a chance to argue they could be in danger of torture if sent away from their home countries.

The migrants from countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Cuba had been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. and immigration officials have said that they were unable to return them quickly to their home countries.

After Murphy stepped in, authorities landed the plane at a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, where the migrants were housed in a converted shipping container and the officers guarding them faced rough conditions even as immigration attorneys waited for word from their clients.

The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.

Since some countries do not accept U.S. deportations, the administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house them. South Sudan, meanwhile, has endured repeated waves of violence since gaining independence in 2011.

Murphy’s order doesn’t prohibit deportations to third countries. But it says migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in serious danger of torture if sent to another country.

In a scathing 19-page dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the court’s action exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death.”

“The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” she wrote in the dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The justices have confronted a similar issue in Trump’s effort to send Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador with little chance to challenge the deportations in court.

In that case, the court said migrants must get a “reasonable time” to file a court challenge before being removed, and the majority blocked the administration from resuming the deportations while lower courts worked out exactly how long they should get.

The conservative-majority court has sided with Trump in other immigration cases, however, clearing the way for his administration to end temporary legal protections affecting a total of nearly a million immigrants.

The third-country deportation case has been one of several legal flashpoints as the administration rails against judges whose rulings have slowed the president’s policies.

Another order from Murphy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, resulted in the Trump administration returning a gay Guatemalan man who had been wrongly deported to Mexico, where he says he had been raped and extorted. The man, identified in court papers as O.C.G, was the first person known to have been returned to U.S. custody after deportation since the start of Trump’s second term.

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, on Friday, warned that Iran has a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could take a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier.

Trump added that he is not inclined to stop Israel attacking Iran because it was “winning,” and was dismissive of European efforts to mediate an end to the conflict.

“I’m giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum,” Trump told reporters when asked if he could decide to strike Iran before that.

He added that the aim was to “see whether or not people come to their senses.”

Trump had said in a statement on Thursday that he would “make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks” because there was a “substantial chance of negotiations” with Iran.

Those comments had been widely seen as opening a two-week window for negotiations to end the war between Israel and Iran, with the European powers rushing to talks with Tehran.

But his latest remarks indicated Trump could still make his decision before that if he feels that there has been no progress towards dismantling Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump meanwhile dismissed talks that European powers Britain, France, Germany and the EU had with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva on Friday.

“They didn’t help,” he said as he arrived in Morristown, New Jersey, ahead of a fundraising dinner at his nearby golf club.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said after the talks in Geneva that Tehran would not resume negotiations with the United States until Israel stopped its attacks.

But Trump was reluctant.

“It’s very hard to make that request right now,” Trump said.

“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody’s losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens.”

Trump meanwhile doubled down on his claims that Iran is weeks away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb, despite divisions in his own administration about the intelligence behind his assessment.

Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said in a report in March that Iran was not close to having enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.

“She’s wrong,” Trump said of Gabbard, a longtime opponent of US foreign intervention whom Trump tapped to coordinate the sprawling US spy community.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.