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Coca-Cola Nigeria System to Invest N560b in 5 years, Flags off 70th Anniversary
The Coca-Cola System in Nigeria, comprising Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) Limited and Coca-Cola Nigeria Ltd, has flagged off activities marking its 70th anniversary celebration in Nigeria, with commitment to invest N560 billion in five years.
This was announced Thursday at a press briefing with key NBC and Coca-Cola Nigeria executives in attendance.
The Coca-Cola System, through the bottling arm NBC, was incorporated in 1951. Today the Coca-Cola system is a leader in the non-alcoholic category with a rich portfolio of brands and array of options across its product offering.
The system has kept growing with its customers with a stated vision to provide a beverage for every occasion around the clock, while positively impacting the nation and economy.
With 8 manufacturing plants, over 7000 dealers, skilled and dedicated employees, and a sophisticated distribution system across Nigeria, there is practically no community in Nigeria where a cold bottle of Coca-Cola is not within the close reach of consumers.
Commenting on the 70th anniversary milestone, Mathieu Seguin, Managing Director of NBC, said, “As we continued to grow, we have been very deliberate about investing heavily to make a positive impact in the lives of people in communities where we work and operate. We believe that our business is only as sustainable as the communities in which we do business, and this is why we have mainstreamed sustainability into every aspect of our business.
“For perspective, in the last 10 years alone, the Coke System has invested more than 9 billion naira in lifting the living standards of communities where we do business in Nigeria, through locally relevant initiatives.
Some of the areas we have had the most impact have been in education and youth development, women empowerment, water, environmental sustainability, sports and the promotion of commerce and entrepreneurship.”
Seguin went on to share some of the impact and notable accomplishments of the Coca-Cola system over the years. In youth development, the System has trained over 30,000 youths on entrepreneurship and employability skills across different cities in Nigeria in the last 5 years.
Under Education, its Tech Relevant Teacher (TRT) project has impacted 24,000 school pupils, with 648 school leaders and teachers trained and several classrooms blocks constructed or renovated in over 30 public schools in the last 5 years, impacted over 30,000 students.
With regards to women development, from 2015 to 2019 alone the Coca-Cola 5by20 program impacted over 470,000 women, with 38,000 women supported to start up their own medium, small or micro businesses as Coca-Cola Distributors or Retailers.
The Lady Mechanic Initiative empowered 100 vulnerable young women with vocational, entrepreneurial and life skills, and equipped them to become certified professional automobile mechanics.
Furthermore, the Safe Birth Initiative, a wellbeing programme to support the efforts of the government towards reducing the alarming numbers of deaths by women and new-born babies from birth-related complication has impacted over 12,000 Mothers and Babies since inception.
Speaking also at the event, Alfred Olajide, Managing Director of Coca-Cola Nigeria remarked that, “Anniversaries are an important part of life. They remind us of important events, both personal and cultural.
“This celebration not only gives us an opportunity to look back at the brand’s storied history in Nigeria but is also an opportunity to highlight our plans for the future. This milestone anniversary is a testament to the possibilities and shared opportunities we have created in this great country.
Beyond an anniversary, this is a story of a company building and establishing long-lasting relationships with diverse groups, individuals, and organisations in a bid to ensure a better-shared future; it is years of system investments that have ensured the oiling of this country’s economic gears; it is years of initiatives that have ensured and fostered community resilience in communities seeking our intervention; it is years of instilling hope, open happiness, positive feelings and the magic of community in audiences.”
The 70th anniversary celebration will run all through the remaining part of 2021 with a line-up of activities designed to celebrate the milestone with the Coca-Cola System’s consumers, customers, employees, partners and the general public for their support towards the growth of the business which include the Anniversary Stakeholder Event, consumer seeding/giveback programmes among others.
“In emphasizing our current Real Magic philosophy, we will be kickstarting The Nigerians of Coca-Cola campaign, which will serve to tell a visual story of a diverse set of people across key regions in the country with different struggles and positive histories with Coca-Cola.
“These are people that have directly benefited from The Coca-Cola System’s sustainability initiatives – from our value system to our key programme areas such as women and youth empowerment, waste, wellbeing, and water stewardship.
“Through this activity, we will also highlight the long-term impact these partnerships and initiatives have had on the communities and individuals.
“To share fun and interesting stories about our beverages, we are also launching the My Coke Moments campaign, to encourage customers and stakeholders across demographics to share nostalgic moments and memories with their online network of friends.
“This further demonstrates Coca-Cola’s cultural relativism in Nigeria and showcases the brand’s longevity and love in the country
“We have also planned Share a Trip with Coke which is an activity that will be spreading Real Magic across four key Nigerian cities.
“Coca-Cola branded buses will be on major routes in Lagos, Kano and Port-Harcourt, and lucky customers that get on the buses will be rewarded with free rides and exclusive brand merchandise.
“To cap off the exciting activities, we will close the celebration with a celebratory dinner in November 2021 to delight our varied stakeholders”.
At the event, the Coca-Cola System presented Socio-Economic Impact Report for 2015-2019 which summarises the impact of the system, the value it has contributed to the Nigerian economy and the investments it is making in communities.
According to Mr. Seguin, “since 2007, we have invested $1.7billiion in the country and we will be investing an additional N560 billion or $1b in our operations in Nigeria.
“In the last five years, the Coca-Cola system has also supported the creation of 58,000 jobs along its value chain”.
In closing, Olajide remarked that, “as we prepare for more decades of excellence and enriching moments, I believe that there are opportunities for us to learn more, listen more, and continue to tailor our beverage solutions, to provide our consumers the brands they love at the different phases of their lives, done sustainably for a better shared future.
We will continue to enable economic empowerment for the people who need it most – downstream and upstream of our supply chain to truly uplift future generations.
Our environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals are embedded in how we operate as a business – it has been the history and legacy of the business in Nigeria, and our consumers should not expect anything less than the promise of quality, personalization, and the optimism that our beverages inspire.”
Olajide noted that Coca-Cola has always been in the forefront of corporate support for the development of football in Nigeria. Over 10,000 players, from 500 schools and 50 celebrity football coaches have participated in the Copa Coca-Cola programme which has reached the 36 States and the FCT, Abuja since it launched in Nigeria in 2009.
In addition, on January 17, 2018, Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited announced its partnership with Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) as the Official Soft Drink Company and Sponsor of all the Nigeria National Football teams.
The partnership is worth $4 million and will run for five years. Partnerships such as these have brought the FIFA World Cup trophy to Nigeria three times, as part of the FIFA World Cup™ Trophy Tour and have given many consumers the opportunity to travel and watch football tournaments live.
Sustainable manufacturing was also highlighted as an ongoing priority for the System, with a focus on Energy use reduction, Water use reduction, Emissions reduction and World Without Waste through investments made in installations such as Combiner Heat and Power plant, Effluent treatment plants and hybrid solar power installations in its manufacturing plants.
The system also reinforced its global commitment to make all consumer packaging 100% recyclable by 2025 and to enhance the collection of all packaging material by 2030 through its World Without Waste program.
Cybercrime has emerged as a dominant security concern across Africa, with more than 30 percent of all reported crimes in Western and Eastern regions linked to cyber activity, according to the newly released 2025 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report by INTERPOL.
The report, based on data from African member states and private sector partners, reveals that two-thirds of surveyed countries describe cybercrime as constituting a medium to high share of total criminal cases.
This highlights how cyber-enabled criminal activity is evolving rapidly across the continent. The report identified alarming spikes in scam attempts, with some countries witnessing a 3,000 percent increase in suspected scam notifications in the past year.
Neal Jetton, INTERPOL’s Cyber Crime Director, warned that the threat landscape is evolving faster than enforcement responses.
“This fourth edition of the INTERPOL African Cyber Threat Assessment provides a vital snapshot of the current situation, informed by operational intelligence, extensive law enforcement engagement, and strategic private-sector collaboration.
“It paints a clear picture of a threat landscape in flux, with emerging dangers like AI-driven fraud that demand urgent attention. No single agency or country can face these challenges alone,” Jetton stated.
In the past year, suspected scam notifications rose by up to 3,000 per cent in some African countries, according to data from Kaspersky, one of several private sector partners that work with INTERPOL’s cybercrime directorate
Online scams, particularly through phishing, are the most frequently reported cybercrimes across the continent. Ransomware attacks and Business Email Compromise (BEC) incidents are also increasing, particularly in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt.
“Ransomware detections in Africa also rose in 2024, with South Africa and Egypt suffering the highest number, at 17,849 and 12,281 detections respectively, according to data from Trend Micro, followed by other highly digitised economies such as Nigeria (3,459) and Kenya (3,030),” it stated.
Incidents included attacks on critical infrastructure, such as a breach at Kenya’s Urban Roads Authority (KURA), and on government databases, such as hacks of Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the report stated.
The manufacturers of the world’s first malaria vaccine are set to slash the price by more than half by 2028 to less than$5 per dose.
The manufacturers of the shot, known as RTS,S, said a phased reduction in cost would begin immediately, with an ultimate aim to reduce the price to less than $5.
The announcement could hardly come at a more critical moment.
Gavi, a major vaccination initiative which funds immunisations in the world’s poorest countries, is facing a major budget crunch.
In Brussels on Wednesday, Gavi’s replenishment event raised $9 billion to fund immunisation programmes over the next five years. While this sounds like a huge sum, it’s significantly less than the $11.9bn the group had been aiming for.
Governments around the world are cutting development spending dramatically.
The UK, for instance, cut its contribution to Gavi by 40 per cent in real terms, telling The Telegraph it was prioritising defence, while the US has pledged nothing at all.
Though America previously gave Gavi roughly $300m a year, the country’s new health secretary claimed without evidence that the organisation was ignoring vaccine safety.
The announcement from the British pharmaceutical giant GSK and Indian drugmaker Bharat Biotech will therefore be a relief to those trying to balance the books.
In a statement the companies said the price reduction demonstrated their “commitment to Gavi”, and was “driven by process improvements, expanded production capacity, cost-effective manufacturing, and minimal profit margins”.
By the time the price has fallen to below $5 per dose, a technology transfer agreement means Bharat will have taken over production, though GSK will continue to supply the adjuvant piece of the shot.
“For us, this is more than a cooperation, it’s a promise,” said Dr Krishna Ella, executive chairman of Bharat Biotech International Limited.
“By joining forces with GSK, and working closely with Gavi, and the WHO [World Health Organization], we are taking a real step toward closing the gap between vaccine supply and the urgent needs of children at risk of malaria.”
Each year, malaria still kills 500,000 people – the vast majority of them children aged five and under in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to WHO estimates, cases and deaths fell significantly between 2000 and 2015, but progress has since stalled.
Some have high hopes that RTS,S, as well as another vaccine called R21 developed by Oxford University, could prove critical in efforts to turn the tide.
In clinical trials, RTS,S reduced hospitalisations for severe malaria by 30 per cent.
But critics say the shot is too expensive and not as effective as existing tools, such as bed nets and antimalarials.
The reduction in price will bring it more in line with the cost of R21, which is priced at around $4 per dose.
Yet the cost will still add up, as both jabs require multiple shots. For RTS,S, this means four doses – the first three doses are given monthly, starting around five months of age, while the fourth dose is administered 15-18 months later.
Both jabs “provide reasonable short term efficacy – over about a year – so are a useful addition to other measures,” said Professor Nick White, a professor at the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit who specialises in malaria.
“In the past GSK had limited production capacity – one of the reasons the R21 was developed. So reducing the price will be good and the two comparable vaccines can fight it out in the market place.”
A spokesperson for Gavi said the alliance’s goal is to “create sustainable demand backed by predictable financing so that companies – like GSK and Bharat – can continue investing in technology transfer and other efficiencies that bring down costs, thus making critical vaccines more available and affordable.
GSK’s decision to lower its prices, the spokesperson added, is “an important step for the global malaria vaccination programme, and our ability to make this lifesaving tool more widely available to those who need it the most”.
Gavi plans to help fund RTS,S in 12 African countries by the end of this year.
Previously, GSK has said it will supply up to 18 million vaccine doses between 2023 and the end of this year.
The company plans to supply 15 million doses annually from 2026-2028, a spokesperson told Reuters.
Rack Centre, West Africa’s Tier III carrier- and cloud-neutral data centre, has struck a collocation agreement with TelCables Nigeria, an Angola Cables subsidiary.
TelCables Nigeria is delivering its high-capacity network and cloud infrastructure, as well as four international subsea cable systems (SACS, MONET, SEBRAS, and EllaLink), directly into Rack Centre’s regional carrier ecosystem as part of the agreement.
According to Angola Cables, the move provides reliable, low-latency south-bound routes to Europe, the Americas, and Latin America, reducing the danger of future cable disruptions along West Africa’s coast and enabling next-generation cloud services across the continent.
“Our unique Africa – to – Latin America route via SACS, combined with MONET, SEBRAS and EllaLink, gives customers the lowest – latency paths to the Americas and Europe,” said Fernando Fernandes, CEO of TelCables Nigeria.
“Businesses in latency sensitive sectors: financial services, content delivery and real-time communications will experience faster transactions, reduced lag and an enhanced user experience.
“By hosting at Rack Centre we also localise Clouds2Africa resources, price them in naira, and remove expensive ingress/egress charges or FX exposure.”
Rack Centre said its 13.5MW data centre campus designed with its recently launched LGS2 facility that delivers a design PUE of 1.35 and powered from sustainable energy sources, already hosts 70+ carriers, ISPs and network operators.
Lars Johannisson, CEO of Rack Centre, commented: “Adding a global operator of Angola Cables’ calibre through TelCables Nigeria dramatically deepens our connectivity fabric.
“We can now offer 99.95 % SLA routes to more destinations, enabling enterprises, governments and cloud providers to meet performance and data-residency requirements while keeping traffic local.”
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