Other distinguished ladies and gentlemen, you know, I think I was going to sneak away, but then I said no, if I do, then Baba will notice that I'm missing, and I noticed that my other big sister was looking at me. That's Ungoa. I want to really thank you so much that during Baba's period, his second time as president of Nigeria, we have actually seen a big boom. Himself and Dr., when they started pushing, trying to seek for debt forgiveness, honestly, I personally even told somebody that no, I think they're playing, it's not going to happen at all. So I can't really say how did they pull it through, where we had a lot of money and we were forgiving our debt by just paying about 12 and 5 billion. We must really thank you, Baba, for your leadership. We must thank Unoi for supporting her boss to make sure we made that possible.
Like what I said, the industrialization when we started in 2003. I wasn't really interested much in manufacturing up to 1996 when we started. We were doing the simple of our cement business, which was just to import cement, bulk cement, bag it, and now sell it to the market. And President Obasanjo, under his leadership, said that no, that's not going to happen. And you know, he took charge, charge in the sense that, you know, he drove every single process to make sure that thing happened. And by the time he left office, he insisted that look, Aliko, no matter what happens, right? He gave me marching orders that we must commission before leaving office. You won't believe that we commissioned the factory just 2 weeks, on the 12th of May 2007. Baba said no, we must, and we had to, because I know that if not, Baba would have actually continued to fight me. But right now we're best of friends because I delivered.
But that trajectory actually continued. Today Nigeria produces more than 60 million tons. I think with leaders like Baba, if we can have future leaders to be like him, committed to development of a nation, I don't believe that we'll have any African out of job, because Baba was looking for development. So age really is not an issue. Even at that time, with Baba's age of 68 or so thereabout, he set up the best team Nigeria ever had.
That was a team where now government realized that yes, you cannot clap with one hand. You need two hands to clap. What am I saying? Because you can roll out any policies that you like as a president of any nation. If you don't partner with your own private sector, it will never happen. Government is not known to create jobs, but they facilitate job creation through good policies and consistencies of policies. Money follows what you call trust. If there's no trust, it's not about profit. People will not allow their money to go into a place where there's no trust. So trust is number one before profit.
And I'm sure my brother Judge or Mtar, they will confirm that yes, it is true. You have seen what, as we call him our Baba OBJ, did at that time during his time: push Ministry of Finance, push everybody, drag African Development Bank, because he realized that African Development Bank's agenda was totally different. They created Arisen Bank. After creating Arisen Bank, now we have another rising star, African Finance Corporation.
We must actually thank you, Mr. President, for making us proud, for making sure that yes, at the time when you left office, I think with the trajectory that we had, we would have actually had that single currency of West Africa. But sir, I think that idea will still come back. We will continue to make sure that we make our continent very, very proud. Anytime when we think of leaders like you, we say that look, we don't want this system to punish us. There are quite a lot of people who have actually followed your own trend. I know that at the time when we launched this project of refinery, then my was the governor of central bank, and when he was governor of central bank, what he told me that, look, Aliko, whatever you need in this bank, even if to carry the whole money, I give you. Tell me what you need. We must make this refinery to happen, so that all these people who are actually committing a lot of sin, taking over 10 billion dollars of our money through subsidy, will stop. And he did everything to help us.
Your Royal Highness, we thank you. We thank you for your support. These are the kind of leaders that we need in Africa. You go to a place. I remember when Dr. Goi was minister of finance. She was very, very accessible. We would sit down with her even after OBJ left office, during Jonathan. We would sit down, and President Obasanjo actually has set up a system where now we had the Linda Chulka committee. We would sit down there, we would address the government and tell them what they are doing wrong. And it was a friendly discussion, Chatham House. But we had, I mean, an opportunity to tell government what is going right and what is going wrong, and they always make amends. They say, okay, fine, we'll change. You tell us what do you think is better, and we always advise them, and they always follow that advice. But right now, okay, I don't want to say much.
So really, Mr. President, you have done very, very well. I think without what you people have done, there's no way people like us will be in this kind of trajectory. I must really thank you. You know, it's just that sometimes you now look at things and say, okay, fine, what do we do to appreciate our leaders? I remember last few months or few weeks, General G was launching his book, and I tried as much as possible to run from one meeting. I couldn't change the meeting, but I asked somebody that please, can you go and represent me when you are launching the book. I don't know what it's all about, I haven't read the book, but please donate 500 million naira on my behalf. Then he said, well, why are you giving that money? Are you that close to him? I said that no, to tell you the truth, he doesn't know, he doesn't have my number, and I don't have his number, and I don't know where he lives, but every Christmas I send him a Christmas present, rice and whatever. He says, so why are you doing this? I said, because during his time, despite the civil war that we had, Nigeria's economy was growing at double digit. They did their best. They've done very, very well. And we must make sure that leaders who have done well, we will continue to support them until we die.
So that is the reason why people like OBJ, President Obasanjo, we will continue to respect you, we will continue to be involved in whatever that you are doing, no matter what the cost is, and you understand what I'm saying. We will continue to give you all the support because you have actually done well today, Mr. President. A company like ours, we have a vision. Why we are saying that yes, because you have also established very strong financial institutions. A company like ours now, out of Africa, out of Nigeria, the most difficult place to do business, we have launched a project of $50 billion to spend between now and that time. We must really thank. And I must say...
I must say that this is the first time what we have is not official, but today we have more cash than what we are owing. It's not possible in Africa, and we followed. We have quite a lot of respect for your leadership, and we'll continue to pray that Nigeria will continue to have good leadership. Leadership that will partner with private sector to create jobs and prosperity for our country and for the continent. And I'm sure if you are there as a president today, and we have five to 10 the likes of you in Africa, Africa Free Trade Agreement would have been implemented. But nothing is beyond the Almighty God. I'm sure some of us that we believe in prayers and the protection of Almighty God, I'm sure one day, one day this free trade agreement will be implemented, will be implemented such a way that we will be able to move around in our continent free, no visa, no harassment. Thank you.
