The Chairperson of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance and founder of #FixPolitics, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, has called on President Bola Tinubu to terminate the ports deal with the United Kingdom, which she described as “dodgy.”
In a statement, she also urged her fellow citizens to raise their voices against the deal, arguing that it would worsen Nigeria’s fiscal and economic future.
“You have a voice. Use it. If not for you, at least do it for your children and grandchildren who will spend their working life repaying a debt they never saw, for a deal whose terms no one would show them,” she stated.
One hundred and fifty-two days after President Tinubu signed a £746m ports financing deal with the United Kingdom at Windsor Castle, neither government has disclosed the terms of the agreement.
Nigeria’s public debt, the former World Bank Vice President said, has exploded from N87tn in May 2023 to over N152tn today, adding that debt service now gulps more than 60 per cent of government revenues, leaving crumbs for health, education and the security Nigerians are dying for.
She alleged that the Tinubu administration’s annual borrowing rate soared to nearly N50trn, 10 times that of its predecessors fuelled by a $21.45bn external borrowing plan approved without a single substantive public hearing by the complicit, supine and captive lawmakers at the National Assembly.
Notwithstanding, the Tinubu government added a £746m ports deal, whose terms remain hidden. This is neither a grant nor aid, but a sovereign debt obligation – a commercial loan arranged by Citibank London, guaranteed by UK Export Finance, and structured to benefit British exporters.
She stated, “At least £236m is contractually reserved for British suppliers. British Steel alone secured a £70m contract it described as one of the largest in its history. Nigeria borrowed the money that British companies will use to secure the contracts, and Nigerians will repay the debt. Yet neither interest rates nor repayment timelines have been officially published.
“Civil society organisations, including SEREC and BudgIT, as well as opposition parties, have demanded disclosure. None has received a substantive response. The loan agreement remains unpublished by the Ministry of Finance, NPA, UKEF, or any other official body.”
The co-founder of Transparency International noted three failures that make the silence unacceptable, namely currency risk, procurement failure and policy failure.
For her, no analysis whatsoever has been offered by the Tinubu administration to justify why the Apapa and Tin Can ports, two of West Africa’s most commercially productive ports, could not follow the same model of private capital.
These two ports, she argued, do not need sovereign debt to be rehabilitated, but a governance framework that attracts private capital on Nigeria’s terms.
“The failure of the Nigerian government to explore this proven better policy option is sufficient basis to conclude that this deal was conceived for the good of Nigeria. This shadowy deal smells like another of the many opaque, cronyist transactions in which the country takes on the debt and the politically connected take the contracts, and citizens, as always, are left to pay the bill.”
On the way forward, she urged President Tinubu to terminate the “opaque” deal. She also called for all drawdowns to be suspended immediately and for the government to return to the National Assembly with a competitive concession framework for Apapa and Tin Can, designed by an independent transaction adviser, not a politically connected contractor.
Also, she charged civil society to file Freedom of Information requests with the Ministry of Finance, NPA and the Attorney-General, and simultaneously invoke the UK FOI Act against UKEF to obtain full documentation of the transaction.
“Nigeria desperately needs functional ports. The dysfunction of Apapa and Tin Can ports has cost the country immeasurably. But legitimate aspirations cannot be condoned as an excuse for illegitimate processes. A port built on undisclosed debt and non-tendered contracts entrenches the same rotten governance structure that has harmed Nigeria for decades.
“The insecurity ravaging the country and the opaque borrowing I am calling out are not separate crises; they stem from the same dangerous culture of reckless abuse of public resources and contempt for accountability.
“Today marks 152 days of silence. The two governments appear to be relying on public fatigue to bury this scandal. We must refuse to let them succeed with this, not just for the sake of this deal, but for the principle that no Nigerian government should borrow in the name of its people and refuse to account for the terms,” she stated.