President Bola Tinubu on Thursday asked the Senate to approve a fresh $516,333,070 loan from Deutsche Bank to finance part of the already approved borrowing plan for the Sokoto-Badagry 1,000 Super Highway. The letter, addressed to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, was read during plenary before Akpabio sent it to the Committee on Local and Foreign Debts for action.
The committee was directed to report back within one week, putting the request on a fast legislative track. Punch reported that the borrowing is for sections 1, 1A and 1B of the 1,000-kilometre project, a route that runs from Illela to Badagry and is meant to link Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun and Lagos states.
The size of the request lands at a moment when Nigeria’s debt burden is already a live political argument. Atiku Abubakar warned against the loan, saying that “at a time when Nigeria is already groaning under the weight of unsustainable debt, the resort to yet another foreign loan—without transparent terms, clear cost-benefit analysis, and a credible repayment framework—raises profound questions about prudence and accountability.” He added that “Nigeria must build, but Nigeria must not borrow blindly.”
Prof. Akpan Ekpo also said the country’s growing dependence on external borrowing is becoming harder to ignore. “The economy is getting too exposed to external debt, that’s my worry,” he said, adding that “GDP does not pay debt, revenue pays debt, and our revenue profile is shaky.” The criticism goes to the heart of the administration’s infrastructure pitch: the highway is being sold as a flagship project, but its financing is now under sharper scrutiny than the road itself.
The question before lawmakers is no longer whether the road is ambitious. It is whether Tinubu’s government can persuade the Senate that another foreign loan is justified, affordable and transparent at a time when debt concerns are already straining confidence in how the country borrows.
