Ezekwesili's Challenge Reopens the £746m Nigeria-UK Ports Deal

Five months after President Bola Tinubu stood at Lancaster House to witness a landmark port financing agreement with the United Kingdom, the deal is back in the headlines this time for what it has not disclosed rather than what it promises to build.

Former Education Minister Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili has called on Tinubu to suspend and review the £746 million (about $902 million) ports financing arrangement, arguing that the government has failed to publish its repayment terms, interest rates, or procurement process. In a follow-up opinion piece published by Vanguard, Ezekwesili did not note that one hundred and fifty-two days after the signing at Windsor Castle, Abuja nor has London released the underlying documents. She urged Tinubu to "terminate this opaque deal" and "suspend all drawdowns immediately," calling instead for a competitive concession framework to be brought before the National Assembly.

What was signed
The agreement was formalised on March 19, 2026, during Tinubu's state visit to the UK the first by a Nigerian leader in 37 years. It was signed on Nigeria's behalf by Finance Minister Wale Edun and, for the British government, by Parliamentary Under-Secretary Blair McDougall. The financing, backed by UK Export Finance (UKEF) and arranged through Citi's London branch, is earmarked for rehabilitating the Lagos Port Complex (Apapa) and the Tin Can Island Port Complex two facilities that together handle more than 70 percent of Nigeria's import and export cargo and have seen no major overhaul since Apapa opened in 1913 and Tin Can in 1977.

UKEF's own announcement described the package as covering just over 96 percent of a total project cost of roughly $998.9 million, with SkyKapital serving as financial adviser and Poland's KUKE providing reinsurance. Crucially, at least £236 million of the resulting contracts were reserved for British suppliers a condition that produced what UKEF called British Steel's largest export order to date, a £70 million ($95 million) contract to supply 120,000 tons of steel billets to Nigerian construction firms Hitech Nigeria and ITB Nigeria.

The transparency gap
That British-supplier carve-out is precisely what has drawn scrutiny. Because the arrangement is a commercial loan guaranteed by a UK export credit agency rather than a grant, Ezekwesili and other critics argue it functions as sovereign debt taken on to underwrite British industrial contracts, while ordinary Nigerians remain in the dark about what they are actually repaying. She has pointed to Nigeria's public debt climbing from roughly N87 trillion in May 2023 to over N152 trillion today, with debt servicing now consuming more than 60 percent of government revenue, as the backdrop against which an unpublished financing arrangement becomes harder to defend.

Civil society groups, including SEREC and BudgIT, have reportedly sought disclosure without a substantive response, and Ezekwesili has called on organizations to file Freedom of Information requests with Nigeria's Ministry of Finance, the Nigerian Ports Authority, and the Attorney-General, while simultaneously invoking the UK's FOI Act against UKEF.

For its part, the Federal Government has defended the deal as balanced and economically beneficial, with the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy describing it as the most significant modernization of Nigeria's port infrastructure in nearly fifty years. A Nextier SPD policy review published in April had already flagged that the arrangement reflects a broader pattern of donor countries structuring development financing around their own industrial and geopolitical interests rather than pure altruism a caution that has aged into the current controversy.

What remains unresolved
Nothing so far confirms that drawdowns have been suspended, that the loan documents have been published, or that the National Assembly has been given the fuller review Ezekwesili is demanding. The dispute is, for now, a matter of pressure rather than reversal a former minister invoking transparency norms against a government that has treated the deal as a diplomatic and industrial win. Whether that pressure produces disclosure, or simply fades against the news cycle, is the open question going into the coming weeks.

This report draws on statements and reporting from Vanguard, ThisDay, UK Export Finance, Global Trade Review, and Nextier SPD. Figures in British pounds are converted to approximate US dollar equivalents at the time of reporting.

Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.

International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP

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References
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