By Kingston Magare 31.3.2026
Nigeria’s Senate, no questions asked Tuesday approved a $6 billion external loan request by President Bola Tinubu to fund budget deficits, service loans and rehabilitate the nation’s “decaying” port infrastructure.
Tinubu made the request in a letter dispatched to the Senate president Godswill Akpabio earlier on Tuesday and it took less than two hours for the loan request to be approved.
Tinubu is looking to borrow a $5b loan facility from Abu Dhabi Bank and a $1 billion loan from UK Export Finance through Citibank London, designated for the rehabilitation of critical infrastructure at the Lagos Port Complex and Tin Can Island Port.
The Senate committee on Local and Foreign Debts, deliberated on Tinubu’s request in record time and the committee chairman Senator Aliyu Wamakko (APC, Sokoto North), recommended the approval.
The $1 billion component, structured through UK Export Finance, is intended to address what the President described in his letter as “longstanding operational challenges” at Nigeria’s two busiest seaports.
According to the administration, the rehabilitation project aims to improve efficiency, enhance safety standards, support non-oil trade diversification, and position Nigeria as a regional trade hub.
The ports, which handle over 70 percent of Nigeria’s non-oil imports, have long suffered from congestion, dilapidated infrastructure, and inefficiencies that impose significant costs on businesses and undermine the country’s competitiveness.
Tuesday’s approval adds to a growing list of borrowing authorizations under the Tinubu administration. Just four months ago, the National Assembly approved a separate request to raise N1.15 trillion from the domestic debt market to fund the 2025 budget deficit, a move that completed the government’s domestic financing plan for the year.
The 2025 Appropriation Act, which now stands at N59.99 trillion after a N5.25 trillion increase from the executive’s initial proposal, has underscored the widening fiscal gap.
However, opposition lawmakers and civil society groups raised alarms about the speed and scale of new borrowing.