Ezekwesili Demands Cancellation Of £746m Ports Deal As BudgIT Pushes Fiscal Transparency

Ezekwesili Demands Cancellation of £746m Ports Deal as BudgIT Pushes Fiscal Transparency Former Minister of Education and Solid Minerals Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to immediately terminate the controversial £746 million financing arrangement for the rehabilitation of Apapa and Tin Can Island ports in Lagos, describing the transaction as opaque and lacking a competitive procurement process. Ezekwesili, who is also the Chairperson of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance and founder of FixPolitics, argued that Nigeria’s urgent need to modernise its ports should not be used to justify what she described as a non-transparent procurement process. She called for the suspension of all drawdowns under the agreement and urged the Federal Government to return to the National Assembly with a competitive concession framework for the two ports. She also proposed that an independent transaction adviser, rather than a politically connected contractor, should design any new framework.

The former minister raised concerns over the lack of public disclosure of key terms, including the interest rate and repayment schedule, as well as the foreign-exchange exposure created by the sterling-denominated financing. She urged civil society organisations to use Nigeria’s Freedom of Information Act to obtain the full documentation of the transaction from the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Nigerian Ports Authority and the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation. She also called for similar transparency efforts in the United Kingdom concerning UK Export Finance UKEF. Meanwhile, BudgIT has urged the Federal Government to strengthen budget execution, public auditing and procurement disclosure ahead of the 2027 budget cycle. The civic-tech organisation’s call followed concerns raised in the 2026 U.S. Fiscal Transparency Report, which found that Nigeria had made no significant progress in improving financial management and opening its public finances in 2025. The assessment faulted Nigeria’s budget documents for failing to provide a substantially complete picture of government revenues and expenditure and raised concerns about the accessibility of procurement information. BudgIT called for routine publication of contract awards, contract values, implementation status and variations, saying citizens should be able to track public projects from bidding and award through completion. It also advocated reforms to strengthen the independence and legal framework of the Auditor-General’s office. The ports financing has previously featured in BudgIT’s own analysis of Nigeria’s borrowing priorities. The organisation noted that the $1 billion UK Export Finance facility was part of a broader $6 billion external borrowing request presented to the National Assembly in March 2026, with the facility intended to support rehabilitation of the Lagos Port Complex and Tin Can Island Port.The controversy brings together two major issues in Nigeria’s public finances—how government borrows for major infrastructure and how transparently it plans, awards and implements public spending. Ezekwesili is demanding that the ports deal be cancelled and subjected to a more transparent competitive process, while BudgIT is pressing for broader reforms that would make government budgets, contracts, audits and spending easier for Nigerians to scrutinise