Tinubu Asks Senate To Approve New $516m Foreign Loan
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu today Thursday dispatched a letter to the Nigerian Senate asking for the speedy approval of a $516 million foreign loan.
In his letter to the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, which was read during plenary, Tinubu said the loan will be obtained from Deutsche Bank.
According to him, it was aimed at financing the already approved borrowing plan for the Sokoto-Badagry 1,000-kilometre Super Highway.
Akpabio referred the letter to the Committee on Local and Foreign Debts for legislative action and a report back in one week.
The loan would have a nine-year tenor, including up to three years’ grace, Tinubu said in the letter.
The roughly 1,000-km (600-mile) highway will link Sokoto state, in Nigeria’s northwest, through the central Niger and Kwara states to the coastal town of Badagry in Lagos, the commercial capital.
Tinubu said the highway would deepen north–south links, cut travel times and haulage costs, lift trade and food security, and bolster national integration.
Last year, Nigeria raised a $747 million syndicated loan, led by Deutsche Bank, to fund the first phase of a planned 700-km (435-mile) coastal highway.
