🍞Deals, deals, deals

Eid Mubarak!

Ever been to China Town market in Lagos?

The way Nigeria and the UK are exchanging financing deals this week, don’t be surprised if we get a London Town next.

During President Bola Tinubu’s 2026 London State Visit, the country locked in a £746 million financing deal backed by UK Export Finance to overhaul the ageing Lagos Port Complex Apapa and Tin Can Island Port Complex. These two ports handle over 70% of Nigeria’s trade.

Ports that time forgot

Apapa was built in 1913. Tin Can followed in 1977. Both have been… let’s say running on vibes ever since. Now imagine running a modern global trade operation on infrastructure that hasn’t had a serious upgrade in decades. You’ll get congestion, delays, inefficiencies, and more chaos. Businesses have been paying for it in time and money. This deal is essentially Nigeria welcoming its trade avenues into the 21st century.

What’s actually happening here

The funding will go into a full-scale modernisation: infrastructure overhaul, efficiency upgrades, and bringing operations closer to global standards. The financing is being arranged by Citibank, while British firms are expected to snag about £236M in contracts. One of the big winners is British Steel, which is walking away with a £70M deal.

The real play

While the ports are important, for Nigeria, this deal is more about the “blue economy” and making money from maritime activity. The country’s trade backbone has been underperforming for years. Fix the ports, and you reduce bottlenecks, cut costs, and (in theory) make Nigeria more competitive globally.

For the UK, it’s strategic financing diplomacy. Help fund infrastructure, strengthen trade ties, and secure contracts for your companies.

The catch (because there’s always one)

Big infrastructure deals sound great on paper, but execution is where we tend to struggle. However, if done right, this could genuinely transform trade efficiency. If done poorly, we’ll just have newer looking bottlenecks.

✈️ Fly on credit: The Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation has introduced a “fly now, pay later” scheme that allows Nigerians to book domestic flights with a 30% upfront payment, spreading the remaining balance over three months. The initiative is positioned as a way to ease access to air travel as ticket prices surge. The move fits into CrediCorp’s broader push to expand consumer credit. While this expands access and helps people manage cash flow, it also raises a familiar tension: using credit to solve affordability gaps risks turning everyday expenses into long-term debt. In other words, Nigerians can now “fly now, pay later,” but this is only necessary because the cost of goods increasingly outpaces the average Nigerian’s standard of living.

🍻From “local champion” to “international big boy”: Zenith Bank Plc has unveiled plans to secure a full listing on the London Stock Exchange by 2027, as part of a broader strategy to fund cross-border deals and deepen its access to international capital. The announcement sent its shares up nearly 8% to an all-time high. Zenith is looking to replicate GTCO’s recent LSE debut, but this time with a full listing to attract more foreign investment and support its growing pipeline of UK- and Europe-linked transactions. The push comes alongside its expanding UK footprint, which started with the launch of a new Manchester branch focused on corporate banking and trade finance to strengthen ties between African and European markets.

🍼Nigeria’s got milk: The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority has signed a deal with Asset Green Limited to build a large-scale, integrated dairy platform aimed at transforming Nigeria’s milk production and reducing reliance on imports. The project will combine 20,000 hectares of forage farming with a 10,000-cow dairy operation and a processing facility producing everything from fresh milk to infant formula. At full scale, it’s expected to generate over $620 million annually while creating thousands of jobs and integrating up to 10,000 rural households into its supply chain. Backed by UK-Nigeria economic ties, the nearly $500 million project aims to tackle heavy dependence on imported milk powder. If executed well, it could strengthen local production, boost nutrition, and build a more competitive dairy sector.

The escalating conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran is in its “fuck around and find out” stage. We explained how the conflict is affecting Nigeria’s oil industry in this edition of The Daily Bread. At the time, Iran was threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint for oil shipments.

According to recent reports, the Trump administration thought Iran was bluffing. Since the checkpoint closed, oil prices have been rising, tanker security has become complicated, and global shipping is wobbling.

For Nigeria, which imports much of its fertiliser and depends on energy stability, there are serious ripple effects. Higher shipping costs, potential fuel disruptions, and delays in urea fertiliser are putting smallholder farmers on edge.

Fertiliser crunch = food crunch

Experts like Dr. Muda Yusuf (CPPE) warn that a fertiliser shortage during planting season could slash yields and send domestic food prices skyrocketing. Lagos-based agric leaders Shakin Agbeyewa (AFAN) and Omotunde Banjoko (LCCI) echo the alarm: farmers already struggle with high input costs, and disruptions could wipe out recent gains in controlling food inflation.

Suggested fixes? Targeted fiscal support, priority distribution of fertiliser, risk-sharing schemes for smallholders, and reviving Nigeria’s defunct fertiliser blending plants. Basically, get fertiliser moving before it’s too late.

Bottom line

Middle East tensions are a global stress test, and Nigeria is on the front lines. Fertiliser supply, oil price swings, and domestic inflation are intertwined risks that require fast, coordinated government action. Ignore them, and higher food costs and disrupted markets are coming; manage them wisely, and the country could navigate the storm while keeping its economy from overheating.