🍞Strategic partnerships

Hello!

Adetomiwa here. How was your weekend?

This edition is about Nigeria trying to grow everything at once (roads, food, oil, and trade), mostly by leaning on financing and foreign partnerships to make it happen. Underneath it, there’s a steady tension: policymakers are selling these as growth engines, while critics keep pointing to debt levels, weak execution, and whether the returns will ever match the borrowing. It’s basically Nigeria building and betting at the same time and hoping both pay off.

Since cutting aid, the U.S. has decided that trade with Nigeria is still on the table. They have reduced risk for banks and exporters through the GSM-102 export credit programme.

The bigger picture
Trade between the two countries is already on the rise. In 2025, it hit about $15 billion. Agriculture is doing the heavy lifting here, nearly doubling in value within a year. So this move favours Donald Trump’s “Strategic partnerships” speeches.

How does the GSM-102 work?
The U.S. government basically plays guarantor. If something goes wrong, they absorb part of the risk. That makes banks more willing to finance deals, importers more able to buy, and U.S. exporters more relaxed about getting paid. Some Nigerian banks are already getting credit lines again, meaning trade financing is picking up.

The catch
Access to credit doesn’t magically fix everything. If the naira misbehaves or banks stay cautious, this could end up being one of those well-intentioned policies that look great on paper and quieter in real life.

Bottom line
The United States seems interested in forming a business relationship with Nigeria (The United States even held an event in Lagos to help spread the word about the programme), and with Nigeria putting in the work to diversify exports beyond oil, this might be a good opportunity to actually scale what Nigeria can sell. Whether this becomes a real trade boost or just another well-worded initiative depends on who actually uses it.

🐮 Livestock revival: Nigeria is trying to turn its livestock sector into a serious economic pillar. The country plans to grow the sector from $32bn to $74bn by 2035 as part of a broader push to tackle food insecurity and stabilise the economy. Despite having one of Africa’s largest livestock populations, the sector has been held back by poor infrastructure, weak animal health systems, and expensive financing. This move is urgent: over 25 million Nigerians face acute hunger, while food inflation is still above 30%. The government’s plan focuses on cheaper loans, better feed systems, improved veterinary services, and stronger market infrastructure—but with interest rates hovering around 23–25%, Nigeria’s ageing farmer population and insecurity disrupting farming, turning this ambition into actual food (and profit) will take more than just a 10-pillar PowerPoint.

🤓“Work smart” 101: As Dangote Refinery continues to expand beyond fuel and into petrochemicals, it has signed a deal with Honeywell, a U.S. industrial group (not Nigeria’s Honeywell), to build up production of petrochemicals for plastics and detergents. At its Lekki complex, the refinery will add 750,000 metric tons of propylene and 400,000 tons of detergent feedstock annually, with ambitions to rank among the world’s largest producers. It’s another step in turning the $20 billion site from just a fuel giant into a manufacturing hub. Basically, not just refining oil, but squeezing out everything else that can make money from it.

💸 Deepwater exploits: Eni is moving ahead with a $10.3 billion offshore oil project in Nigeria’s long-delayed OPL 245 block, aiming to start production by 2029 and pump about 150,000 barrels a day once fully running. The project, shared with Shell and tied up in years of legal and regulatory disputes, only restarted after Nigeria split the block into new licenses to unlock investment. If it delivers, it could recover about 560 million barrels and support Nigeria’s push to significantly raise national oil output over the next decade. Offshore production is also being prioritised as it is seen as more stable than onshore fields, which have been disrupted by insecurity in the Niger Delta. That said, offshore oil comes with its own environmental risks. While it reduces direct land-based community disruption, spills and leaks are harder to detect and contain at sea, with potentially wider impacts on marine ecosystems and coastal livelihoods. In Nigeria’s case—where onshore extraction has already left a long history of pollution and weak environmental enforcement—the shift offshore is understandably raising familiar concerns in a new setting.

President Tinubu is pushing for a $516 million loan to kickstart the Sokoto–Badagry Super Highway, a 1,000-kilometre behemoth meant to link the North-West to the South-West. The loan, from Deutsche Bank, would help build key sections and slash travel time between Sokoto and Lagos from 13 hours to 6. Of course, this all hinges on the Senate, which, as usual, has been handed a big project and a polite nudge to hurry it along.

To be fair, the idea is grand: better trade, lower logistics costs, and a new economic corridor. But not everyone is sold on the economics. Some lawmakers say the request fits into a broader pattern of rising external borrowing that is already straining Nigeria’s debt profile, where a large share of revenue goes into debt servicing. They’re also questioning how transparent and measurable the project’s returns really are, arguing that major loans of this scale need clearer repayment plans and stronger accountability. While the highway is being sold as a growth corridor, critics warn it also highlights a familiar tension in Nigeria’s infrastructure drive: ambitious projects on one hand, and growing concerns about how sustainably they’re being financed on the other.

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