First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Afreximbank have closed the funding gap on Nigeria’s Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway with a USD 1.1 bn facility that allows construction to proceed on the critical link to Lekki Deep Sea Port, according to a statement from Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.

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The details: FAB will underwrite USD 626 mn while Afreximbank will cover USD 500 mn. The capital is ring-fenced to build section two of the first phase of the highway.

The de-risking mechanism: The project benefits from a credit ins. wrapper from the Islamic Corporation for the Ins. of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC) — allowing commercial lenders like FAB to bypass standard Nigerian sovereign risk ratings, effectively importing a higher credit rating into the transaction.

Why this matters

The transaction could offer a blueprint for how UAE capital enters Africa. The structure — pairing a UAE commercial heavyweight (FAB) with a multilateral anchor (Afreximbank) and an ICIEC risk wrapper — creates a replicable model for the India-MENA-Africa corridor. It allows Gulf capital to capture the upside of African infrastructure development while insulating the balance sheet from direct sovereign volatility.

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