Poor infrastructure costing Nigeria $17.1b yearly, says AfDB

Recent figures from The African Development Bank have revealed that Nigeria’s untended and underdeveloped infrastructure is costing the nation over 4% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) every year.

Extrapolating from 2020 GDP figures, this may mean Nigeria is forfeiting over US$17.1bn annually to its infrastructure deficit.

Speaking as one of the panelists at a Webinar organized by the Federal Government to reveal the various investment opportunities to investors, AfDB’s President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, said the gap in Nigeria’s infrastructure gap has put a gag on other aspects of development.

He called it “one of the main constraints to industrial development and national competitiveness.”

Nigeria’s infrastructure gap would require an estimated annual investment of US$100bn over the next 30 years, and Adesina has stressed that now is the time to encourage coordination between the public and the private sector to initiate and speed up the process.

He expressed AfDB’s readiness to support Nigeria, citing the US$256million and $200million financing for the Nigeria Transmission Expansion Project (NTEP-1) and the Nigerian Electrification Project (NEP) respectively. 

The bank has also recently committed US$430million towards a road project linking Nigeria and Cameroun which will be completed before the close of the year.