Abuja, Nigeria – President Bola Tinubu has called for the establishment of an Africa-owned credit rating agency to counter what he described as the persistent mispricing of the continent’s risk by global financial markets.
Okay News reports that the President made the call in an Op-Ed published in the Financial Times on Monday, warning that African countries pay excessively high borrowing costs due to flawed external assessments. He argued that the so-called “Africa premium”—the gap between perceived and actual economic risk—is no longer sustainable. Tinubu noted that the continent’s access to international capital is heavily influenced by the three dominant agencies: Fitch Ratings, Moody’s, and S&P Global Ratings, whose decisions shape investor behaviour but often fail to reflect local realities.
The call comes as Nigeria’s external reserves have climbed to $47 billion, their highest level since 2018. The reserves buildup reflects improved oil revenues, higher remittances, and renewed foreign portfolio investor interest following monetary policy reforms. Tinubu’s argument suggests that such fundamentals are often overlooked by external rating agencies, leading to borrowing costs that do not accurately reflect Africa’s economic progress.
A homegrown credit rating agency, the President argued, would provide more nuanced assessments based on deeper understanding of local economic conditions, potentially lowering borrowing costs and unlocking more affordable capital for infrastructure and development projects across the continent.
