Rewane: Investing in Road Construction Will Boost Economic Activities Than Airports

Dike Onwuamaeze

The Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, Mr. Bismarck Rewane, has said that investing in road construction and enhancing road concessioning would boost economic activities than establishing newer airports that can only serve a few elites.

Rewane shared this view in his presentation during the July 2025 Lagos Business School (LBS) LBS Breakfast Session titled: ‘Crisis Averted, But Economic Pressure Sustained’.

The economist contrasted investing N50 billion to N70 billion per runway with constructing thousands of kilometres of roads and said that only few of the 33 airports in Nigeria have   regular commercial flights, adding that their operations are characterised by “high cost and low use.”   

According to him these airports benefit few Nigerians who are mostly elites and may create elephant projects that compete with themselves.

He, however, said that road concessioning would unlock mass mobility, trade access and guarantee wider reach and bigger impact per Naira spent.

According to him, better roads will deliver lower cost, mass utility and be accessible to traders, workers and students.

Rewane also said that pipeline network revival could further reduce road logistics.

He said that the structure of the Nigerian downstream petrol sector is made up of 11,168 petrol stations, 27 major marketers and 79 independent marketers as well as redundant pipelines and depot systems.

He said that reviving the pipelines and depots could result in “privatisation of pipeline investment” and offers an opportunity to consolidate price transparency and eliminate remaining arbitrage.

He added that “pipeline investment of approximately $4billion could reduce N1.07tn ($10.8 billion) logistics burden.”

He also dubbed the Dangote Refinery introduction of 4,000 CNG Trucks which is a N720 billion capital expenditure for nationwide distribution of petrol, credit facility of 500,000 litres and N1.07 trillion annual logistics cost as the game changing strategy in the Nigerian market.    

The repayment for the 500,000 litres credit for bulk buyers would is within two weeks under a bank guarantee.

Rewane also projected that the exchange rate would remain stable in July, trading between N1,550 and N1,600 per dollar.

He said,  “With the exchange rate remaining stable and money supply growth declining, inflation will continue to decline gradually, likely to fall to 20.8 per cent in July and below 20 per cent by August provided that fiscal discipline, structural reforms, and monetary stability are sustained.”

He, however, described the MPR as a signaling tool and not a binding and observed that the MPR is moving in a different direction from other rates, which is a reflection of a monetary policy disequilibrium

“Despite MPR remaining constant at 27.50 per cent, NTB rates have been consistently at 5–10 per cent points lower,” adding that “a more potent anchor is the one-year T/bill rate, now 19.10 per cent per year,” he said.