Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede calls Africa's risk premium a 'tax on development'

Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, chairman of Access Holdings Plc and president of the France-Nigeria Business Council, told the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi the continent now sits at the center of global economic shifts but will not capture the moment without confronting its cost of capital. Speaking before 18 African heads of state, including Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, Kenyan President William Ruto and French President Emmanuel Macron, Aig-Imoukhuede said African sovereigns and corporates routinely borrow at four to 15 percent above US Treasury rates, with distressed pricing extending to 20 percent even in the absence of default.

A continental risk premium that functions as a tax on development

Speaking during the Africa France Impact Coalition session, the Access Holdings chairman framed the premium as one of the continent's most critical barriers to growth. "This risk premium is becoming essentially a tax on development, not a tax that we pay to our governments, but largely a tax that actually goes into external markets," he said. Smaller businesses, the backbone of most African economies, are particularly exposed to the pricing distortion, with structural disadvantages that limit entrepreneurship, stifle innovation and slow industrialization across the continent. Aig-Imoukhuede proposed the creation of a task force aimed at reducing Africa's perceived risk profile over the medium term, arguing that even a modest reduction in the continent's risk premium would have transformative impact.

Ruto engages directly on de-risking and Macron platform talks

The intervention triggered an immediate exchange with Ruto, who sought to clarify whether the focus was on interest rates or on broader risk perception. Aig-Imoukhuede responded that the issue cuts across both debt and equity markets, shaping how Africa is priced globally including by its own institutional investors. Ruto acknowledged the challenge, pointed to ongoing de-risking work among African governments and development finance institutions, and revealed he is in active discussions with Macron on establishing a dedicated institutional platform to support investment de-risking across the continent. The exchange emerged as one of the defining moments of the summit. "Africa is not on the margins of global change; it is at the centre. But potential alone will not deliver transformation; capital mobilisation, institutional strength, and execution will," Aig-Imoukhuede told the room.

A continental balance sheet rather than 54 fragmented markets

Aig-Imoukhuede has spent more than three decades in African banking, helping turn Access Bank Plc from a mid-tier Nigerian lender into the country's largest bank by assets. He told the summit Africa should now be viewed as a continental balance sheet rather than 54 fragmented national markets. The continent's combined population, projected to reach more than two billion people in the coming decades alongside rapid urbanization and rising consumer demand, creates a market of unprecedented scale, but only if leaders shift from national competition to regional collaboration. He identified creative industries, technology, data and digital science as high-growth sectors for Africa-Europe and intra-African cooperation, and called for six to eight regional international financial centers, including the Lagos International Financial Centre, to mobilize capital across borders. His interventions, delivered alongside Aliko Dangote, African Development Bank Group President Sidi Ould Tah and Bpifrance Chief Executive Nicolas Dufourcq during the AFIC session, position him as one of the most consequential institutional voices in the run-up to the G7 summit in Evian.