Policy Alert | Fair Finance Nigeria Coalition
Just two Thursdays ago, at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja, something historic happened in Nigeria’s financial sector. The Fair Finance Nigeria (FFNG) Coalition officially launched the country’s first-ever ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) Policy Assessment of leading Nigerian commercial banks. As a proud member of that Coalition — alongside STEPS, CISLAC, CODE, BudgIT Foundation, and Oxfam in Nigeria — Policy Alert was at the heart of this landmark moment.
Finance is not neutral. Every loan, every investment shapes lives, communities and ecosystems. In Nigeria, where climate vulnerability, extractive industries, and governance challenges collide daily, the choices made by banks and financial institutions carry enormous weight. They can accelerate inequality and environmental harm or they can drive a just and sustainable future. That is precisely why this assessment matters.
The room was filled with ears and voices that needed to hear and speak this message: representatives from the Central Bank of Nigeria, commercial banks, the EFCC, academia, civil society partners, and the media all turned out to witness the unveiling of findings that are as sobering as they are urgent.
Using the globally recognised Fair Finance Guide Methodology which benchmarks institutions against more than 400 international standards, the assessment examined how four major Nigerian banks integrate sustainability across eight critical themes: biodiversity, climate change, corruption, gender equality, human rights, labour rights, taxation, and transparency and accountability.
The findings leave little room for comfort. Nigerian banks are scoring a critically low baseline average of 1.7 out of 10. On Tax Transparency, the score is a stark 0.0. On Climate Action, just 0.9. The pattern is clear: Nigeria’s banks are doing just enough to satisfy regulatory requirements, but rarely going beyond. They are, in the words of the assessment, hiding behind the painfully outdated 2012 Nigerian Sustainability Banking Principles (NSBP).
These gaps are not merely technical shortcomings. They represent real risks for millions of Nigerians and a missed opportunity for the financial sector to demonstrate genuine leadership at a time when global ESG expectations are rising faster than ever.
For Policy Alert, an organisation deeply committed to resource governance, transparency, and accountability in Nigeria’s extractive and public finance sectors, this assessment resonates profoundly. The gaps identified, particularly around taxation, transparency, and climate action, mirror the very governance failures we have long documented in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta and beyond. When banks fail on ESG, the consequences are felt most acutely by the communities already bearing the heaviest burdens.
This report is not a scorecard, it is a call to action for banks, regulators, and civil society to work together to close these gaps and build a financial sector that champions equity, accountability, and sustainability.
Nigeria’s future depends on it. And the time to act is now.
Download the full ESG Policy Assessment Report and read here
