Untested!

use strict;
use warnings;

my @path= split /\//,'/abc/def/ghi/jkl';

my $currentpath= undef;
while ($#path) {
  $currentpath= join '/',@path
  # your setfacl here
  last if -r $currentpath;
  $currentpath= undef;
  pop @path;
}
die "Couldn't setfacl" unless $currentpath;
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Update Thanks Grandfather for pointing me to the "it" instead of "if"