Business Hub: The Stories Moving Nigerian Economy This Week

Traders at the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex protested against the growing presence of Chinese merchants in retail, arguing that foreign wholesalers are increasingly selling directly to consumers and competing with local retailers.

The complaint centres on a change in the traditional supply chain. Traders say some Chinese manufacturers and wholesalers are now renting shops and warehouses in the market and selling directly to customers at prices local retailers struggle to match.

The protest was suspended after the traders’ association, local government officials and police intervened. The association has set up a committee with representatives of the protesting traders to examine their complaints.

The bigger business issue is becoming harder to ignore. Many Nigerian traders depend on imported goods from China, but now face competition from some of the same suppliers moving closer to the final customer. One commentator cited by Punch argued that traders may need to consider partnerships, local manufacturing and taking ownership of more parts of the supply chain.

The Corporate Affairs Commission wants Nigeria to harmonise and centralise its beneficial ownership registers to make it easier to identify the real people behind companies.

At the moment, relevant ownership information sits across different systems. The CAC maintains its own Beneficial Ownership Register, while entities operating in free trade zones and the extractive sector have ownership information maintained through NEPZA and NEITI frameworks respectively.

The CAC says connecting these systems would give regulators, investigators, journalists and civil society a clearer picture of who owns, controls or benefits from a company. The commission says agencies including the EFCC, ICPC and NDLEA have already used beneficial ownership information in investigations.

The push is also about reducing the ability to hide behind layers of companies. But the CAC has stressed that appearing in a corporate ownership record does not by itself prove criminal activity. Information still needs to be independently verified and properly interpreted.

Dangote Refinery’s IPO could add about $60bn to the total equity market capitalisation of the Nigerian Exchange if the offer is fully subscribed and subsequently listed, according to Industry, Trade and Investment Minister Jumoke Oduwole.

The refinery is offering 4.1 billion shares at ₦525 each, targeting about ₦2.15tn. The offer opened on September 14 and runs until October 13, with retail, institutional and eligible African investors able to participate. The minimum subscription is 10 shares, or ₦5,250.

For the NGX, the significance is bigger than the money raised. A refinery of this scale entering the public market adds one of Nigeria’s largest industrial businesses to the pool of listed assets and could bring new investors into the market.

The government also sees the transaction as evidence that Nigeria’s capital market can support large-scale industrial businesses while giving more Nigerians an opportunity to own shares in them.

Nigeria could develop a $3.5bn annual government cloud market within five years, according to Ike Nnamani, CEO of Digital Realty Nigeria.

The opportunity comes from the relatively low level of cloud adoption across government. Nnamani estimates that only about 30% of roughly 1,000 government agencies currently use cloud services, with annual spending of about $1bn. If the remaining agencies migrate to cloud services within five years, he projects spending could rise to $3.5bn annually.

The projection ties into Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative, which is focused on keeping more government data and critical digital services on locally governed infrastructure. The Federal Government’s National Digital Cloud Policy also aims to attract investment into cloud and data-centre infrastructure while building local digital capacity.

For businesses, the opportunity could extend beyond cloud providers. More government cloud adoption means potential demand for data centres, cybersecurity, connectivity, software, systems integration and other services around the infrastructure.