Last Wednesday, investors bid ₦1.908tn for Nigerian treasury bills and were allotted ₦71.16bn. Over the same five sessions the stock market traded ₦241bn in total, after a single Tuesday had traded ₦441.44bn. Both are measures of money offered against money taken, and in both the gap is worth reading.

Market Wrap

The NGX All Share Index closed Tuesday at 254,289.35 and market capitalisation at ₦165.11tn. Against the 27 October close of 253,990.06, that is a rise of 299.29 points, or 0.12 per cent. The path was uneven. The index fell 0.44 per cent on Wednesday 28 October, rose 0.47 per cent on Thursday, then moved by less than 0.1 per cent in each of the last three sessions. Nairametrics puts the year to date gain at 63.41 per cent.

Trading thinned. Five sessions produced 3.10bn shares worth ₦241bn in 205,687 deals, using NGX figures for 28 to 30 October and Nairametrics for 2 and 3 November. Tuesday 27 October alone had traded ₦441.44bn, so the five sessions together came to about 55 per cent of that one day. The NGX weekly report, which runs Monday to Friday, shows the Banking Index down 3.42 per cent and the Industrial Goods Index up 14.58 per cent for the week to 30 October. Dangote Cement closed that Friday at ₦1,420, 5.82 per cent above its 27 October close. In the dollar market the CBN’s weighted average rate held between ₦1,346.26 and ₦1,347.94 from 28 October to 2 November, while daily turnover fell from $726.3m to $227.2m.

₦441.44bn on one Tuesday. ₦241bn across the five sessions that followed.

The Big Story

The central bank held a treasury bill auction on Wednesday 28 October on behalf of the Debt Management Office. It offered ₦800bn across three maturities. Investors bid ₦1.908tn and ₦71.16bn was sold, 3.73 per cent of the bids. Most of the demand sat in the one year bill: ₦1.84tn of bids against ₦600bn offered, of which ₦38.38bn was sold at a stop rate of 15.80 per cent, down from 15.90 per cent on 14 October. The stop rate is the highest yield the issuer accepted, so a bid above it was not filled. Daily Trust reported that one year bids ranged from 15.00 to 18.24 per cent. The 91 day bill sold ₦22.33bn at 15.40 per cent and the 182 day bill ₦10.45bn at 15.79 per cent. These figures come from press reports of the result, since the CBN’s own page was not available for this edition.

Set the result beside the rest of the money market. The auction repaid ₦130.72bn of maturing bills on 29 October and raised ₦71.16bn, so it returned ₦59.56bn more to the banking system than it took. The CBN’s open market operation bills, a separate instrument it sells to draw cash out of banks, cleared at 17.14 per cent for 180 days on 22 October. The overnight rate at which banks lend to each other averaged 20.00 per cent on every session in the CBN’s table from 28 October to 2 November, with a high of 28.50 per cent on Monday. Nairametrics reported banks’ placements at the standing deposit facility, where they park idle cash overnight at the floor of the CBN’s rate corridor, at ₦8.41tn on 28 October and ₦7.19tn on 30 October. The one year bill at 15.80 per cent sits 4.20 percentage points under the overnight average. Why the DMO took so little is not stated in anything Harmattan has read.

For an investor the question is the fill, not the stop rate. A stop rate marks the edge of what was sold, and a bidder’s return depends on whether the bid was filled at all. On 28 October fewer than four naira in every hundred bid were. A diaspora investor or institutional allocator who prices naira bills from the headline 15.80 per cent is pricing a rate that most of the bidding money did not receive. The 180 day open market bills cleared 134 basis points higher, on a shorter tenor, and the overnight market sat above both. Whether the pattern repeats will show in today’s result.

Nigeria’s Money

The 2026 Access to Financial Services survey from EFInA, weighted by the National Bureau of Statistics, puts formal financial inclusion at 73 per cent of adults, about 87.2 million people. It also finds that only 10.6 per cent of the formally included could raise ₦156,000 within seven days without difficulty, against 3.7 per cent of adults outside the formal system. Applied to 87.2 million adults, 10.6 per cent is about 9.2 million, which leaves roughly 78 million formally included adults who could not raise that sum without difficulty.

Hold that beside the money market. Banks had ₦7.19tn at the CBN’s standing deposit facility on 30 October. At ₦156,000 a person, that sum would cover about 46.1 million adults. The two amounts are not the same money, and the comparison is one of scale only. One describes the formal system from the household side and the other from the bank side, and the survey’s finding is that having an account and having a cushion are different things.

Africa Watch

Egypt’s central bank raised its overnight deposit rate by 100 basis points to 20 per cent on 29 October, with the lending rate at 21 per cent, according to Egypt Today and Arab Finance. Egypt Today reported the bank pointed to inflation pressure and external challenges. Nigeria’s MPC meets next on 23 and 24 November with the policy rate at 23 per cent. In Kenya, the follow up Edition 35 promised: the Central Bank of Kenya’s 29 October auction drew bids of KSh51.9bn against KSh28bn offered, up from KSh28.83bn on 22 October, a rise of 80.0 per cent. The CBK’s own page and the accepted rates were not read for this edition.

What to Watch

First, today’s treasury bill auction, with ₦800bn offered against maturities of about ₦872.55bn according to Nairametrics. Watch the amount allotted against the bids and whether the one year stop rate holds at 15.80 per cent, because that shows whether 28 October was a one off. Second, the Dangote refinery offer. Press reports give 10 November for the basis of allotment submission to the SEC and 17 November for its no objection, and no official source has confirmed either. The prospectus sets listing at allotment date plus 15 business days, which would be Tuesday 8 December if allotment falls on 17 November.

The next two documents to settle how much money there was and who received it are today’s auction result and the refinery’s allotment announcement. Harmattan will read both when they are published.

Methodology: Harmattan arithmetic covers derived percentages, the Tuesday to Tuesday window (27 October close to 3 November close) and conversions, calculated by Harmattan from the published figures.

Correction: Edition 35 gave Tuesday 27 October turnover as ₦441.47bn. The NGX weekly report gives ₦441.44bn.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com
www.harmattanintel.com

Dangote Refinery’s share offer was due to shut on Tuesday night, and the company said on Monday that “No further extension will be granted.” No count from the registrars, the SEC or the exchange had been published when this edition was prepared. What can be measured is the market the offer is about to enter, which closed Tuesday at 253,990.06, and how large one company would be inside it.

Market Wrap

The NGX All Share Index closed Tuesday at 253,990.06, up 3.29 per cent on the 245,911.13 of a week earlier, and market capitalisation rose ₦5.24 trillion to ₦164.91 trillion. The index slipped on Wednesday and Thursday, then rose 0.92 per cent on Friday, 1.65 per cent on Monday and 1.07 per cent on Tuesday. At Tuesday’s Central Bank weighted average rate of ₦1,352.871, the exchange is worth $121.90 billion, up 1.8 per cent from $119.72 billion a week ago. That is a smaller gain than in naira because a dollar now costs ₦19.22 more than it did then.

One stock supplied more than the whole gain. Dangote Cement rose 33.1 per cent over the week, from ₦1,008 to ₦1,341.90, including 10.00 per cent on Monday and 9.80 per cent on Tuesday. That added about ₦5.6 trillion to its value, now ₦22.64 trillion, against the ₦5.24 trillion the whole market gained, so the rest of the exchange ended about 0.3 per cent lower. That is arithmetic, not an explanation. Tuesday’s other leaders were UPDC REIT, up 10.00 per cent to ₦19.25, and Honeywell Flour Mill, up 9.67 per cent to ₦21.55. Presco fell 10.00 per cent to ₦1,840.80, Tripple Gee 9.93 per cent to ₦2.54 and Thomas Wyatt 9.85 per cent to ₦2.47. Tuesday turned over ₦441.47 billion across 5.23 billion shares.

₦63.07 trillion. What Dangote Refinery’s existing 120.13 billion shares come to at the ₦525 offer price, against ₦164.91 trillion for the entire exchange.

The Big Story

The offer is for 4.1 billion shares at a fixed ₦525, a gross ₦2.1525 trillion. The prospectus, as reported, puts the shares in issue before the offer at 120.13 billion. At ₦525 that is ₦63.07 trillion, or about $46.6 billion, which is 38 per cent of the value of the whole exchange today and 2.8 times Dangote Cement’s ₦22.64 trillion. It is a hypothetical, because ₦525 is an offer price and not a market price. How the exchange will count the shares in its capitalisation and its index depends on rules this edition has not read.

Put that beside the yardstick in the SEC’s new Capital Market Master Plan. Among its indicators, the plan tracks the capitalisation of listed companies against GDP, with dollar values attached: 33 per cent, or $96 billion, in 2025, rising to 41 per cent, or $167 billion, by year three. The exchange is already worth $121.90 billion. Add the refinery’s ₦63.07 trillion to today’s ₦164.91 trillion and the total is about ₦228 trillion, or $168.5 billion at Tuesday’s rate, above the plan’s year three figure. Read that as interpretation. One listing could meet the first milestone on the day it begins trading, whatever happens to every other company. The plan also sets targets for listed companies, 146 rising to 176 by year three, and for retail investors, 6 million rising to 10.2 million. One listing moves the first by one.

The baseline raises a question for the Commission, not a charge. Thirty three per cent of the plan’s own 2025 GDP of $377.4 billion is $124.5 billion, not $96 billion. Its baseline table lists equity capitalisation at ₦146.5 trillion for 2026, which at $96 billion implies ₦1,526 to the dollar, while its GDP figures of ₦442 trillion and $377.4 billion imply about ₦1,171. The plan dates that 33 per cent to 2025 in its targets table, citing the World Bank, and to 2026 in its baseline table, as a “Genesis Calculation”, so the gap may be one of dates as much as rates. For a diaspora investor or an allocator the lesson is practical. A target set in dollars moves with the naira as well as with prices, and a ratio can be met by a single listing. Ask which exchange rate the scorecard will use, and whether it will report companies and investors beside value.

Nigeria’s Money

The Central Bank has published September’s money market indicators, which show how far a lower policy rate has reached borrowers. Since July the policy rate has fallen from 26.50 per cent to 23.00 per cent. The average prime lending rate, which banks charge their strongest customers, went from 19.06 per cent to 19.04 per cent. The maximum lending rate, the highest banks report charging anyone, went from 33.16 per cent to 32.62 per cent. The table does not say why.

Set that against what savers can earn and the state pays. The one year Treasury bill cleared at 15.90 per cent on 14 October, and on 22 October the Central Bank sold ₦2.63 trillion of open market bills at marginal rates of 17.14 to 17.63 per cent. The weekly valuation report on collective investment schemes, the pooled funds many Nigerians save through, shows where that money sits. For the week ended 9 October, money market funds held ₦6.72 trillion, 68 per cent of all fund assets, with 927,990 unitholders and reported yields averaging 16.85 per cent. Equity funds held ₦239.4 billion, 2.4 per cent, with 136,930 unitholders. Read as interpretation, formal savers are paid about what the government pays, while a small trader borrowing near the maximum rate pays almost twice that.

Africa Watch

Kenya’s Treasury bill auction on 22 October drew far less than the week before. Bids totalled KSh28.83 billion against KSh28 billion offered, down from KSh68.50 billion a week earlier, a fall of 57.9 per cent. The 91 day bill saw the sharpest drop, with bids of KSh14.34 billion against KSh49.80 billion, down 71.2 per cent. The 182 day and 364 day bills drew bids equal to 76.9 per cent and 68.0 per cent of what was offered. The Treasury accepted KSh28.79 billion, 99.9 per cent of everything bid. One week of thinner demand does not make a trend. The auction on 29 October will be the second reading, and it will show whether the fall repeats.

What to Watch

First, Dangote Cement’s third quarter results, which had not been published when this edition was prepared. They will be read against a share price that rose 33.1 per cent in the week and a value of ₦22.64 trillion. Second, Tuesday 3 November, when collation of the refinery offer is reported to be due. An official count from the registrars, the SEC or the exchange would turn this edition’s arithmetic from a scenario into a number, and the reported dates that follow, 10 November for the basis of allotment and 17 November for the Commission’s no objection, set the pace for the listing itself.

The size of a market is announced; the cost of money is paid. Nigeria needs both numbers moving the right way before either counts as progress, and Harmattan will keep them on the same page.

Tuesday to Tuesday changes, dollar conversions, Dangote Cement’s weekly contribution, the refinery’s value at the offer price and the ratios built on it, the fund shares and yield, and the Kenyan auction percentages are Harmattan calculations from NGX closes as reported, CBN rates and results, CBK results, the offer terms and the plan’s tables.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com
www.harmattanintel.com

On Monday, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the government launched a ten year plan to treble the size of Nigeria’s capital market. The same day, the stock market lost ₦1.47 trillion, more than it lost across the whole week. One did not cause the other. Side by side, they show how much work a naira target must do before it means anything.

Market Wrap

The All Share Index closed Tuesday at 245,911.13, down 0.65 per cent from 247,513.63 a week earlier, and capitalisation fell by the same margin to ₦159.67 trillion. Monday carried the week. The index dropped 0.91 per cent, and Dangote Cement’s 5.50 per cent fall to ₦1,008 accounts for roughly two thirds of the ₦1.47 trillion lost. The other four sessions together edged higher. In dollars, at the Central Bank’s weighted average rate of ₦1,333.65, equities were worth about $119.72 billion, against $120.56 billion a week earlier, and the index is up about 58.0 per cent this year.

The five sessions turned over about 1.56 billion shares. Austin Laz led Tuesday’s gainers, up 9.97 per cent to ₦3.53, ahead of ABC Transport at 9.92 per cent and Cutix at 9.91 per cent. Livestock Feeds fell 9.76 per cent to ₦17.10, Guinea Insurance 7.78 per cent and NPF Microfinance Bank 5.75 per cent. In the exchange’s week to Friday, 50 stocks rose and 30 fell, yet the index slipped 0.33 per cent while the banking index lost 3.15 per cent. Breadth counts how many stocks moved; the index weighs how heavy they were. On 14 October the government sold ₦269.06 billion of the ₦450 billion of bills it offered. The one year bill cleared at 15.90 per cent, up from 15.85 per cent, and the Central Bank accepted only about 22 per cent of the ₦982.21 billion bid for it.

11.6 per cent. The yearly growth the new master plan needs to reach ₦750 trillion by 2036, below September’s inflation rate of 14.63 per cent.

The Big Story

The Nigerian Capital Market Master Plan 2.0 runs from 2026 to 2036. Emomotimi Agama, director general of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said it would grow the market from a baseline of about ₦250 trillion to ₦750 trillion. The plan itself has not been published, so whether that baseline means equities alone or equities and bonds together cannot yet be confirmed. Taiwo Oyedele, the finance minister, added two targets of a different kind: equity market value rising from 33 per cent of GDP to at least 60 per cent, and an investment grade credit rating within three years. He also spoke of a $1 trillion market, which reports treat as his proposal rather than a target in the plan.

Start with the arithmetic. Trebling in ten years is growth of about 11.6 per cent a year, in naira. September’s headline inflation was 14.63 per cent. If prices kept rising at that pace for a decade, a market that hit ₦750 trillion exactly would be smaller in real terms in 2036 than it is today. A saver who rolled a one year Treasury bill at last week’s 15.90 per cent every year would more than quadruple her naira over the same period. In dollars, ₦750 trillion is about $562 billion at Tuesday’s rate, little more than half the minister’s $1 trillion. Our reading is that the naira headline is the least demanding number in the plan. The share of GDP target is the serious one, because it can only be met if the market grows faster than the economy it measures, whatever inflation does to both.

The launch also carried a claim that needs checking. The speech delivered on the vice president’s behalf said the All Share Index had risen to more than 260,000 points. On the day it was read, the index closed at 245,278.34, almost 15,000 points short, and no close in the exchange figures Harmattan has tracked this year comes near 260,000. That matters because Mr Agama promised that every commitment in the plan would have an owner, a timeline and a scorecard. A scorecard is only as good as its starting line. For a diaspora investor or an allocator weighing Nigeria over ten years, the useful questions are the measure behind ₦250 trillion, the share of GDP in each annual report, and whether progress is stated in real terms. A plan reported only in naira totals will look like success in almost any decade.

Nigeria’s Money

Mr Agama was blunt about the gap the plan has to close. “Our market is growing in value; it is not yet growing deep enough in people,” he said, adding that much of Nigeria’s savings sits outside the formal system, losing value to inflation. Mr Oyedele put a number on it: about six million retail investors in a population of more than 200 million, roughly 3 per cent. He said the new National Savings Scheme would take small contributions by mobile phone.

That is the right channel, and it meets a strong rival. The trader in Balogun or the farmer in Benue already saves, often daily, with an ajo or esusu collector who is paid for keeping her money and hands it back in cash when she needs it. September’s core prices rose 1.11 per cent in a single month, about 14 per cent at an annual pace, so idle money loses. The scheme wins her savings only if it costs less than the collector and pays out as fast. The minister promised reasonable costs. The fee is the number to wait for.

Africa Watch

Kenya’s Treasury bill auction on 15 October showed money staying short. Investors bid KSh49.80 billion for the 91 day bill against KSh8 billion offered, and the Treasury accepted KSh34.24 billion, more than four times its offer, at an average of 8.75 per cent, the same as the Central Bank of Kenya’s policy rate. The one year bill drew only KSh6.64 billion for KSh10 billion on offer and cleared at 9.04 per cent, barely changed. In Lagos, investors bid nearly three times the one year offer and the Central Bank turned most of it away; Kenyan investors would not fill a one year offer that paid less than 0.3 percentage points more than three month paper. The auction alone cannot say whether Nairobi expects rates to stay put or simply wants cash close.

What to Watch

First, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery offer closes on Tuesday 27 October. Its terms allow up to 30 per cent more shares, about 1.23 billion worth ₦645.75 billion, with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval; whether that option is used will decide how far applicants are scaled back. Second, the Treasury bill auction on Wednesday 28 October, with ₦800 billion on the calendar after ₦392.79 billion of bills matured today unreplaced. A second rise in the one year rate would make last week’s look less like noise and more like a direction.

Ten years is long enough for a target to be met and still leave savers poorer. The measure that will matter in 2036 is how many Nigerians own a piece of their own market, and that number is worth counting from now.

Correction: Edition 33 reported ₦21.38 billion traded on 13 October, from press reports. The NGX weekly report gives ₦21.35 billion in 38,660 deals.

Tuesday to Tuesday changes, five session volume, dollar conversions, year to date return, Dangote Cement’s share of Monday’s loss, the plan’s implied growth rate and its real and dollar equivalents, the compounded bill return, core inflation at an annual pace and auction acceptance ratios are Harmattan calculations, using NGX closing figures, Central Bank of Nigeria weighted average exchange rates and auction results, Central Bank of Kenya auction results and figures stated at the conference.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com; harmattanintel.substack.com

On Monday the Dangote Petroleum Refinery share offer was given two more weeks. On Tuesday, the day it had been due to close, the refinery reported nine months of results that its prospectus did not contain: $22.48 billion of revenue and $4.73 billion of profit after tax, against a loss in the same period a year earlier. Anyone who has not yet applied now has until 27 October to read them. The rest of the market, meanwhile, kept slipping.

Market Wrap

The All Share Index closed Tuesday at 247,513.63, down 1.10 per cent from 250,273.50 a week earlier, and capitalisation fell by the same margin to ₦160.71 trillion. Nine of the ten sessions since 28 September have closed lower, Friday’s 0.13 per cent rise the only exception. In dollars, at the Central Bank’s weighted average rate of ₦1,332.97, the market was worth about $120.56 billion, against $122.10 billion a week earlier. Two changes to the share register passed through the week. Guinea Insurance listed 6.31 billion new shares from a private placement on Wednesday, and on Thursday Sterling Financial Holdings returned to trading after a reconstruction that replaced 68.5 billion shares with 6.85 billion priced at ₦77.

Tuesday’s 394 million shares changed hands for ₦21.38 billion, and the five sessions together turned over about 2.06 billion shares worth about ₦122.6 billion. eTranzact led Tuesday’s gainers, up 9.96 per cent to ₦14.35, followed by Wapic Insurance at 7.83 per cent and DAAR Communications at 7.25 per cent. Legend Internet fell 6.85 per cent to ₦3.40, Omatek Ventures 6.43 per cent and Secure Electronic Technology 5.71 per cent. The Nigerian Overnight Financing Rate, which the Central Bank now names as its operational benchmark, printed 20.00 per cent, the floor of its corridor, in every session, and ₦6.47 trillion changed hands on Tuesday alone.

$4.73 billion. Nine months of profit at the Dangote refinery, reported on the day its share offer had been due to close.

The Big Story

The unaudited results cover the nine months to 30 September. Revenue rose to $22.48 billion from $9.19 billion, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation reached $5.52 billion. The refinery ended September with $6.69 billion of cash and net cash of $650.8 million, against net debt of $1.73 billion a year earlier. The prospectus put first half profit at $1.82 billion, which leaves about $2.91 billion for the third quarter alone. David Bird, the chief executive, said the numbers “provide a solid foundation as we progress through our IPO”.

They also change how the price reads. At listing the prospectus values the company at ₦65.22 trillion, about $48.9 billion at Tuesday’s rate, or roughly ten times nine months of profit. The results are unaudited, one quarter carries most of the profit, and refining margins move with crude and product prices, so no one should annualise them with confidence. Compare the earlier investors. The $2.5 billion private placement completed in June and July bought 7.15 billion shares, about $0.35 each. A naira applicant paying ₦525 today pays about $0.39, roughly 13 per cent more, for a company that has since reported a stronger quarter.

The extension is the other half of the week. The company’s notice, as reported, ties it to wider access across Africa, including depositary receipt programmes. Those receipts are not extra stock. Under the structure Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority approved, Renaissance Capital Kenya collects local money and Renaissance Capital Africa applies for shares in the Nigerian offer; the receipts are created only after those shares are allotted. The East African information memorandum targets about 729 million receipts, each backed by one share, or about 17.8 per cent of the 4.1 billion shares on offer. Add the Mauritius vehicle’s commitment of about 1.04 billion shares, and channels outside Nigeria could take about 43 per cent of the offer if both are filled.

Mr Dangote told reporters that subscriptions already amount to “more than three or four times” the target. No registrar, issuing house or regulator has published a figure. If his description proves right, the allotment rules rather than the closing date will decide how much of the 4.1 billion shares reaches applicants in Nigeria. For a diaspora investor applying through a Nigerian broker, that is the number to wait for.

Nigeria’s Money

A Nigerian applicant gets into the refinery for far less than a Kenyan one. The minimum application is ten shares, ₦5,250, about $3.94 at Tuesday’s rate. A Kenyan buying through the Nairobi route must take at least 2,000 receipts at 53.50 shillings, or 107,000 shillings, about $824 at the exchange rate implied by the memorandum’s own figures. The smallest ticket in Nairobi is roughly 209 times the smallest in Lagos. Each receipt also works out at about $0.41, against the $0.39 a naira applicant pays per share. The reporting on the memorandum does not say what that gap covers.

A low price is not the same as access. A Nigerian applicant still needs a broker or bank channel, identity checks that clear and a payment that settles before the list closes, and the reason given for the extension concerns markets elsewhere in Africa, not those steps at home. The basis of allotment, due at the Securities and Exchange Commission in November, will show how many Nigerians a ₦5,250 ticket actually brought in.

Africa Watch

Ghana’s annual inflation rose to 5.2 per cent in September from 5.0 per cent in August, its second monthly rise, according to the Ghana Statistical Service’s release on 7 October. It remains below the Bank of Ghana’s target band of 6 to 10 per cent, and the central bank held its policy rate at 14 per cent on 24 September, about nine percentage points above the new inflation figure. Ghana shows that prices can turn up again from below target even with a high real rate in place. That is worth keeping in view in Abuja, where the Monetary Policy Committee reset its rate last month with headline inflation at 15.39 per cent.

What to Watch

First, the result of today’s Treasury bill auction, the second of the quarter. The government offered ₦450 billion, ₦350 billion of it in one year bills, against only ₦80.84 billion maturing at settlement, so most of it is new borrowing. The one year bill cleared at 15.85 per cent on 7 October; a higher stop rate would be the first rise since the reset. Second, the Capital Market Conversation at the State House on Monday, where the National Savings Scheme is due to be launched. Its tax incentives have been promised but not described, and who qualifies, for how much and in what instrument will decide whether the scheme reaches new savers or only people who already invest.

A share offer is a conversation conducted in documents. This week the refinery added new numbers and a new deadline, and the people with the least time to read them are the ones an offer billed as the IPO for the People says it was built for.

Correction: Edition 32 reported 579.25 million shares, ₦36.07 billion and 41,072 deals for 6 October, taken from a market snapshot. The NGX weekly report gives 579.17 million shares, ₦36.06 billion and 40,979 deals.

Tuesday to Tuesday changes, five session turnover, dollar conversions, the refinery’s valuation in dollars and against its profit, the third quarter profit, per share prices for the placement, the public offer and the Nairobi receipts, the receipts’ share of the offer and the minimum ticket comparison are Harmattan calculations, using NGX closing figures, Central Bank of Nigeria weighted average exchange rates, the offer prospectus and published offer terms.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com; harmattanintel.substack.com

The Dangote Petroleum Refinery offer closes on Tuesday. The entry price, ten shares for ₦5,250, has had most of the attention. The prospectus says more about what those shares buy. It values the refinery at ₦65.22 trillion at listing. It shows Aliko Dangote still owning about 84 per cent of the company once the offer is done. And it records that one investment vehicle registered in Mauritius has committed to take up to a quarter of the shares on sale.

The market, meanwhile, drifted lower in all four sessions of a week shortened by Independence Day.

Market Wrap

The All Share Index ended Tuesday at 250,273.50, down 0.65 per cent from 251,913.20 a week earlier. Capitalisation finished at ₦162.5 trillion, against ₦163.53 trillion. In dollars, at the Central Bank’s weighted average rate of ₦1,330.87, the market was worth about $122.10 billion, down from $122.91 billion. The naira barely moved and gross reserves rose $63 million to $54.98 billion. The index remains up 60.83 per cent on the year.

The banks dominated Tuesday’s 579.25 million shares, worth ₦36.07 billion across 41,072 deals. Access Holdings traded ₦5.78 billion, Zenith Bank ₦4.18 billion and GTCO ₦2.59 billion. Tripple Gee rose 9.77 per cent to ₦2.81, Livestock Feeds 9.74 per cent to ₦10.70 and NPF Microfinance Bank 9.52 per cent to ₦4.60. Critical Minerals Financing Corporation fell 9.88 per cent to ₦3.65, ABC Transport 9.70 per cent to ₦6.05 and CWG 7.23 per cent to ₦19.25. The Central Bank sold ₦3.31 trillion of its own short term OMO bills against ₦2.17 trillion maturing.

₦65.22 trillion. The value the Dangote Refinery prospectus places on the company at listing. On Tuesday, every share on the NGX together was worth ₦162.5 trillion.

The Big Story

The prospectus states that Aliko Dangote is the beneficial owner of 87.27 per cent of the refinery’s 120.13 billion existing shares, held through Dangote Oil Refining Company, Dangote Industries and Greenview International Corporation. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company holds 6.8 per cent and the investors in a $2.5 billion private placement completed in June and July hold 5.95 per cent. The offer adds 4.1 billion new shares. Taken up in full, it leaves Mr Dangote with about 84.4 per cent and puts 3.3 per cent of the company in public hands. If the offer is oversubscribed the issuer may absorb up to 30 per cent more, with Securities and Exchange Commission approval, lifting that to about 4.25 per cent.

Part of that slice is already spoken for. Pan African Refinery Investment SPV, a Mauritius vehicle formerly called India Infra Buildco, committed on 28 August to subscribe for up to the naira equivalent of $400 million, about 1.04 billion shares or 25.34 per cent of the offer, under the same allotment rules as every other applicant. The prospectus does not say who stands behind it. The offer is not underwritten. Small applicants have some protection: valid applications below a full allotment threshold, still to be set, will be filled in full.

At ₦65.22 trillion the refinery would be worth about two fifths of everything listed on the NGX at Tuesday’s close, or about $49 billion. A company that large with so few shares in public hands raises a liquidity question before a valuation one, and the prospectus says so itself: liquidity “may be affected by a number of factors, including the number of Offer Shares available for public trading”. How heavily it will count in the All Share Index depends on whether the index weights every issued share or only those that trade, a question the NGX should settle before trading starts, which the indicative timetable puts in early December. The business has turned: after losses of $1.51 billion in 2024 and $475.8 million in 2025, the refinery earned $1.82 billion after tax in the first half of 2026.

For a diaspora investor, two further details matter. The company intends to declare dividends in dollars, though it may pay them in naira, and its financing agreements can restrict payouts. And the ₦2.11 trillion of net proceeds, about $1.59 billion, covers roughly 11 per cent of the $14.3 billion expansion it is meant to fund. A buyer at ₦525 is taking a small minority stake in a company controlled by its founder, whose dividend will compete with a five year building programme.

Nigeria’s Money

The Central Bank’s own money market table puts the savings deposit rate at 7.32 per cent in June, 7.36 per cent in July and 7.46 per cent in August. Throughout those months the policy rate was 26.5 per cent, and the Central Bank’s rule requires banks to pay at least 30 per cent of it on savings, which was 7.95 per cent. The reported rate sat below the floor in every one of those months.

The table does not explain how its figure is built, so this is Harmattan’s interpretation: if it is an industry average, some banks were paying less than the minimum. August inflation was 15.39 per cent, almost 8 percentage points above the reported savings rate. The floor is now 6.9 per cent, and the same test applies. The Central Bank publishes the rule and the rate. It does not publish which banks pay below the rule, and that list would do more for ordinary savers than any further cut.

Africa Watch

Kenya’s Monetary Policy Committee held the Central Bank Rate at 8.75 per cent on Wednesday, its fourth consecutive hold since a cut in February. Inflation rose to 6.8 per cent in September from 6.6 per cent, nearer the 7.5 per cent ceiling of its target range. Average lending rates edged up to 14.4 per cent while private sector credit grew 10.6 per cent. The Central Bank of Kenya credits its risk based credit pricing model, fully in force since March, with improving how policy reaches borrowers. That is the instructive part for Nigeria, whose central bank has named the NOFR, an overnight rate built from actual transactions, as its benchmark. Kenya shows the next step: loan pricing tied to a benchmark by rule.

What to Watch

First, the result of today’s Treasury bill auction, the first of the quarter, where ₦700 billion of the ₦900 billion on offer is one year paper. That bill cleared at 15.89 per cent on 23 September. A lower stop rate would show government borrowing costs following the reset; a higher one, buyers wanting more for longer money. Second, what follows Tuesday’s close of the Dangote offer. The basis of allotment is due at the SEC on 5 November, and it will show whether the 30 per cent upsizing is used and how much of the Mauritius commitment is filled.

A prospectus is written under legal liability, which makes it worth more than any advertisement. This one tells Nigerians plainly what is for sale: a small piece of a very large company, run by the man who built it. That is worth knowing before Tuesday.

Correction: Edition 31 stated that ₦497.59 billion was allotted against a ₦500 billion offer at the 23 September Treasury bill auction. The Central Bank’s results table shows ₦600 billion offered, including ₦400 billion of the one year bill, and ₦497.58 billion allotted.

Tuesday to Tuesday changes, dollar conversions, post offer ownership shares, the refinery’s size relative to the NGX and the early December listing estimate are Harmattan calculations, using NGX closing figures, Central Bank of Nigeria weighted average exchange rates and the offer prospectus.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com; harmattanintel.substack.com

On Monday the NGX All Share Index closed at 252,635.11, above the 252,508 it reached on 13 May. On Tuesday, as the market gave part of that back, the Central Bank of Nigeria sold ₦4.686 trillion of its own bills, almost twice the ₦2.433 trillion it repaid the same day. A week after cutting its policy rate by 350 basis points, the bank was pulling cash out of the banking system at pace. One of its senior advisers had already explained why: “we did not ease.”

Market Wrap

The index closed Tuesday at 251,913.20, up 0.52 per cent from 250,614.66 a week earlier. Monday lifted it past its May peak before a 0.29 per cent retreat. Capitalisation also rose 0.52 per cent, to ₦163.53 trillion, after touching ₦163.999 trillion on Monday. In dollars, at the Central Bank’s weighted average rate, the market rose from $122.52 billion to $122.91 billion. The two measures moved together in every session, which means no new shares were admitted to swell the total. Monday’s close was a price gain, earned by existing holdings becoming more valuable rather than by fresh paper arriving on the board. About 4.85 billion shares changed hands across 249,591 deals over the five sessions.

Tuesday was a session of profit taking led by the banks. Volume fell to 548.67 million shares worth ₦34.29 billion across 47,301 deals, and GTCO dominated by value at ₦11.73 billion, ahead of Zenith Bank at ₦4.54 billion. LivingTrust Mortgage Bank and NPF Microfinance Bank each rose 10.00 per cent, to ₦2.86 and ₦4.40, followed by Wapic Insurance at 9.95 per cent. Sovereign Trust Insurance, the top gainer a week earlier, fell 9.92 per cent to ₦2.36, while Unilever Nigeria lost 8.55 per cent to ₦100.50 and Neimeth 6.02 per cent to ₦7.80. Sovereign Trust’s round trip, from the top of one Tuesday’s table to the bottom of the next, is the week in miniature: gains that arrived quickly were taken quickly.

₦4.686 trillion. The Central Bank’s sale of its own bills on Tuesday, a week after cutting rates, against ₦2.433 trillion it repaid that day.

The Big Story

The Central Bank’s decisions page records that the Monetary Policy Committee resolved to “reset” the policy rate at 23 per cent and “recalibrate” the corridor around it. Mayokun Ajibade, Special Adviser to the Governor on Financial Markets and Economic Policy, was blunter in a Nairametrics television interview reported by ThisDay: “we did not ease.” He described the stance as still highly restrictive.

Tuesday showed what that means. OMO bills are the Central Bank’s own short term paper, sold to absorb cash the system does not need. With ₦2.433 trillion of old bills maturing, the bank offered ₦2.5 trillion and sold ₦4.686 trillion, withdrawing about ₦2.25 trillion more than it paid back. September’s five OMO auctions sold about ₦17.5 trillion in all, and more than ₦6.2 trillion was still parked at the Central Bank’s deposit facility on the day.

So the price of money is falling while its quantity is held down. The first Treasury bill auction after the cut, on 23 September, cleared the 91 day bill at 15.50 per cent, the 182 day at 15.80 per cent and the one year at 15.89 per cent, with ₦497.59 billion allotted against a ₦500 billion offer. Tuesday’s OMO paper cleared higher: 17.24 per cent for 147 days, 16.94 per cent for 182 days and 16.23 per cent for 266 days. The Central Bank is paying more to borrow for five months than the Federal Government pays for a year.

For a diaspora investor or an institutional allocator, three things follow. Lending rates have not moved: nearly a week after the decision, an official at a Tier 1 bank told Nairametrics there were no plans to cut them, so the transmission the Central Bank wants is still to be proven. The front end of the naira curve has repriced quickly, and most of the gain on bills bought before the cut has been made. And the currency has barely moved. The official weighted average went from ₦1,327.78 on 22 September to ₦1,330.47 on Tuesday, with gross reserves at $54.92 billion. Monday’s turnover of $196.7 million was the lowest since 11 August. A steady rate on thin trading is calm, but it is not yet depth.

Nigeria’s Money

In August the Central Bank did something that has had less attention than the rate cut. A circular dated 12 August, issued by the acting director of its Financial Markets Department, allowed eligible investors, including individuals, companies and non-bank financial institutions, to buy OMO bills through their banks in both the primary and secondary markets. For decades this paper was a conversation between the Central Bank and the banks. Subscriptions reached ₦20.6 trillion across September’s first four auctions, up from ₦18.72 trillion in August.

Set that beside the savings account. The minimum savings rate now sits at 6.9 per cent; Tuesday’s shortest OMO bill cleared at 17.24 per cent; August inflation was 15.39 per cent. The distance between those numbers is the distance between a saver with an adviser and a saver with a passbook. The caveat has not changed. The reporting does not state the minimum an individual must bid, and Harmattan has not seen the circular itself. A reader asking a branch for OMO bills should ask what the minimum ticket is, what the bank charges to hold the paper, and how easily it can be sold before maturity. If the minimum is a sum most savers will never hold, access has widened in principle and not in practice.

Africa Watch

Ghana is running the test Nigeria has just begun. The Bank of Ghana held its policy rate at 14 per cent on 24 September with August inflation at 5 per cent, below the lower edge of its 6 to 10 per cent target band. The rate stood at 28 per cent in May 2025, so Ghana has halved it in about sixteen months. On Wednesday the bank’s director of research, speaking for Governor Johnson Asiama warned that a lower policy rate does not automatically or immediately bring cheaper loans. The lesson for Nigerian readers is about time: if Ghana, with inflation below target, is still pressing its banks to pass cuts on, a reset in Abuja will not reach a borrower’s statement in a matter of weeks.

What to Watch

Three things will show whether the reset reaches beyond the money market. The first is the fourth quarter Treasury bill calendar, not yet published, and the first auction under it, which will show how much the government means to borrow at under 16 per cent. The second is the first lending rate notice from a major bank; until one arrives, the cut has reached savers’ returns but not borrowers’ costs. The third is the Dangote Petroleum Refinery offer, which closes on 13 October; when the first subscription figure appears, its source deserves as much attention as its size.

For three years the Central Bank has argued that confidence comes before cheap money. This week it lowered the price and kept its hand on the quantity. The next answer belongs to the banks.

Tuesday to Tuesday changes, the five session volume and deal totals and the dollar conversion are Harmattan calculations, using daily NGX figures and Central Bank of Nigeria weighted average exchange rates.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com harmattanintel.substack.com

For most of this year Nigeria has had two interest rates. One was printed in the Central Bank’s communiqués at 26.5 per cent. The other, the rate banks earn for leaving spare cash with the Central Bank overnight, sat at 22 per cent, and that was the one the market priced from. On Tuesday Governor Olayemi Cardoso closed the gap, cutting the Monetary Policy Rate by 350 basis points to 23 per cent and calling the decision what it was: a reset.

Market Wrap

The NGX All Share Index closed Tuesday at 250,614.66, up 2.58 per cent from 244,304.51 a week earlier, with all five sessions finishing higher. Market capitalisation rose 2.70 per cent to ₦162.68 trillion, above the ₦161.8 trillion of the 13 May peak, while the index remains about 0.75 per cent below the 252,508 it reached that day. The gap has a name. Abbey Bank listed 26.56 billion new shares from a private placement on 17 September, and new shares add to the value of the market without making any existing holding worth more. In dollars, the market rose from $119.17 billion to $122.52 billion. About 3.71 billion shares worth roughly ₦267 billion changed hands, and Friday’s 1.42 per cent advance was the week’s largest, with MTN Nigeria up 9.20 per cent to ₦890.

Tuesday was a session of concentration rather than breadth. Volume rose to 837.26 million shares worth ₦48.57 billion, yet deals fell by almost a quarter to 52,126: fewer, larger tickets. Zenith Bank led by value at ₦13.72 billion and the Banking Index rose 2.50 per cent on the day of the decision. Sovereign Trust Insurance led gainers with 9.95 per cent to ₦2.21, followed by Consolidated Hallmark at 9.82 per cent and Neimeth at 8.90 per cent. Multiverse Mining fell 9.86 per cent, Haldane McCall 9.39 per cent and Champion Breweries 8.68 per cent.

20 per cent. The rate Nigerian banks actually earn on idle cash fell 200 basis points on Tuesday, not 350, and the governor explained why himself.

The Big Story

The Monetary Policy Committee’s 307th meeting cut the benchmark rate to 23 per cent, kept the cash reserve requirement at 45 per cent for commercial banks, and narrowed the corridor around the policy rate from 50 basis points above and 450 below to 50 above and 300 below. The corridor sets a ceiling, at which banks borrow from the Central Bank overnight, and a floor, the standing deposit facility, at which the Central Bank pays them on spare cash. The ceiling fell 350 basis points to 23.5 per cent. The floor fell 200, from 22 per cent to 20 per cent. Mr Cardoso said why that matters: with the policy rate at 26.5 per cent and interbank near 22 per cent, the policy rate had become “the de jure rate with the SDF rate as the de facto.”

That distinction is the story for anyone pricing Nigerian money. Banks have long priced transactions off the deposit facility rather than the headline rate, so the easing that reaches the system is 200 basis points, not 350. Against August inflation of 15.39 per cent, the new floor still pays a real return of about 4.6 percentage points, and the 45 per cent of deposits banks must keep locked at the Central Bank is untouched. The Central Bank’s own table shows gross reserves at $54.81 billion on Tuesday, up $9.31 billion since December.

For a diaspora investor or an institutional allocator, three things follow. The one year Treasury bill, at 16.62 per cent on 9 September after three consecutive cuts, has been clearing well below both the old and the new floor, so the reset leaves room for bill yields to keep drifting lower. The currency held on the day, the official weighted average firming to ₦1,327.78 from ₦1,329.80 as turnover in the window roughly doubled to $694.58 million. And the reset lands in the week the US Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time since July 2023, so the gap between what naira and dollar assets pay has narrowed from both ends. Naira returns now lean more on the currency holding than on the yield.

Nigeria’s Money

The most direct transmission of Tuesday’s decision runs to the person with a savings account. Under Central Bank rules the minimum savings rate is 30 per cent of the policy rate. At 26.5 per cent that floor was 7.95 per cent; at 23 per cent it is 6.9 per cent. A trader in Onitsha holding ₦100,000 in savings earns ₦6,900 a year while the same basket of goods costs about ₦15,390 more. None of them was consulted, and most will learn of it from a revised rate notice.

In the same week, the state made its pitch for those savings. At a briefing in Abuja reported on 20 September, SEC Director General Emomotimi Agama and Nurudeen Zauro, the President’s technical adviser on financial inclusion, announced a National Savings Scheme backed by tax incentives, through which every Nigerian could save and have those savings invested. The scheme and a ten year Capital Market Master Plan are due at the State House on 19 October. A 6.9 per cent floor against 15.39 per cent inflation is a strong argument for moving money out of deposits. The test is whether the scheme reaches the trader in Onitsha on terms she can read before her money moves.

Africa Watch

Egypt offers a measure of what exchange rate credibility can do for a diaspora. The Central Bank of Egypt reported on 21 September that remittances from Egyptians abroad rose 28.1 per cent to $29.7 billion in the first seven months of 2026, from $23.2 billion a year earlier, with July alone at $4.5 billion. The central bank links the rise to its March 2024 reforms, which moved the pound towards a flexible rate and addressed foreign exchange shortages. Nigeria’s reforms rest on the same premise: that money from abroad comes through the banking system once the official rate is one people trust. Egypt’s Monetary Policy Committee meets on Thursday, with analysts split between a hold at 19 per cent and a 100 basis point increase.

What to Watch

Two numbers will show whether the reset is working. The first is today’s ₦500 billion Treasury bill auction, the first since the cut: a one year stop rate below 16.62 per cent means the easing is reaching the government’s own borrowing costs, while a hold means the market had already priced it. The second is the naira, which gave a little back on Wednesday to ₦1,328.50. Bismarck Rewane of Financial Derivatives warns lower rates could weaken demand for naira assets; AIICO Capital expects the rate to hold near ₦1,330.

For two years the Central Bank asked Nigerians to trust a policy rate the market had stopped using. On Tuesday it brought that rate back to where the money was. Bringing the saver’s return back to where prices are is the harder task, and it starts now.

Figures for the Tuesday to Tuesday window and the dollar conversion are Harmattan calculations, using Central Bank of Nigeria weighted average exchange rates.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya

Founder, Harmattan

hello@harmattanintel.com; harmattanintel.substack.com

For three years the story of Nigerian interest rates has been a story about somewhere else. Rates rose in Washington, capital left Lagos, and the Central Bank of Nigeria raised to keep what was left. This week that sequence came apart. The US Federal Reserve raised its policy rate on Wednesday for the first time since July 2023, taking the target range to 3.75 to 4.00 per cent on a unanimous twelve to nothing vote, and the US ten year Treasury yield crossed 5 per cent on Tuesday for the first time since July 2007. Nigeria spent the same seven days walking the other way. The 364 day Treasury bill cleared at 16.62 per cent on 9 September, a third consecutive cut, and inflation eased for a third straight month to 15.39 per cent.

Two central banks, two directions, one week. What lifts it above curiosity is where the money is coming from. The oil price forcing the Fed’s hand is the same oil price filling Nigeria’s reserves, and both things reached a threshold in the same seven days.

Market Wrap

The coverage week closed almost exactly where the arithmetic says it should have. Measured from the Tuesday 8 September anchor of 244,802.11 to Tuesday 15 September’s 244,186.47, the All Share Index gave up 615.64 points, or 0.25 per cent, while capitalisation slipped from ₦158.72 trillion to ₦158.32 trillion, also 0.25 per cent. Those two numbers matching is not a coincidence and it is worth pausing on, because they did not match the week before, when the index fell 1.60 per cent against capitalisation down 1.24 per cent. That earlier gap was supply. NGX Regulation admitted 8,097,918,827 new Dangote Sugar Refinery shares to the daily official list on Monday 7 September, lifting issued capital to 20,244,797,068 from 12,146,878,241. No such listing fell inside 8 to 15 September, so this week the two measures moved as one.

“244,186.47. Four straight advancing sessions, and the market still ended the week below where it started.”

The path matters more than the destination. Wednesday 9 September was the low at 242,223.10, down 1.05 per cent. Then four consecutive advances, 0.06 per cent, 0.28 per cent, 0.10 per cent and 0.36 per cent, recovering 1,963.37 points and ₦1.27 trillion of capitalisation without quite reaching the starting line. Tuesday’s session was led by NGX Group, up 9.95 per cent to ₦179.00, Aradel Holdings up 9.62 per cent to ₦1,550.00 and Sovereign Trust Insurance up 9.50 per cent to ₦1.96. Ecobank Transnational fell the full 10.00 per cent to ₦66.65, Tranex Nigeria lost 9.93 per cent to ₦2.45 and AVA Capital 9.90 per cent to ₦4.55, with PZ Cussons close behind at 9.52 per cent. Turnover was 505.11 million shares worth ₦36.28 billion across 71,635 deals, with GTCO trading ₦4.86 billion and Zenith ₦3.93 billion among the most active names. Year to date the market stands at 56.92 per cent, down from 57.31 per cent a week earlier. In dollars the week reads harder than in naira. At the CBN weighted average rate of ₦1,329.1485, Tuesday’s capitalisation was $119.11 billion against $120.22 billion at the anchor, a fall of about $1.11 billion or 0.92 per cent, because the currency gave back ₦8.90 over the same seven days after its strongest run in two years.

The Big Story

Nigeria’s external reserves quietly passed a number the market has been watching all month. CBN data put gross reserves at about $54.6 billion as at 14 September, up from $54.08 billion on 3 September. Every Nigerian outlet covering the climb has used 22 December 2008 as the reference point, when reserves stood at roughly $54.21 billion, and by that measure the barrier is now behind us. It is worth being precise about what that does and does not mean. December 2008 was not the peak. Nigeria's gross reserves peaked at $64.85 billion on 8 August 2008 and were already well into the post crisis drawdown by Christmas. So this is the strongest external position in eighteen years and roughly $10.2 billion short of the all time high, which is a different and more useful sentence than the one currently circulating.

The mechanism is not mysterious. Brent closed at $107.63 on Thursday 10 September after a 6.3 per cent single session move and stayed above $107 through the following week, supported by the shutdown of Saudi Arabia’s East West pipeline and continued disruption around the Strait of Hormuz. Nigeria sells crude into that. The same shock reaches the United States as an inflation problem rather than a revenue one, which is why the ten year Treasury yield has risen for five straight sessions and why BMO now measures the one month correlation between crude and the ten year at 0.96, the tightest since June 2019. For a country that exports the commodity and imports the capital, those two effects arrive on opposite sides of the ledger at the same moment.

For an allocator the practical question is which effect dominates over the next six months. The case for Nigeria has been built on a falling policy rate, a stabilising currency and index reinstatement bringing benchmark driven buyers back. Two of those three are intact. But the hurdle has moved. When the risk free rate in dollars was 4 per cent, a frontier equity market compounding at 57 per cent a year in local currency was an easy conversation. At 5 per cent, with the Fed’s own projections showing sixteen of eighteen participants expecting another increase this year, the conversation gets harder, and it gets harder precisely as Nigeria cuts its own yields into it. A diaspora investor funding a naira position from abroad should understand that they are now being paid less to take Nigerian duration while being offered more to take none at all.

Nigeria’s Money

The August inflation print is accurate and it is already out of date. Headline eased to 15.39 per cent from 15.43 per cent in July, with month on month inflation falling sharply to 0.71 per cent from 1.57 per cent and monthly food inflation collapsing to 1.02 per cent from 5.56 per cent. Then look at what happened after the month closed. Dangote Petroleum Refinery raised its gantry price to ₦1,350 a litre on 12 September, the fourth increase since late August and ₦185 or 15.9 per cent above the ₦1,165 the sequence began at. MRS stations moved to ₦1,400 from ₦1,300, NNPC outlets to ₦1,375 from ₦1,275, and by Tuesday 15 September NNPC stations across Abuja were selling between ₦1,395 and ₦1,430. Marketers have attributed the moves to crude above $100 and rising costs through the supply chain. Whatever the cause, August’s number describes a month that ended before any of it.

There is a second divergence inside the same release, and it is the one that should trouble anyone reading the headline as relief. Urban month on month inflation was 0.28 per cent in August. Rural month on month inflation was 1.79 per cent, up from 0.78 per cent in July. The disinflation is concentrated in the cities. In the villages prices accelerated, and they accelerated before the petrol sequence reached the pumps, which is where rural transport costs eventually show up. Nigeria is currently being invited to buy shares in the company setting the gantry price. Both things can be true at once, and the reader deciding whether to subscribe deserves to hold them together rather than separately.

Africa Watch

The BRVM published notice number 263-2026 on Tuesday 8 September admitting Bridge Bank Group Côte d’Ivoire to the main compartment of its equity market from 24 September under the ticker BBGC, at a reference price of CFAF 6,750. The offer behind it is the interesting part. Bridge Bank sought CFAF 67.5 billion for 20 per cent of its capital, drew CFAF 95.8 billion in orders, closed inside twenty four hours against an eighteen day window, and brought 17,544 investors onto its register. It becomes the sixteenth bank and forty eighth company on an exchange serving eight countries where new listings remain rare. Set that 17,544 against the roughly ten million retail subscribers Nigerian advisers are targeting for a single offer and the difference in market depth across West Africa becomes concrete rather than theoretical.

What to Watch

Two dates, and they are one working day apart. FTSE Russell’s reclassification takes effect after the close on Friday 18 September for the open on Monday 21 September, and as at today neither FTSE Russell nor the NGX has published a country weight or a flow estimate for Nigeria, which means anyone quoting a dollar figure this week is quoting an analyst’s model rather than an index provider’s file. Watch for the weights themselves, not the commentary. Then on Monday and Tuesday the Monetary Policy Committee meets with the policy rate at 26.5 per cent and the one year bill clearing at 16.62 per cent, a gap of nearly ten percentage points between what the Committee says rates are and what the market is actually paying. The auctions have been moving without the MPR for three weeks. The question is whether the Committee now follows the market or asks the market to come back.

Nigeria has spent a decade being told its problems were structural and its windfalls were temporary. This week the windfall arrived and the structure held long enough to bank it. What happens next depends less on the oil price than on what gets built while it lasts.

Correction, 16 September 2026. This edition originally put Nigeria's all time reserves peak at approximately $62 billion in September 2008, drawing on a third party series, and the gap to current levels at roughly $7 billion. The CBN's own Movement in Reserves table gives a gross peak of $64,850,289,411.52 on 8 August 2008, and a gap of roughly $10.2 billion. The correction widens the gap and does not change the finding.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com
harmattanintel.substack.com

Harmattan arithmetic: the Tuesday to Tuesday coverage week percentages, the four session recovery totals, and the dollar conversions at the CBN NFEM weighted average rate are Harmattan calculations from published figures. The coverage week runs Tuesday to Tuesday and differs from the exchange’s Monday to Friday week.

The index finished the week almost exactly where it started. Almost nothing else about the week was ordinary.

Between last Tuesday’s close and this one, Nigerian equities crossed ₦160 trillion for the first time since 10 August, handed the whole crossing back in a single session, and watched the largest company the country has ever built sign the papers that will bring it to Customs Street. The index ended lower than it began. Capitalisation ended roughly flat, even though billions of new shares were added along the way. A market that has climbed almost vertically all year spent this week standing still while the ground beneath it moved.

Market Wrap

Measured across Harmattan’s Tuesday to Tuesday window, the All-Share Index closed at 244,802.11 on 8 September, down 1,280.52 points or 0.52 per cent from 246,082.63. Capitalisation eased to ₦158.72 trillion from ₦158.96 trillion, about ₦240 billion lighter, and the year to date return slipped to 57.31 per cent from 58.14.

That flatness hides a violent interior. The exchange’s calendar week to 4 September was one of the strongest of the year, the index up 2.36 per cent on turnover of ₦210.3 billion, with Oil and Gas up 9.10 per cent and Insurance, Banking and Consumer Goods all up more than 3.5. On Monday the index added 707.34 points and capitalisation crossed ₦160 trillion, though that crossing leaned heavily on the listing of 8.09 billion new Dangote Sugar Refinery shares, which is fresh paper rather than fresh price, and only twelve stocks rose against forty six that fell. Then Tuesday removed 2,897.67 points and ₦1.88 trillion in one session, on 753.17 million shares worth ₦27.82 billion across 54,051 deals, with exactly four gainers on the entire board: Ellah Lakes at 7.07 per cent, NGX Group at 1.38, Learn Africa at 1.16 and Wema Bank at 0.68. The steepest falls belonged to small companies, AvaCap at 10.00 per cent, Fortis Global Insurance at 9.89 and Abbey Mortgage Bank at 9.74. First HoldCo, down 9.30 per cent, was the only heavyweight among them. The percentage pain sat in the small caps. The index damage sat in the banks and MTN Nigeria. Several outlets have attributed the selling to investors raising cash for the Dangote offer, but no fund flow data has been published and none supports the claim.

₦65.22 trillion. Not one share has traded yet, and the company would arrive on Customs Street worth roughly 41 per cent of everything already listed there.

The Big Story

On Monday at the Eko Hotel in Lagos, Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals signed the documents for an offer of 4.1 billion ordinary shares at ₦525, targeting ₦2.15 trillion, or about $1.63 billion. Subscription opens on 14 September and closes on 13 October, with trading on the exchange expected to begin in late November. The prospectus that came with it is the reason the market stopped arguing about whether the refinery works. Revenue for the six months to June was $13.91 billion, or ₦19.13 trillion, up 121.46 per cent from ₦8.638 trillion a year earlier. Profit after tax was $1.82 billion, against a loss of $476 million for the whole of 2025. Gross profit reached ₦3.432 trillion from ₦225.195 billion. Average utilisation rose to 83.6 per cent from about 45 at the start of the year, and the gross refining margin widened to $24.50 a barrel from $13.70.

The arithmetic that matters to anyone already holding Nigerian equities is not the earnings, though. It is the size. The prospectus registers 120.13 billion existing shares alongside the 4.1 billion on offer, giving an indicative post offer capitalisation of about ₦65.22 trillion. The whole Nigerian Exchange was worth ₦158.72 trillion on Tuesday. CardinalStone Research values the company at ₦77.7 trillion and Chapel Hill Denham at $62.53 billion, both comfortably above the listing price, which is an argument that the offer is cheap and simultaneously an argument that the index is about to be dominated by a single barrel of oil.

For a diaspora investor, the practical question is not whether to subscribe. It is what the NGX becomes afterwards. An exchange whose largest constituent is a refinery is an exchange whose direction is set in the Strait of Hormuz rather than in Abuja. Nigeria has spent 2026 being repriced by index providers, by rating agencies and by its own central bank. From late November it will also be repriced, every trading day, by the crack spread. Institutional allocators who bought Nigeria as a reform story should understand that they are being handed an energy position whether they wanted one or not. Vetiva’s chief executive Chuka Eseka has described the offer as the first in Nigeria that retail investors can subscribe to entirely through digital channels, and the transaction advisers are targeting about ten million subscribers. Whether ten million Nigerians turn up is the real test, and it will be answered in public, in four weeks.

Nigeria’s Money

Two minimum subscriptions landed in the same country in the same week. The Dangote offer will take ₦5,250, being ten shares at ₦525. The Central Bank’s invitation to tender for Wednesday’s Treasury Bills auction, on behalf of the Debt Management Office, sets a minimum bid of ₦50,001,000, in multiples of ₦1,000. The Debt Management Office’s September bond offer carries the identical ₦50,001,000 floor. One instrument is a leveraged industrial asset in a volatile commodity. The other is the sovereign’s own paper, currently clearing at 16.84 per cent on the 364 day bill after two consecutive cuts totalling 75 basis points. Nigerians can buy the risky one for the price of a decent lunch. The safe one begins at fifty million.

This is what financial exclusion actually looks like in a country with a growing market. It is not the absence of instruments. It is the pricing of the door. A saver in Aba or Owerri who wants a government guaranteed 16.84 per cent has to go through a bank or broker willing to aggregate small orders, and whether that happens is a matter of institutional appetite rather than regulation. Meanwhile ₦2.94 trillion of OMO maturities flowed back into the banking system this week, roughly 97 per cent of total projected inflows, money that will be recycled among the same institutions that hold it now. The Dangote offer will introduce more Nigerians to a share certificate in one month than the last decade of financial inclusion conferences managed. That is worth celebrating, and it is also worth asking why the state’s own paper remains the harder thing to buy.

Africa Watch

On Tuesday, Statistics South Africa reported that the continent’s largest economy contracted by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter, its first decline since the third quarter of 2024 and the end of six consecutive quarters of growth. Mining fell 3.0 per cent, trade 1.9 and manufacturing 1.8, while imports surged 4.9 per cent against exports of 0.9. Officials pointed directly at the Middle East conflict and the oil price, and Goldman Sachs cut its full year forecast to 1.2 per cent from 1.6. This matters for anyone who owns Africa as a bloc rather than as a set of countries. The same crude price that pushed Nigeria’s reserves past $54 billion for the first time since December 2008 pushed South Africa into contraction. A single number moved two of the continent’s three largest economies in opposite directions in the same quarter. Diversifying across Africa is not the same thing as diversifying away from oil.

What to Watch

First, the result of Wednesday’s Treasury Bills auction, offered at ₦500 billion, the smallest of the entire third quarter programme and down from the ₦700 billion that has been standard. Watch whether the 364 day rate falls below 16.84 per cent. With ₦2.94 trillion of maturities chasing a shrunken offer, it very likely will, and every basis point makes the equity market and the Dangote offer relatively more attractive to domestic money. Second, 21 September, when Nigeria rejoins the FTSE Frontier series. Vietnam leaves that same index on the same morning, moving up to Secondary Emerging. Vietnam has been the dominant weight in Frontier for years. Its departure changes what every remaining constituent is worth to a passive fund, and no index weight or flow estimate has yet been published by anyone.

Nigeria is about to find out how many of its own citizens will buy a piece of the thing they already fill their tanks from. That answer will tell us more about this market than any index provider can.

Index and capitalisation changes are measured across Harmattan’s Tuesday to Tuesday window rather than the exchange’s calendar week, and all derived percentages and conversions here are Harmattan arithmetic.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya

Founder, Harmattan

hello@harmattanintel.com, harmattanintel.substack.com

Market Wrap

The Nigerian Exchange closed on Tuesday 1 September at 246,082.63 points, up 0.77 per cent on the session and higher for a fourth consecutive day. Capitalisation stood at ₦158.96 trillion. Across Harmattan’s coverage week, which opens against the Monday 24 August close of 239,085.17 because Tuesday 25 August was a public holiday, the index added 6,997.46 points, or 2.93 per cent, and capitalisation rose ₦4.56 trillion, or 2.95 per cent, lifting the year to date return from 53.64 per cent to 58.14 per cent. Capitalisation outran the index partly because Sunu Assurances, Coronation Insurance and Sterling Financial Holdings all listed additional shares on 31 August, so some of that gain is new paper rather than higher prices. Figures for the Tuesday to Tuesday window, and the conversions below, are Harmattan arithmetic.

Only the first session of the week fell. Wednesday 26 August dropped 0.17 per cent and stretched the losing run to eleven, after which the market rose 0.20, 0.90, 1.20 and 0.77 per cent on the four days that followed. Tuesday’s turnover reached ₦40.77 billion on 651.32 million shares in 43,760 deals, with 40 stocks advancing. Aradel Holdings gained 8.83 per cent to ₦1,539.90 and Nestlé Nigeria 5.83 per cent to ₦2,995.00. Underneath all of it sits the currency. The naira closed Tuesday at ₦1,329.43 on the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market, its strongest in more than two years and the first close below ₦1,330 since May 2024, having begun the window at ₦1,346.98. That changes how the market reads from outside. In local terms capitalisation grew 2.95 per cent. Converted at the official rate on each anchor date, it grew from $114.63 billion to $119.57 billion.

₦158.96 trillion at home, $119.57 billion abroad. The second figure grew faster than the first, and none of that gap came from a share price.

The Big Story

On Friday 28 August, Moody’s revised Nigeria’s sovereign outlook from stable to positive. Precision matters here, because in Abuja it has been received as something considerably larger. Moody’s did not upgrade Nigeria. It affirmed the long term issuer ratings at B3, six notches below investment grade, and changed only the direction of travel. The agency cited sizeable current account surpluses, a material accumulation of external reserves, better functioning in the foreign exchange market, and monetary policy transmission it described as more effective but still weak. It projected a current account surplus near 6.1 per cent of GDP this year.

The domestic evidence arrived three days later. On Monday the National Bureau of Statistics put second quarter growth at 4.43 per cent year on year, up from 3.89 per cent in the first quarter. The composition is more interesting than the headline. Services grew 4.60 per cent and now account for 56.62 per cent of real output, while agriculture grew 4.39 per cent against 2.82 per cent a year earlier, which in a country where most working people are nearer a farm than a trading floor is the most consequential line in the release. Industry slowed to 3.96 per cent from 7.46 per cent. Oil expanded 7.31 per cent on production of 1.72 million barrels a day, up from 1.55 million in the first quarter. Reserves reached $53.81 billion by 31 August, and Brent traded near $95 on Tuesday after strikes around the Strait of Hormuz. Nigeria sells what the world is suddenly short of, and the reserves, the currency and the ratings note all rest on that.

What did not make the front pages here is that the same week repriced Nigeria’s cost of capital in the opposite direction. The yield on the United States ten year Treasury note passed 4.75 per cent for the first time since January 2025, the German ten year Bund reached a fifteen year high, and a governor of the Federal Reserve said publicly that he would support a rate rise if inflation does not cool. Global money is being offered more to stay at home than at almost any time in a generation. Nigeria is asking that same money to travel to a market six notches below investment grade, on the strength of an index reclassification taking effect on 21 September, against passive inflow that Cordros Research has estimated at between $840 million and $1.04 billion. That is a projection, not a commitment. Cordros made a second observation in the same note that has travelled less far: Nigeria recorded a net foreign inflow of ₦161.05 billion in 2025, of which ₦263.30 billion arrived in September alone. A year of foreign enthusiasm was, on inspection, four weeks of it. For the institutional allocator, the improvement is real and the discount is also real, and the second will not close because of the first. For the diaspora investor the read is plainer. This year’s gains have come overwhelmingly from Nigerians buying Nigerian shares.

Nigeria’s Money

On Tuesday the Securities and Exchange Commission published draft Rules on Online Forex Trading and Contracts for Difference, and in doing so formally acknowledged a market Nigeria has never counted. Under the proposals a market making broker would need ₦3 billion in paid up capital, a straight through processing or ECN broker ₦2 billion, and a technology or platform provider ₦5 billion. Client money would sit in segregated accounts at CBN licensed banks and be reconciled daily. Binary options would be banned outright for retail clients. Cold calling would go, along with unapproved influencer promotion and incentives tied to trading volume. Most importantly, an offshore platform falls inside the rules if it lets Nigerians open accounts, advertises here, or pays Nigerian affiliates.

That last clause is the whole story. No NGX report measures this market and no NBS series captures it. The money leaves by card or stablecoin, sits with a broker in Limassol or Port Louis, and returns, when it returns, as a bank credit nobody classifies. It has been sold to young Nigerians as a way out, promoted by people paid for each signup, at leverage that turns a small adverse move into a total loss. The draft would cap that leverage at 1:400 on the major currency pairs, which Proshare has already called generous by international standards, since it still allows ₦100,000 to control a ₦40 million position. There is also a tension the Commission will have to live with. Capital floors of this size will clear out nearly every domestically incorporated operator, while the offshore platforms holding most of the money face a choice between registering and simply going quieter. Formalising a market and pricing everyone out of it are close cousins. Operators would have three months to apply and six to comply, which makes early 2027 the real test.

Africa Watch

Kenya reported August inflation of 6.6 per cent on Monday, up from 6.5 per cent and above the midpoint of the central bank’s 2.5 to 7.5 per cent target range for a fifth consecutive month. Transport led at 15.7 per cent, and core inflation quickened to 3.4 per cent from 3.2 per cent, which is the tell: the fuel shock is no longer confined to fuel. The symmetry is instructive. The same barrels that are strengthening the naira, filling Nigeria’s reserves and underwriting a positive outlook from Moody’s are raising matatu fares in Nairobi and boxing in a central bank that has held at 8.75 per cent since April. One shock, two very different weeks, and the only difference is which side of the trade you sell from.

What to Watch

Two things. The FTSE Frontier Index Series indicative review files began publishing today, and until now every figure attached to 21 September has been an estimate. These files replace estimates with weights and a constituent list, and they are the first hard read on how much passive money is genuinely attached to Nigeria and to which shares. Then 21 and 22 September, when the Monetary Policy Committee meets on the very day the reclassification takes effect. The committee still holds at 26.5 per cent, but the market has moved without it. OMO stop rates fell to 18.99 per cent on Tuesday from 19.32 per cent a week earlier, and at today’s auction the 364 day Treasury bill cleared at 16.84 per cent, down from 17.15 per cent and below 17 per cent for the first time. Domestic yields are falling while global yields rise, and that gap is now the most important number in Nigerian finance.

Nigeria’s price has for a decade been set by institutions that rarely visit. This month two of them changed their minds, and ₦4.56 trillion followed. The test that counts is whether any of it reaches the person who still cannot get a loan, and that is the one worth keeping count of.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya

Founder, Harmattan

hello@harmattanintel.com, harmattanintel.substack.com

There were four trading sessions in this coverage week, not five. The Federal Government declared Tuesday 25 August a public holiday for Eid ul Mawlid, and the exchange closed. In the four sessions that did trade, the market fell in every one.

That is the surface. Underneath it, a monthly report released quietly on Friday said something more consequential about who actually owns this year's rally, and how thin the foreign half of it has become.

Market Wrap

Harmattan's coverage week runs Tuesday to Tuesday, and this one ran short. The All-Share Index fell from 241,611.23 at Tuesday 18 August to 239,085.17 at Monday 24 August, a decline of 2,526.06 points or 1.05 per cent, while capitalisation fell from ₦155.97 trillion to ₦154.40 trillion, a loss of ₦1.57 trillion or 1.01 per cent. Both are Harmattan arithmetic, measured over a window that does not match the exchange's own Monday to Friday reporting week and which this week lost its final session to the holiday. Monday's close was the tenth consecutive losing session by Harmattan's count. Year to date, the market is up 53.64 per cent, down from 53.81 per cent on Friday.

The exchange's own week, ended Friday 21 August, was heavier. The index shed 3,268.04 points or 1.35 per cent from 242,619.20, and capitalisation closed at ₦154.534 trillion, down 1.33 per cent. Turnover was 6.242 billion shares worth ₦157.764 billion across 186,496 deals, against 12.153 billion shares worth ₦176.058 billion in 224,146 deals a week earlier. Fifty-nine equities fell against eighteen that rose. Financial services carried 89.62 per cent of all volume and 35.77 per cent of all value, and consumer goods was the only sector index to finish higher, by 0.05 per cent. In Friday's session R. T. Briscoe led gainers at 9.63 per cent, followed by Fortis Global Insurance at 8.11 per cent, while International Energy Insurance fell the full 10 per cent to ₦3.87. The currency gave back a little ground across the coverage week, with the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market rate moving from ₦1,343.32 to ₦1,346.98, weaker by ₦3.66 or 0.27 per cent on Harmattan arithmetic. The parallel market held near ₦1,405, a spread of roughly ₦58.02. External reserves stood at $53.11 billion as at 24 August, the highest level since December 2008.

One note on timing. This edition covers the week to Tuesday 25 August, and the market has traded since. On Wednesday 26 August the index fell a further 402.25 points or 0.17 per cent to 238,682.92, an eleventh consecutive losing session, with capitalisation down about ₦259.76 billion. The currency moved the other way, firming to ₦1,343.59.

Dollar equivalents use the NFEM closing rate of ₦1,346.98 on Monday 24 August, the last published rate of a coverage week whose final Tuesday was a public holiday, and are applied to headline figures only. On that basis the market is worth about $114.6 billion, and the exchange's weekly turnover about $117.1 million. Harmattan arithmetic.

"5.6 per cent. That is how much of July's trading on the Nigerian Exchange belonged to foreign investors, in a market that has added more than half its value this year."

The Big Story

The NGX Domestic and Foreign Portfolio Investment Report for July, published during the coverage week, records total transactions of ₦2.37 trillion, up 38.17 per cent on June. Domestic investors accounted for 94.4 per cent of that, and foreign investors 5.6 per cent, the lowest monthly share recorded this year. Foreign transactions fell to ₦132.62 billion from ₦186.79 billion, split between ₦41.59 billion coming in and ₦91.03 billion going out. Across the first seven months, total activity reached ₦11.98 trillion against ₦6.01 trillion in the same period of 2025, with domestic transactions of ₦10.68 trillion already exceeding the ₦9.27 trillion recorded across the whole of last year. Foreign transactions were close to flat at ₦1.29 trillion. Net foreign outflow for the seven months was ₦266.07 billion, against ₦61.83 billion a year earlier.

Speaking at Coronation Asset Management's half-year review on Friday, managing director Aigbovbioise Aig-Imoukhuede put foreign participation at 12.1 per cent of transaction value by June, against 27 per cent a year earlier, and noted that the value of foreign portfolios had barely moved, rising from ₦1.13 trillion to ₦1.16 trillion. What changed, on his reading, was not that foreigners left but that Nigerians arrived in volume. Domestic activity expanded 129.1 per cent. The explanations offered for foreign reluctance are consistent across analysts and unglamorous: government paper yielding above 17 per cent at the one-year tenor, an election calendar that investors are already positioning around, operational questions about the move to T plus one settlement on 1 June, and Nigeria's continued absence from the FTSE Russell frontier index, whose restoration was confirmed in March for 21 September and then placed back under review on 30 June.

For a diaspora investor or an institutional allocator, this cuts two ways and it is worth holding both. The optimistic reading is that Nigerian institutions and Nigerian savers have repriced their own market without needing permission from London or New York, which is the definition of a deeper market and the thing every frontier exchange claims to want. The cautious reading is that a rally held up by one class of buyer has a single point of failure, and that domestic institutions rotating into 17 per cent government paper is exactly what the past eleven sessions look like. Both readings are supported by the same data. The question the next quarter answers is whether foreign money returns to a market that no longer waits for it.

Nigeria's Money

The Dangote Petroleum Refinery listing has become the most anticipated offer in Nigerian market history, and one of the more credible explanations for the current sell-off is that people are selling shares they own to raise cash for shares that do not yet exist. Dr Paul Uzum of Halo Capital Management, quoted in the Guardian during the coverage week, put the refinery offer first among the drivers of the decline, ahead of election positioning and portfolio rotation, on the reasoning that investors are creating liquidity for a subscription they expect to be heavily scaled back. It is a rational thing to do. It is also being done in the absence of almost every fact an investor would normally need.

Here is what exists. An application has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A $2.5 billion private placement completed in July, and a $1 billion underwriting programme was disclosed on 18 August, comprising a funded $600 million placement participation and a $400 million commitment that activates only when the offer opens. Here is what does not exist. No approval. No published prospectus, with September the stated target. No offer price, no minimum lot, no confirmed percentage of the company being sold, and no subscription window. In June the Commission issued cease and desist directives against registered capital market operators who were soliciting advance subscriptions for an offer that had not been applied for, describing the campaign as capable of misleading investors and distorting market expectations. The gap between a Nigerian's appetite to participate and the existence of a legal instrument to participate in is precisely the gap that informal money falls into, and it is being filled at the moment by flyers.

Africa Watch

Ghana's Gold Board ordered on Monday that artisanal gold doré purchased by self-financing aggregators must be refined at approved domestic refineries before any export application will be considered, effectively banning exports of unrefined doré under those arrangements from 1 September. GoldBod, created last year as the sole authorised buyer and exporter of artisanal gold, exported 104 metric tons in 2025 and is on course to match or exceed that this year. The directive is a piece of the same problem Nigeria keeps circling from a different direction: an enormous informal sector producing real value, and a state trying to route that value through a formal channel it controls, in order to capture the foreign exchange and the refining margin at once. Ghana has chosen monopsony and mandated processing. Whether that formalises the sector or simply pushes part of it back into smuggling is the question the next six months will answer.

What to Watch

Two things, both inside days. The Central Bank offered ₦700 billion of Treasury Bills on Wednesday across the 91, 182 and 364-day tenors, and the results had not been published when this edition went out. The one-year stop rate went to 17.59 per cent at the 12 August auction, a rise taken in the face of ₦4.19 trillion of bids for the ₦500 billion of one-year paper on offer, and whether it holds, climbs again or finally breaks lower is the single clearest signal available on whether the rotation out of equities has further to run. Second, FTSE Russell is reported to have promised an update on Nigeria's suspended frontier reclassification by the end of August, which would mean this week. That decision does not change a single company's earnings, but it determines whether the passive foreign money that tracks the index has a date to work towards or another quarter of nothing.

Nigeria's market spent this week being carried almost entirely by Nigerians, and that is not the weakness the headline share suggests. A market that can add half its value in seven months on domestic savings alone has proven something about itself. What it has not yet proven is that it can do it twice.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya

Founder, Harmattan

hello@harmattanintel.com harmattanintel.substack.com

Something quiet happened on Customs Street on Tuesday. Volume collapsed by more than two thirds, and the index fell anyway. A market falling on heavy volume is a contest. A market falling on almost no volume is a room people have left. The money did not evaporate. It moved. And the week before, the Central Bank told every Nigerian with a bank account exactly where it had gone.

Market Wrap

The All-Share Index closed Tuesday 18 August at 241,611.23, down 0.35 per cent, with capitalisation at ₦155.97 trillion after a fall of ₦544.5 billion. Year to date the market still holds 55.26 per cent. It was the sixth consecutive losing session. Across Harmattan’s Tuesday to Tuesday week it is down 2.07 per cent, capitalisation lighter by ₦3.285 trillion (Harmattan arithmetic). The exchange’s own week to date figure of 0.42 per cent differs because the NGX week runs Monday to Friday.

Volume fell 67.7 per cent to 429.83 million shares on turnover of ₦27.48 billion, deals dropped 21.6 per cent to 35,683, and the average value per deal rose from roughly ₦504,000 to roughly ₦770,000 (Harmattan arithmetic). Fewer people traded, and those who did traded bigger. First HoldCo was the heaviest drag, down 5.71 per cent to ₦132.00, absorbing ₦2.23 billion of turnover alone, 8.1 per cent of the market’s entire value in one counter. Haldane McCall led gainers at 9.97 per cent, ahead of Veritas Kapital Assurance at 7.09 and Tantalizer at 5.26. Red Star Express led losers at the full 10 per cent, with Trans-Nationwide Express at 9.94 and Meyer at 9.88. All five worst clustered at the floor. One-sided pressure, not two-way trade.

Volume fell 67.7 per cent on Tuesday and the index still declined. Nigerian equities did not lose an argument this week. They lost an audience.

Dollar figures use the NFEM close of ₦1,349.54 on Monday 17 August, as no Tuesday fixing had been published at the time of writing. At that rate the market is worth roughly $115.57 billion (Harmattan arithmetic). The naira strengthened while equities fell, so a diaspora holder’s loss in $ is smaller than in ₦.

The Big Story

On 12 August the Central Bank issued a circular signed by Okey Umeano, Acting Director of the Financial Markets Department, effective immediately. Participation in Open Market Operations is now open to all eligible investors through deposit money banks, with individuals, corporates and non-bank financial institutions named specifically. Open Market Operations drain money from the banking system; Treasury bills finance government spending. One is monetary plumbing, the other fiscal funding. In October 2019 the Central Bank shut individuals and non-bank corporates out of OMO so their money would go instead to the real economy and the equity market. This circular lets them back in.

The first auction under the framework showed what the plumbing pays. Against ₦600 billion offered across 103-day and 138-day bills, the bank took ₦4.93 trillion in bids and allotted about ₦2.60 trillion. The 138-day paper drew ₦3.658 trillion for a ₦300 billion offer, clearing at 20.01 per cent for a true yield of 21.66 per cent, while the shorter 103-day bill cleared higher at 20.39 per cent. Treasury bills cleared their one-year paper at 17.59 per cent a day earlier, leaving the central bank paying three and a half to four percentage points more than the government.

Set that beside a household. Headline inflation is 15.43 per cent. A Nigerian with a bank account can in principle hold paper yielding above 20 per cent with no credit risk worth naming, a real return of about five percentage points. That is the best offer most Nigerian savers have ever had, and every competing claim on their money must now beat it: the cooperative contribution, the mutual fund, the shop that needs restocking. Blue chip market value has been reported down ₦3.7 trillion, with analysts naming this policy alongside a pricing rule change since postponed. Brokers counter that a wider bidding pool should compress yields over time, and that equities still deliver appreciation and dividends fixed paper cannot.

The harder question is narrower. Access runs through deposit money banks, so the bank is the gatekeeper. Whether open to individuals means anything will be settled by minimum ticket sizes, by fees, and by whether a branch officer ever mentions it. None of that is in the circular. Meanwhile the 30-year United States Treasury yield reached 5.31 per cent on Monday, its highest since 2007. The textbook consequence for a frontier market is capital flight and a weaker currency. It did not happen. The naira closed at ₦1,349.54, its strongest since April, helped by a $252.1 million intervention, while domestic paper cleared above 20 per cent. Nigeria did not lose capital this week. It paid to keep it, and the equity market is where that bill landed.

Nigeria’s Money

While Abuja opened a window for Nigerian savers, a very different Nigerian institution was making arrangements elsewhere. Standard Bank Group is in talks to buy a stake in OPay ahead of a possible listing in New York, Bloomberg reported. The talks are early and may not proceed. Founded in 2018, OPay serves up to 50 million users, holds mobile money operator and microfinance bank licences in Nigeria, and turned profitable last year as transaction value more than doubled to $358 billion. A listing is discussed at around $4 billion.

Sit with the geography. The company processing the daily economic life of Nigeria’s informal sector, the trader’s transfer, the okada fare, the agent float in a roadside kiosk, will sell shares in itself in New York rather than Lagos. The Nigerians who generated that $358 billion may buy central bank paper at their branch this month and cannot buy a share of OPay at any price. Formal markets deepen for state instruments while informal equity is priced abroad. Customs Street has not yet given a company of that profile a reason to point homeward.

Africa Watch

Old Mutual resumed trading on Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls Stock Exchange on 12 August after six years of suspension, closing its debut at 78.17 US cents on just 46,402 shares. The same company’s primary listing in Johannesburg turned over roughly 19.9 million shares that session. Effective 13 August the exchange began measuring cross-listed issuers on global issued share capital rather than the local register, lifting Old Mutual’s reported capitalisation above $3 billion. The figure on the board rose enormously. The order book did not. Headline capitalisation and real liquidity are different facts, and only one tells you whether you can sell.

What to Watch

Access Holdings disclosed on 17 August a potential delay to its interim audited results for the half year ended 30 June, with the exchange approving an extension to 30 September subject to central bank approval. Watch that date. It is the first hard deadline any tier one lender has attached to this reporting season, and it gives the continuing silence from GTCO and Zenith a shape it did not have. Watch, second, the next Open Market Operations auction. If a wider pool of bidders compresses that 20 per cent clearing level, the pull on equities weakens. If it holds, the exchange spends another month competing against the state for the same money.

An empty market is not a verdict. It is a question about where the money went, and Nigeria answered it in public this week. What remains open is whether the door that just opened is wide enough for the people it was announced for.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya

Founder, Harmattan

hello@harmattanintel.com, harmattanintel.substack.com

Last week, this publication asked whether the Nigerian rally had run out of breadth. The market answered within a day, and then kept answering for four sessions before pausing to take profit. But the more

interesting development in Nigerian capital markets this week was not in Lagos, and it was not about price.

Market Wrap

The All Share Index closed Tuesday at 246,723.57, up 0.78 per cent on the prior Tuesday close of 244,802.83, with market capitalisation at ₦159.255 trillion, a week on week gain of ₦1.245 trillion by Harmattan’s arithmetic from published daily closes, or roughly $116.68 billion. Year to date the index stands at 58.55 per cent. The path there mattered more than the destination. Friday closed at 245,573.60 on negative breadth. Monday then delivered the fourth consecutive advancing session, rising 1.20 per cent to 248,529.75 and adding ₦1.91 trillion to reach ₦160.42 trillion, the first close above ₦160 trillion since mid May. It was not a record, and it is worth saying so plainly, because the claim is circulating. The market touched ₦161.84 trillion with the index at 252,508.19 on 13 May, before June’s correction, and remains below both. Tuesday gave back 1,806.18 points, or 0.73 per cent, and ₦1.166 trillion, as profit taking hit MTN Nigeria, Dangote Sugar, Nigerian Breweries, First HoldCo, GTCO and Zenith. UPDC REIT led gainers at 10 per cent to ₦14.85, ahead of FTN Cocoa at 9.88 per cent to ₦8.90 and C&I Leasing at 8.26 per cent to ₦5.90. Thomas Wyatt led losers at 9.97 per cent to ₦2.89, followed by AVA Capital at 9.60 per cent to ₦8.95. Harmattan measures the week from Tuesday close to Tuesday close, which will not match the NGX Monday to Friday convention; dollar equivalents use the CBN NFEM closing rate of ₦1,364.89 on Tuesday 11 August.

Two details complicate the recovery. Monday’s gain came on negative breadth, 23 advancers against 36 decliners, because the session was essentially one stock: Airtel Africa rose 8.59 per cent, added ₦498.60 per share and became the most capitalised company on the exchange at ₦23.7 trillion. And Tuesday’s turnover, 3.90 billion shares worth ₦32.38 billion across 45,608 deals, was dominated by Fortis Global Insurance, which listed 15 billion additional shares on 30 July from a ₦12 billion debt to equity conversion at ₦0.80, taking its issued capital from 3.23 billion shares to 18.23 billion. Its percentage moves come off that reconstructed low base and are not ordinary price appreciation.

3.29 billion of 3.90 billion shares. By Harmattan’s arithmetic one recently reconstructed penny insurer accounted for 84 per cent of everything that changed hands on Tuesday, on an exchange with six decades of history behind it.

The Big Story

Somewhere in New Owerri, a few weeks from now, a securities exchange intends to open its doors. ContiSX Securities Exchange Plc holds Approval in Principle from Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission, targets a launch on September 24, 2026, and has stated regional centres for Aba, Kano and Ibadan. The platform is not yet live, and the instrument categories displayed on its site are illustrative previews rather than anything anyone can buy today. That a serious piece of market infrastructure is being built outside Lagos, by a founder who has spent a career arguing that Nigeria’s constraint is capital mobilisation rather than capital scarcity, deserves acknowledging before anything else is said. Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe calls the founding idea investment inclusion. The diagnosis is right, and the diagnosis is usually the hard part.

The flagship product is the ContiSX Economic Instrument. A productive business, a film slate, a processing plant, a clinic, a school, would issue a standardised revenue backed security. Investors would buy fractional units carrying governance rights and a stated yield. The exit, as published, is scheduled redemption: at maturity the issuer repurchases the units at an agreed price, returning principal and return. It is worth being precise about what that is, because it would be easy to describe it as something missing. It is not. It is a fixed term instrument, and fixed term instruments are a legitimate and often sensible design. Nigerians already understand them intuitively. A commercial paper works this way. So does a fixed deposit, and so, in its own fashion, does a rotating contribution scheme. For a first time investor, a defined term and a defined return are considerably easier to hold than a price that moves every day for reasons nobody explains. ContiSX appears to have chosen clarity of terms over tradability, and for the constituency it is aiming at, that is a defensible choice rather than an oversight.

The open question is what happens to a holder who needs their money before the term ends, and this is the most useful thing for readers to watch between now and September 24, 2026. No market maker is named yet. No early redemption window is described. The Liquidity Notes product, whose name invites the assumption, addresses a different asset class in bank backed trade finance receivables. The depository being built alongside it is a separate and genuinely ambitious undertaking: cross border settlement against central bank money is something most African markets do not have, and attempting one in a first year is not a small thing to attempt. How it would interoperate with CSCS has not yet been set out. None of this is unusual for a venture still weeks from opening. It is simply the list of things that will determine whether a CEI is an instrument a cooperative can hold with confidence.

And it should be said clearly that nobody has solved this. SME secondary liquidity is among the hardest unsolved problems in capital markets, and it has defeated institutions far better resourced than any Nigerian start-up. NASD OTC has traded thinly for years despite doing a great deal well. Even on the NGX, as Tuesday’s tape showed, real liquidity gathers in a handful of names. Nor is credit risk peculiar to new venues. This week, Geregu Power, a listed, audited, and credit rated company with a bond on FMDQ and a trustee behind it, missed payment on ₦40.09 billion of Series 1 notes after first half revenue fell 78.71 per cent during a turbine overhaul. Defaults reach well documented issuers too. What the documentation does is turn a bad outcome into a recoverable one. Which is why four things, all of them within the company’s own gift before launch, would settle most of what remains open: a published rulebook, a named market maker or a committed buyback facility, a defined redemption path before maturity, and a disclosure regime proportionate to the risk being sold. None of those is a criticism. They are the ordinary furniture of a working market, and an exchange that arrives with them already in place starts with the thing most new venues spend years trying to earn.

Nigeria’s Money

Whether this works matters most to people who have never owned a security in their lives. Cooperatives, market traders, diaspora senders, and first time investors are precisely the constituency Nigeria’s formal capital market has never reached, and the capital drought they face is not theoretical. A woman running a food processing business in Aba with three employees, purchase orders she cannot fill, and no collateral any bank will accept is not short of ideas or customers. She is short of ₦4 million, and there is currently no institution in this country structured to hand it to her at a price she can survive. An instrument that routes idle household savings toward her is worth building, and worth being patient with while it is built.

The same constituency needs the terms explained precisely, which is where the responsibility sits and where it is entirely manageable. A cooperative member contributing ₦20,000 a month is not making a portfolio allocation. She is storing the money that covers school fees in January and a hospital bill nobody scheduled. A fixed term instrument can serve her very well, provided she understands that the term is the term, and provided the tenor is matched to money she can genuinely leave untouched. That is a question of disclosure and product design rather than of ambition, and it is the kind of thing a well written rulebook settles in a paragraph. Nigeria’s savers do not need protecting from new ideas. They need the terms in plain language before they subscribe.

Africa Watch

Old Mutual’s Zimbabwean shareholders get a tradeable price today for the first time in six years. The pan African insurer’s secondary listing migrates from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange to the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange, with trading beginning on Wednesday 12 August after approval was confirmed in the first week of the month. The shares had been suspended on the ZSE since 2020, when the government halted trading to address currency instability. The bourse reopened. Old Mutual’s stock did not. The VFEX will suspend its usual price limits for the opening session so the market can find a level through submitted bids and offers, with the normal 20 per cent daily band applying from the second day. It is a reminder that markets can be repaired as well as broken, and that the repair usually comes from someone deciding to build a venue rather than complain about one.

What to Watch

Two dates. The Central Bank returned to the primary market on Wednesday 12 August with a ₦700 billion Treasury bill auction, and the stop rates that follow set the risk free hurdle every yield bearing instrument in Nigeria must clear. If government paper still pays double digits, the premium on any private yield is thinner than the headline suggests, and that arithmetic shapes what new issuers will have to offer. Then on Monday 17 August, the National Bureau of Statistics publishes July inflation, the final print before the September Monetary Policy Committee meeting. June came in at 15.91 per cent against 15.93 per cent in May, which is a stall rather than a decline. A third consecutive flat month would make the case for a September cut considerably harder to argue, and the fixed income market will price that well before equities do.

Exchanges are not built by approval. They are built slowly, by people willing to stand on both sides of a trade and by institutions that publish their terms before they ask for anyone’s money. Six weeks is not long. It is long enough.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya

Founder, Harmattan

hello@harmattanintel.com, harmattanintel.substack.com

For most of this year, the Nigerian market has behaved like a tide, lifting everything that floats. This past week it started behaving like a jury. Four of the five sessions closed red, the gains that did come were concentrated in a handful of names, and the stocks that fell hardest were the ones with the least earnings evidence behind them. That is not a market losing faith. It is a market starting to keep score.

Market Wrap

The All-Share Index closed Tuesday at 244,802.83, down 1.28 per cent from the prior Tuesday’s 247,984.55, a figure derived from the two closes. Market capitalisation ended at ₦158.01 trillion, roughly ₦1.98 trillion lighter than a week earlier by the same arithmetic, and worth about $116.0 billion in dollar terms. The retreat was steady rather than violent: three consecutive declines carried over from late July, Monday interrupted with a 0.18 per cent rise led by banking names, and Tuesday resumed the slide with a 0.38 per cent drop. Only Monday’s session finished green all week. The year-to-date return now stands at 57.32 per cent, still among the strongest returns of any equity market on earth, and July as a whole delivered a 6.92 per cent gain even after the late-month selling. Dollar figures use the CBN NFEM closing rate of ₦1,362.55 on Tuesday 4 August, applied to headline figures only. Harmattan measures its week Tuesday to Tuesday; the NGX’s own Friday-to-Friday scorecard for the week ending 31 July printed a smaller 0.84 per cent decline, and this window also contains the July month end, which is why the two figures differ.

Tuesday’s session told the week’s story in miniature. AVA Capital led the gainers at 9.94 per cent to ₦9.95, still finding its price after listing five billion shares in late July, followed by Chapel Hill Denham’s Nigeria REIT at 9.71 per cent and Livestock Feeds at 9.49 per cent. LivingTrust and Multiverse both hit the 10 per cent downward limit, with McNichols close behind at 9.92 per cent. Turnover came to 1.56 billion shares worth ₦28.73 billion across 54,160 deals, with Japaul Gold dominating volume and MTN Nigeria leading value. Note that the recent listings by AVA Capital and Fortis Global Insurance added new paper to the market during the window, so the fall in capitalisation slightly understates the price declines beneath it.

“₦137.90. First HoldCo touched a fresh high on Tuesday and closed at ₦130 by the bell, which is what a market that has stopped buying everything looks like.”

The Big Story

The largest initial public offering in African history moved from ambition to timetable this week. Reporting sourced to people with knowledge of the plan puts the Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s offer at about $5 billion, with the process expected to conclude around October, and the primary listing set for the Nigerian Exchange. Then came something remarkable: the chief executive of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange went on record courting a secondary listing once the Lagos debut is done, and exchanges in Kenya, Egypt, Ghana and Rwanda are reportedly circling the same prize. Africa’s largest bourse is publicly bidding for a slice of a Nigerian asset. That sentence would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

The mechanics matter as much as the headline. The NGX main board ordinarily requires a 20 per cent free float, though exceptions exist; Dangote Cement trades on a float of just under 13 per cent. Other African exchanges wanting exposure would likely need structured routes, depositary receipts or exchange-traded instruments mirroring the Lagos shares. The valuation debate will be fierce. Turkey’s Tupras, with comparable refining capacity across four plants, carries a market value near $12 billion; HF Sinclair in New York, with similar capacity, sits around $16 billion. A 650,000 barrel per day single-site refinery that has spent the past two years selling jet fuel into Europe will test where global investors place a Nigerian industrial asset on that spectrum.

For the diaspora investor, this is the clearest route yet into Nigeria’s energy transformation through a regulated public market, potentially across multiple venues. For the NGX, a listing of this scale would reorder the index and deepen the market precisely when the FTSE Russell assessment process has put Nigerian market plumbing under a microscope. One caution belongs on the record: Dangote listing timelines have slipped before, and October should be read as intent, not promise. But intent backed by appointed advisers and competing exchanges is a different species of intent.

Nigeria’s Money

There are two prices for the dollar in Nigeria this week, and the gap between them is quietly widening. The official NFEM rate closed Tuesday at ₦1,362.55, barely moved all week inside a narrow band. On the streets of Lagos, traders were buying dollars at about ₦1,410 and selling between ₦1,415 and ₦1,425. That is a spread of roughly ₦50 to ₦60, around 4 per cent, and it has grown from about ₦40 a week earlier even as the official rate held firm.

That 4 per cent is not an abstraction. It is what the informal economy pays to touch a dollar: the recipient cashing a remittance outside the banking system, the trader funding small imports below documentation thresholds, the household keeping savings in physical notes. Reserves above $52 billion and a stable official rate tell one story about Nigeria’s external position. The street price tells another, about where that liquidity does not reach and who pays the toll for standing outside the formal system. A widening spread against a calm official market is worth watching, because it measures demand the official window is not meeting.

Africa Watch

Nigeria lost a crown this week, and to an unlikely rival. Zimbabwe ended July as Africa’s best-performing equity market in dollar terms, with the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange returning 68.5 per cent year to date against the 17 exchanges tracked by African Markets, overtaking Nigeria after months of gains built on easing inflation, a steadier local currency and renewed domestic appetite for shares. The caveat writes itself: Harare rallies have historically doubled as inflation hedges, and dollar returns there can evaporate as quickly as they compound. Still, the broader signal is real. African equities are having a generational year, and the competition at the top of the table now runs deeper than one market.

What to Watch

Two things matter in the days ahead, and neither of them is the bank results wait, which Harmattan has flagged twice already and will treat as news on the day it becomes news. First, the August dividend qualification window: eight listed companies have qualification dates falling this month, according to corporate disclosures filed with the NGX, from University Press at ₦0.18 with a 28 August cutoff onwards. Under the T+1 settlement cycle in force since June, the same one-day regime FTSE Russell is currently assessing, an investor needs to buy just one trading day before the qualification date to make the register, and in a market that has turned selective, dividend capture flows tend to show up visibly in exactly these names in the sessions before each cutoff. Second, the NBS July inflation reading, expected mid-month, the first price data of the second half. Whether the disinflation trend extended into July decides how much room the MPC has when it meets in September, and it will shape how investors price every fixed income auction between now and then.

The market spent eighteen months rewarding presence. It has started rewarding proof. Harmattan will be here every Wednesday, keeping score alongside it.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com
harmattanintel.substack.co

m

For two years the question of which bank Nigeria values most had only two plausible answers. As of Tuesday evening it has a third, and the two incumbents have not yet been permitted to reply.

That is the strange, compelling shape of this week: a coronation conducted while the evidence file sits sealed on a regulator's desk. Elsewhere, a new exchange that has not yet opened its order book announced it is building a phone.

Market Wrap

The All-Share Index closed Tuesday at 247,984.55, up 0.54 per cent from last Tuesday's 246,659.56, lifting market capitalisation by roughly ₦870 billion to ₦159.99 trillion, about $117.2 billion, with the year-to-date return now near 59.4 per cent. The modest headline understates a livelier week: Harmattan's Tuesday-to-Tuesday window excludes the July 20 surge already counted in last week's edition, which the NGX's standard Friday week to July 24 retained, so the two measures diverge by construction. The naira, meanwhile, did quiet work of its own, firming to a ₦1,365.00 close at the official window on Tuesday from ₦1,375.31 a week earlier, a gain of ₦10.31, with reserves holding at a 17-year high above $52 billion.

The week's path told the real story. Equity investors surrendered about ₦801 billion on Wednesday, recovered to 247,831.40 on Thursday as First HoldCo touched ₦121 intraday, then watched the Banking Index print an all-time intraday high of 2,605.41 on Friday before profit-taking in the heavyweights trimmed the close. Monday brought earnings-driven divergence, strong filers rewarded and misses punished, and Tuesday finished the window with a 0.30 per cent rise on positive breadth of 36 advancers to 27 decliners. LASACO led Tuesday's gainers, up 10.00 per cent to ₦2.20, ahead of LinkAssure at 9.93 per cent to ₦1.66 and Trans-Nationwide Express at 9.93 per cent to ₦3.10, while Meyer fell 9.97 per cent to ₦16.70, MeCure 9.94 per cent to ₦56.20 and ABC Transport 9.93 per cent to ₦6.35, on turnover of ₦36.40 billion across 676.9 million shares and 55,348 deals.

"₦5.78 trillion. First HoldCo ended the week worth more than any bank on the Nigerian Exchange, and neither of the rivals it displaced has yet published a number in reply."

Dollar figures in this edition use the CBN's NFEM closing rate of ₦1,365.00 on Tuesday 28 July, applied to headline figures only.

The Big Story

GTCO's board met on Tuesday to consider its audited half-year accounts and a possible interim dividend. By the time this edition went to press, nothing had been filed. Zenith's board meets today. This is not evasion; it is plumbing. Audited bank accounts in Nigeria require Central Bank approval before release, and the precedent is sobering: last year Zenith's board approved its half-year accounts on July 24 and the market saw them in September, after an NGX filing extension. The verdicts are coming, but they arrive on the regulator's clock, not the market's.

The market declined to wait. First HoldCo closed Tuesday at ₦127 per share and a market capitalisation of ₦5.78 trillion, decisively ahead of Zenith at ₦5.2 trillion and GTCO at ₦4.82 trillion, capping a run that has seen the stock rise 165 per cent this year and more than double in July alone. What investors are pricing is the one half-year number actually in public view: First HoldCo's record ₦653.5 billion pre-tax profit, up 83.5 per cent, filed unaudited on July 20. Reporting as a holding company with unaudited interim accounts is precisely why its number is public while its audited rivals sit in the approval queue, an asymmetry of timing that has, for now, decided the crown. Femi Otedola underlined his conviction mid-week, adding 706.13 million shares at ₦109.88 on Wednesday, roughly ₦77.6 billion, taking his stake to about 21.95 per cent.

So what must the sealed envelopes contain to change the story? Simple arithmetic, clearly labelled as ours: GTCO earned ₦302.9 billion pre-tax in the first quarter, so overtaking First HoldCo's half-year requires a second quarter above ₦350 billion, a sharp acceleration from the 0.9 per cent year-on-year growth it managed in Q1 against a ₦600.9 billion H1 2025 base. Zenith's first quarter of ₦360.9 billion means a merely flat second quarter would carry it past ₦720 billion and comfortably clear of the new leader on earnings, whatever the market caps say. Two cautions for allocators. First, an interim dividend from GTCO is routine, it paid ₦1.00 for H1 2025, so read the size against that precedent and against First HoldCo's decision to pay nothing on record profits, not the mere fact of payment. Second, First HoldCo's rebound comes off last year's deliberate balance sheet clean-up, which flatters every comparison. The market has ruled first and will examine the evidence later. That is not always a mistake. It is always a risk.

Nigeria's Money

Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe spent the week announcing something no Nigerian exchange has attempted: a phone. The ContiSX Phone, unveiled ahead of the exchange's September 24 launch, is pitched as a blockchain-native device with encrypted communications, a built-in AI assistant, and translation across Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Pidgin and English, so that an investor can leave instructions for a licensed broker in her own language and have them arrive in his. Most strikingly, the company says no separate data plan is required within its ecosystem. It is a piece of hardware built to answer a question Nigerian finance has dodged for decades: what would the capital market look like if it were designed for the farmer in Bauchi and the trader in Aba rather than retrofitted for them? ContisX's whole architecture leans into that question, from its Owerri headquarters and planned regional centres in Aba, Kano and Ibadan to its stated ambition to bring cooperatives, communities and subnational issuers to market alongside the diaspora.

Seen that way, the phone is not a gadget but a thesis. Nigeria's constraint has never been the absence of money; it is the absence of rails to reach it, and the existing rails carry a double toll of device cost and data cost, priced in dollars, denominated in English. An exchange that removes both tolls at once is attacking exclusion at its root rather than its symptoms, and doing it with the founder's conviction that total investment inclusion means a village should be able to hold FGN bonds as naturally as a Lagos fund manager does. The road from here is demanding, as every genuinely new road is: the device must stay affordable at scale, the free connectivity must hold, and the exchange must open its doors on schedule. But if ContisX delivers even a meaningful fraction of this vision, September will mark more than a launch. It will mark the first time a Nigerian market institution built its front door where most Nigerians actually live. Harmattan will be watching with interest, and with hope.

Africa Watch

Abidjan supplied the week's cleanest signal of continental appetite. Bridge Bank Group Côte d'Ivoire opened subscriptions on July 20 for 20 per cent of its capital, 10 million shares at 6,750 CFA francs for a targeted 67.5 billion CFA francs, about $117 million, and confirmed the next day that the book was fully covered in under 24 hours against a window meant to run into August. The bank, backed by Senegalese billionaire Yérim Sow, is slated to list in early September as the BRVM's sixteenth bank and forty-eighth company, on an exchange whose composite index is up roughly 38 per cent this year. The lesson for Lagos watchers is that the hunger for African bank equity is not a Nigerian peculiarity; it is a continental repricing, and the capital is regional.

What to Watch

Two things. First, the release chain for the sealed bank results: Zenith's board decision today, any interim dividend signals, and crucially the extension notices, because if either lender follows last year's script the audited numbers, and the answer to the banking crown question, may not surface until September. Second, tomorrow's July 30 NGX filing deadline for June half-year accounts, which should deliver a wave of results including MTN Nigeria, coming off a ₦546.4 billion first-quarter pre-tax profit, Access Holdings and Nigerian Breweries, flowing straight into Friday's month-end portfolio rebalancing, a combination that could make the last two sessions of July the most consequential of the month.

Titles change hands quickly in this market; proof moves at the speed of an auditor. Harmattan will be reading the filings the morning they land.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya

Founder, Harmattan

hello@harmattanintel.com

harmattanintel.substack.com

Eleven votes, no dissent. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Committee emerged from its 306th meeting on Tuesday and did precisely what the market expected: nothing. The benchmark rate stays at 26.50 per cent for a second consecutive meeting, and Governor Olayemi Cardoso’s message was one of patience over panic.

The market, meanwhile, refused to wait for permission. In the two sessions before the committee spoke, Nigerian equities staged one of their most emphatic weeks of the year, powered by a bank that just delivered the best half year in its 132-year history.

Market Wrap

The All-Share Index closed Tuesday at 246,659.56, up 1.56 per cent on our Tuesday-to-Tuesday coverage window from last week’s 242,870.44, and a fresh all-time high. Market capitalisation rose from ₦155.85 trillion to ₦159.12 trillion, roughly 115.7 billion dollars, with the year-to-date return now sitting at about 58.5 per cent. A note on the numbers: the NGX’s own Friday-ended week actually eased 0.14 per cent, but our window captures Monday’s extraordinary session, when the index surged 1.12 per cent and investors added approximately ₦1.76 trillion in paper wealth in a single day. Part of the week’s capitalisation gain also reflects Sterling Financial Holdings’ supplementary listing of 13.8 billion shares rather than pure price appreciation. Dollar figures use the CBN’s NFEM closing rate of ₦1,375.31 on the Tuesday anchor date, applied to headline figures only.

₦1.76 trillion. That is what Nigerian equities added to investor wealth in a single Monday session, before the Monetary Policy Committee had said a word.

The engine was First HoldCo. The stock gained 9.95 per cent on Monday to close at ₦105.50, smashing its previous 52-week high of ₦87.25 after its record results, and the banking index led all sectors with a 3.14 per cent advance while Custodian Investment and NEM Insurance both hit their 10 per cent daily limits and BUA Cement added 9.98 per cent. Tuesday’s session was calmer but still constructive: breadth ran 40 advancers to 22 decliners, UPDC REIT led gainers at 9.86 per cent ahead of Thomas Wyatt at 9.73 per cent and Ikeja Hotel at 9.53 per cent, while MeCure fell 9.95 per cent, HMCALL 9.86 per cent and CMFC 9.85 per cent. Access Holdings was the most active stock with 336.6 million shares traded, and value traded held near ₦49 billion in back-to-back sessions, a sign that the rally is running on genuine liquidity, not thin air.

The Big Story

The hold itself was the least surprising part of Tuesday. What matters is what the committee said, and what it declined to say. Cardoso told the briefing that although headline inflation moderated marginally in June, global uncertainties have heightened, due mainly to renewed hostilities in the Middle East. Beneath the headline number lurks the committee’s real worry: food inflation accelerated to 3.75 per cent month on month in June from 2.98 per cent in May, a reminder that the disinflation story is being carried by base effects and a firmer naira while the price of what Nigerians actually eat is quickening again.

Read properly, this was a hawkish hold. With headline inflation at 15.91 per cent and the policy rate at 26.50, Nigeria is running a real interest rate of more than ten percentage points, among the most restrictive stances of any major emerging economy. A committee confident in its trajectory would have begun trimming that gap. Instead, all eleven members chose to keep the full weight of policy pressing down, citing a war two continents away that could reroute through the Strait of Hormuz into Nigerian petrol prices and freight costs within weeks. The message to anyone pricing an early easing cycle is blunt: the committee wants evidence, not hope.

For investors, the implications cut two ways. High rates keep fixed income yields generous and sustain the interest margins that just produced First HoldCo’s ₦653.5 billion pre-tax half year, an 83.5 per cent leap from the same period of 2025, proof that big-bank earnings power is surviving the fade of the FX windfall era. For the diaspora allocator, the hold also underwrites the naira: the currency firmed to ₦1,375 at the official window through decision week and reserves climbed to $52.02 billion, meaning the carry trade that has quietly rewarded dollar-based investors all year remains intact. The cost is borne elsewhere, by every borrower still paying 30-plus per cent for working capital.

Nigeria’s Money

Here is the awkward truth beneath Tuesday’s decision: the committee’s 26.50 per cent applies to money inside the banking system, and most Nigerian cash never goes there. The CBN’s latest money and credit statistics show ₦5.19 trillion held outside banks as of May, some 91.27 per cent of the ₦5.69 trillion in circulation, meaning more than nine out of every ten naira notes sit with households, traders and the informal economy rather than in a vault. Monetary policy in Nigeria is a lever connected to perhaps a tenth of the nation’s physical money. The other nine tenths answer to the market woman’s cash box, the ajo collector’s ledger and the mattress.

The Bank knows it. In June, Cardoso launched the Payments System Vision 2028, pledging to cut cash outside banks from about 90 per cent to below 40 per cent by 2028, an ambition worth roughly ₦2.83 trillion in deposits migrating into the formal system. The timing is not accidental: MPC members have warned that cash-heavy campaign spending ahead of the 2027 elections could undermine disinflation gains. For readers, the investment logic is direct. Whichever institutions build the rails that finally move that ₦5.19 trillion, the agent networks, the mobile wallets, the low-friction savings products, will be intermediating the largest untapped deposit pool in West Africa. The record highs on Customs Street are being set in a country where most money has never met a broker.

Africa Watch

Africa’s most anticipated fintech listing is moving again. Airtel Africa is adding investment banks to the syndicate for its Airtel Money IPO, now firmly pointed at London in the second half of 2026 at a valuation of around $10 billion, with Citigroup leading and proceeds of $1.5 to $2 billion targeted. The business earned $1.36 billion in revenue in its latest financial year and serves 54.1 million customers, yet only 2.7 million of them are in Nigeria, a statistic that says as much about Nigeria’s unfinished mobile money story as it does about Airtel’s. If it prices at ambition, this becomes London’s biggest listing in half a decade, and a landmark repricing of African financial infrastructure in global portfolios.

What to Watch

Two things this week. First, the earnings wave: with First HoldCo’s early print already on the tape and no interim dividend attached, attention shifts to GTCO’s board meeting on 28 July and Zenith’s on 29 July, with at least 18 major filers due before month end. Watch the payout signals as closely as the profits; CSCS has already declared the first interim dividend in its history, and if the big banks follow with cash rather than capitalisation, it marks a new phase of the recapitalisation era. Second, the naira: it strengthened into and through the MPC decision, closing decision day at ₦1,375.31 with reserves above $52 billion. If the official rate holds below ₦1,380 in the days after the hold, it confirms the CBN has the FX room to make its patience credible.

The committee chose stillness; the market chose motion. Both, in their way, are bets on the same thing: that Nigeria’s numbers are finally becoming boring enough to trust. Harmattan will be watching which side blinks first.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com
harmattanintel.substack.co

m

The Nigerian market spent this week doing something it has rarely done in 2026: hesitating. Two days of gains, a flat Friday, a Monday wobble, and then a Tuesday recovery that felt less like exuberance and more like discipline. And this morning, while Lagos traders were still settling into their desks, the National Bureau of Statistics handed the Central Bank a number that will shape everything that happens next week.

Market Wrap

The All-Share Index closed the Harmattan coverage week at 242,870.44 on Tuesday, up 2.44 percent from the prior Tuesday’s 237,083.28 and now 56.1 percent higher for the year. Market capitalisation ended at 155.85 trillion naira, roughly 112.7 billion dollars, adding 3.72 trillion naira of investor wealth in seven days. Dollar figures are calculated at the CBN’s NFEM closing rate of 1,383.08 naira on Tuesday July 14 and applied to headline figures only. Our Tuesday-to-Tuesday figure sits below the 6.35 percent the exchange reported for its own Friday-to-Friday week because that window captured the early-July surge that closed before ours opened. The shape of this week told its own story: a 2.27 percent leap on Wednesday as Airtel Africa touched a 52-week high, a Thursday session dominated by First HoldCo, a flat Friday marred by Guinness falling 9.99 percent, a Monday retreat of 0.84 percent to 241,749.11, and a Tuesday recovery of 0.46 percent with 30 advancers against 25 decliners. The market tested the 240,000 shelf and held it.

Tuesday’s leaderboard belonged to Learn Africa, up the maximum 10 percent to 9.90 naira, First HoldCo, up 9.98 percent to 72.15 naira, and Thomas Wyatt, up 9.80 percent barely a week after its trading suspension was lifted. International Energy Insurance led the losers, down 9.86 percent, followed by Legend Internet, down 9.18 percent, and Fortis Global Insurance, down 7.67 percent. Turnover on Tuesday alone reached 634.74 million shares worth 53.33 billion naira in 42,430 deals, but Thursday was the week’s true spectacle, when a single negotiated block of First HoldCo crossed the market. The official weekly turnover aggregate lands with the NGX report on Friday.

One block of 1.26 billion First HoldCo shares worth 85.61 billion naira crossed the tape in a single session. That is not retail enthusiasm. That is conviction with a calendar.

The Big Story

Nigeria’s headline inflation fell to 15.91 percent in June, from 15.93 percent in May. The margin is a rounding error. The direction is not. After three consecutive months of rising prices, driven largely by the oil shock that followed the collapse of the US and Iran ceasefire, the headline finally turned. Beneath it, the picture is genuinely split. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, dropped sharply to 15.92 percent from 16.82 percent, a fall of nearly a full percentage point in one month. But food inflation went the other way, rising to 17.52 percent year on year, with monthly food prices climbing 3.75 percent. In Kogi State, food prices are 53.02 percent higher than a year ago. The economist sees disinflation. The market woman in Lokoja does not.

The timing is everything. The Monetary Policy Committee sits on Monday and Tuesday, July 20 and 21, its first meeting since holding the benchmark rate at 26.50 percent in May. This print is the last major data point it will see. The case for caution writes itself: oil is holding above 85 dollars a barrel on renewed Hormuz risk, the naira eased about 1.2 percent this week to 1,383 at the official window, and food, the largest single item in every Nigerian household budget, is still accelerating. The case for optimism is quieter but real: core inflation falling that fast suggests the exchange rate pass-through from March’s fuel shock is fading, and that underlying price pressure is genuinely cooling.

For the diaspora investor and the institutional allocator, the decision itself is probably the least interesting part. Most analysts expect a hold, and a hold at 26.50 percent keeps Nigerian fixed income among the most attractive carry trades in frontier markets. Watch the language instead. If the committee’s statement leans on core disinflation, it is telling you a cutting cycle is being prepared for later this year, and that changes the arithmetic for equities, where a 56 percent rally has been running partly on exactly that expectation. If the statement leans on food and oil, the wait gets longer. Either way, the earnings wall arriving in the last week of July will decide whether these prices have profits underneath them.

Nigeria’s Money

Nigeria has spent a decade solving payments. It has barely begun solving credit. That is what makes Friday’s announcement worth your attention: the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation, CREDICORP, signed a risk-sharing agreement with the National Credit Guarantee Company under which the guarantee company will absorb part of the default risk on consumer loans issued through CREDICORP’s network of participating banks and lenders, starting with personal loans and household asset financing. In plain English, the state is offering to share losses with any lender willing to extend credit to ordinary Nigerians, because without that cushion, most will not. The average Nigerian household still borrows the way it always has, from family, from friends, from the trader’s association, from the moneylender whose interest rate is negotiated in shame rather than basis points.

The honest caveat is that CREDICORP’s scheme launched in 2024 by lending to federal civil servants, the most documented, most payroll-verified workers in the country. A memorandum of understanding is a promise, not a disbursement. The real test of this partnership is whether guaranteed credit ever reaches the woman whose shop turns over more than a civil servant’s salary but whose income exists nowhere on paper. If it does, something quietly profound happens: her repayment history becomes data, the data becomes a credit score, and the informal economy begins writing itself into the formal one, loan by loan. That is the version of financial inclusion that builds wealth rather than merely moving cash.

Africa Watch

Ghana is offering the continent a lesson in what happens after a great rally. The Accra bourse remains Africa’s best performer this year, its composite index up roughly 129 percent over twelve months after crossing 15,000 points in March, powered by a stabilising cedi and the violent re-rating of banks that had been crushed by the domestic debt restructuring. But the index has added barely one percent in the past month and now sits near 14,800, with market capitalisation around 24.9 billion dollars. Recovery rallies are ferocious and finite. Ghana’s is maturing just as Nigeria’s, with a far deeper market and a September index reclassification ahead, is still finding new buyers. Allocators comparing the two are really asking one question: which market still has fuel in the tank?

What to Watch

Two dates matter this coming week. First, the MPC decision on Tuesday July 21: not the rate itself, which is widely expected to hold at 26.50 percent, but the statement’s treatment of the core-versus-food divergence, because that language will set the tone for fixed income yields and the equity market’s rate-cut hopes through September. Second, First HoldCo’s results, expected around July 24: after a week in which an 85.61 billion naira block trade and a 9.98 percent Tuesday surge made it the market’s main character, this will be the first big bank print of the earnings season, and the first hard evidence of whether the year’s most dramatic banking rally is built on profit or on positioning.

The market held its ground this week, and the inflation tide finally turned, however slightly. What happens next will not be decided by sentiment. It will be decided in a committee room in Abuja and on the earnings pages of the banks. Harmattan will be reading both.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com
harmattanintel.substack.co

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Special edition, publishing off our usual Wednesday schedule. This one couldn’t wait.

On June 15, 2026, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Payments System Supervision Department issued circular PSS/DIR/PUB/CIR/001/004. It runs two pages. It may end up being the most consequential regulatory document Nigerian fintech has seen since the PSB licensing framework.

Most of the coverage so far has focused on one provision: the requirement that payment transaction data generated within Nigeria be stored and managed in Nigeria by January 1, 2027. Data centre operators are understandably celebrating. Nigeria’s local operators have spent a decade building capacity, and the CBN has just handed them the strongest demand signal in the history of the Nigerian cloud market, with billions of dollars in data centre investment now projected through 2027.

But read the circular itself, and three things stand out that the headlines have missed.

1. The data localisation clause is a single paragraph, and that ambiguity is the risk

The entire localisation mandate is one paragraph. It contains no definition of “payment transaction data.” No distinction between primary storage, backups, and disaster recovery replicas. No carve-out for data processing versus data storage. No guidance on whether analytics environments, fraud engines, or customer support systems that touch transaction records fall within scope.

Most consequentially, the operative phrase is “stored and managed in Nigeria.” Storage is a question of where your servers sit. Management is a question of who administers them, and from where. Read strictly, a fintech that migrates its database to a Lagos data centre but administers it through a cloud control plane in Virginia may still have a compliance problem. Read loosely, a local read replica might suffice. Nobody knows yet, because the circular doesn’t say.

For the tier-one banks, this ambiguity is a legal department problem. For the more than 200 licensed PSSPs, PTSPs, switching companies, mobile money operators, and super agents the circular is addressed to, it is an existential architecture question with a six-month fuse. Many of them were built cloud-native on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud from day one. The institutions that wait for the CBN to publish implementation guidance before starting will not have time to migrate when it arrives.

2. The deadline everyone is quoting is the second deadline

January 1, 2027 is the date in every headline. But the circular contains an earlier one: the market structure requirements must be complied with not later than December 31, 2026. That is one day earlier on paper. In practice the gap is much wider, because monthly market share returns are required in the interim, meaning the reporting obligation begins effectively immediately.

Those market structure rules deserve more attention than they are getting. Any licensed institution, individually or as part of a group of related entities, holding more than 25% market share in consumer issuing within a rolling twelve-month period may not hold more than 15% share in merchant acquiring during the same period, and vice versa. This is a structural separation rule aimed squarely at the handful of players who have built dominant positions on both sides of the payments market. The “group of related entities” language means holding company structures won’t shield anyone.

For the market’s giants, this could force divestitures, restructuring, or deliberate market share management, decisions with real M&A and valuation consequences. For everyone else, it creates something new: a monthly regulatory reporting obligation, in prescribed templates, that most mid-tier operators have no process for today. The templates haven’t been published. The obligation has.

3. UBO disclosure quietly raises the bar for foreign-owned fintechs

The first item in the circular is not about data at all. Every deposit money bank, payment service provider, and financial institution with a digital payments footprint must disclose the ultimate beneficial ownership of significant shareholders under AML, CFT, and CPF regulations, maintain accurate records, and produce them to the CBN on request.

Paired with the localisation mandate, the direction of travel is unmistakable: the CBN wants to know who owns Nigeria’s payment rails and where the data those rails generate physically lives. For fintechs with layered offshore holding structures built through Delaware topcos, Mauritius vehicles, and VC syndicates, the disclosure exercise will be non-trivial, and the timing pressure is real.

What this means in practice

The circular closes with a single sentence on enforcement: the CBN may impose supervisory sanctions where necessary. In the current supervisory climate, no licensed operator should treat that as boilerplate.

The winners over the next six months will be, in order: local data centre and cloud operators, who capture the migration; the global hyperscalers, if they respond by standing up local capacity or partnering with Nigerian facilities rather than ceding the market; and the fintechs that start their architecture assessments now, while there is still engineering runway and colocation capacity to choose from.

The losers will be the operators who assume January 1 is far away. Between now and then sit a market structure deadline, a monthly reporting regime, a UBO disclosure exercise, and a cloud migration that, for a payments company that cannot tolerate downtime, normally takes longer than six months even when the requirements are clear. Here, they are not.

Two pages. Four obligations. Two deadlines. The clock started on June 15.

Harmattan covers African capital markets and the policy decisions that move them. If your institution is assessing its position under this circular, reply to this email or book a call directly: Book a call.

P.S. If you emailed us in recent weeks and didn’t hear back, our mailbox had a technical issue that has now been fixed. Please resend to hello@harmattanintel.com.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya

Founder, Harmattan

hello@harmattanintel.com | harmattanintel.substack.com

A week ago this letter closed on a market still counting its bruises. The correction that began in May had taken more than 23,000 points off the All-Share Index, and the only real question was whether the selling had exhausted itself. This week the market answered. Three straight green sessions carried Lagos from Friday through Tuesday, and by the close of the Harmattan coverage week the recovery had a shape, a leadership and, for the first time, an institutional anchor with a name.

The story beneath the tape is bigger than the bounce. On Tuesday, in Abuja, the regulator of the largest pool of long-term capital in Nigeria said out loud what this market has needed someone to say for years: the pension industry intends to show up.

Market Wrap

The NGX All-Share Index closed the coverage week at 237,083.28 on Tuesday, up 1.24 percent on the day and 3.34 percent on the Harmattan week measured against the prior Tuesday close of 229,419.18. The exchange’s own weekly figures will read differently because the standard NGX week runs Monday to Friday while ours runs Tuesday to Tuesday, but the direction is not in dispute. The year-to-date return climbed back to 52.35 percent, reclaiming the 50 percent threshold surrendered during the June selloff. Market capitalisation ended at ₦152.13 trillion, roughly 111.3 billion dollars, with Tuesday’s session alone adding ₦1.86 trillion to investors’ wealth. US dollar figures are converted at the NFEM closing rate of ₦1,367.29 to the dollar on Tuesday, July 7, applied to headline figures only.

₦152.13 trillion. In five trading sessions the market recovered nearly five trillion naira of what the June correction took away.

Tuesday’s leaders tell you where the appetite sits. Cadbury and Zichis Agro both closed at the 10 percent limit, with NAHCO a whisker behind at 9.99 percent, consumer and aviation names catching the rotation after banks did the early lifting. On the losing side, CMFC, FTG Insurance and Transcorp Express each fell the full 10 percent, with Ecobank Transnational down 9.98 percent as profit takers moved through recent runners. Turnover on Tuesday came to 493.67 million shares worth ₦28.02 billion across 49,969 deals, and Zenith Bank alone accounted for ₦9.91 billion of that value. The index remains about six percent below its May peak of 252,508. This is a recovery, not yet a redemption, and the difference will be settled by earnings.

The Big Story

On Tuesday the National Pension Commission convened the third meeting of the Pension Industry Leadership Council in Abuja, and Director-General Omolola Oloworaran delivered the most consequential sentence of the week: the pension industry probably has the largest pool of passive long-term savings capital in the country, and it needs to become more engaged in the capital market. Behind the sentence sits a number. Pension assets reached a record ₦31.32 trillion in May, up 29.5 percent in a year, and the industry’s holdings of Nigerian equities have more than doubled since December as fund administrators rotated out of a shrinking government securities share and into the stock market that was making them money.

The machinery to formalise that shift is now visibly under construction. The long-promised Pension Industry Infrastructure Fund is in the final stages of implementation, with a governance framework before the fund administrators and decisions expected within one to two months. A liability-driven investment framework, the portfolio discipline used by mature pension systems to match assets against the retirements they must eventually pay, is being developed alongside it. And the regulator has already granted a one-off dispensation allowing pension managers to position ahead of the anticipated Dangote Refinery listing, a signal that when the largest offering in African market history arrives, Nigeria’s own institutions intend to be at the front of the book rather than watching foreigners set the price.

For the diaspora investor and the institutional allocator, this is the detail that changes the risk calculus. A market propelled by foreign portfolio flows rises and falls on decisions made in London and New York; a market anchored by ₦31 trillion of domestic retirement savings has a buyer who cannot leave. With FTSE Russell’s frontier review verdict still expected in late August, the composition of the marginal buyer in Lagos matters more than usual. Increasingly, that buyer is Nigerian, patient and mandated to think in decades.

Nigeria’s Money

The same Abuja meeting carried a quieter confession. PenCom had hoped to enrol one million women in its personal pension plan, the regulated retirement product built for traders, artisans, drivers and everyone else the formal system does not reach. The Director-General admitted the numbers are nowhere close. Nigeria has 11.27 million retirement savings accounts in a country where the informal sector employs the overwhelming majority of working people, which means the nation’s biggest pool of long-term capital is built almost entirely without the people who make up most of the economy.

The irony is that informal Nigeria already saves with ferocious discipline. The ajo collector who visits the market stall daily and the esusu circle that rotates contributions among members are retirement systems in everything but regulation, protection and compounding. PenCom’s response is to go where the savers are, expanding partnerships with market women associations and transport unions and deploying accredited pension agents across the country, with the first National Pension Week set for September 15 to 19. The prize is enormous in both directions: dignity in old age for millions who currently have none, and a deeper, more permanent pool of domestic capital for the market described above. The gap between what informal Nigeria saves and what it owns remains one of the largest unclaimed opportunities in African finance.

Africa Watch

While Lagos was recovering, Nairobi was making history. The Nairobi Securities Exchange ended the week with four of its five major indices at record highs and market capitalisation at an all-time peak of KSh3.76 trillion, extending into the opening week of July after adding KSh817.2 billion in investor wealth across the first half of the year. The rally has been led by banks and reinforced by the listing of Family Bank, and it makes East Africa’s largest market a second data point in the story this edition keeps telling: African exchanges are being repriced upward by their own investors, at the same time, for their own reasons.

What to Watch

Two dates matter in the coming week. First, the National Bureau of Statistics releases June inflation around July 15. Headline inflation has risen for three consecutive months to 15.93 percent in May, and whether June breaks that streak will shape the Monetary Policy Committee’s hand and the direction of fixed income yields that compete with equities for every naira of new money. Second, the half-year bank earnings machine starts turning. Guaranty Trust’s board meets July 28 on audited results and an interim dividend, with peers close behind, and since banks led this rebound, their numbers must now justify it. Watch whether interim dividends across the sector confirm that recapitalised balance sheets are earning their keep.

The market spent June asking whether the rally was real. This week, the institutions that answer in decades rather than days began taking their seats. Harmattan will be watching who sits down next.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com | harmattanintel.substack.com

Nigeria closed the first half of 2026 the way a long-distance runner closes a hard mile, breathing heavily, still moving forward, but no longer sprinting. The equities market spent June giving back a slice of a rally that had lifted it beyond every historical marker, and by the final Tuesday of the month the mood on the floor had shifted from exuberance to something more like discipline. Yet the number that will define this half year is not the correction. It is the fact that despite the sell-off, Nigerian equities still delivered one of their strongest six-month runs in living memory. Beneath that headline, though, a quieter and more consequential story broke on Tuesday afternoon, one that reaches directly into the calculations of every foreign fund manager watching Lagos.

Market Wrap

The NGX All-Share Index ended the Harmattan coverage week at 229,419.18 points on Tuesday, June 30, rising 0.45 percent on the day but closing 4.70 percent below the prior Tuesday baseline of 240,743.19. Market capitalisation settled at roughly 147.22 trillion naira, about 106.7 billion dollars at the NFEM closing rate of 1,379.80 naira to the dollar. The year-to-date return stands at 47.43 percent, a figure that would be the envy of almost any market on earth, and yet one that has cooled markedly from the 54 percent-plus perch it occupied only a week earlier. Turnover on the final session came to 920.1 million shares worth 37.16 billion naira across 49,520 deals. Market breadth told the honest story of the week, with 19 gainers against 32 losers on Tuesday, the arithmetic of a market where the sellers still hold the pen.

The leaders and laggards captured the rotation cleanly. Prestige Assurance, Critical Minerals Financing Corporation, and Airtel Africa each rose the full 10 percent daily limit, with Cutix up 9.70 percent and Regal Insurance up 9.09 percent, a gainers’ board tilted toward insurance and select heavyweights rather than the banks and industrials that led the earlier climb. On the other side, Custodian Investment fell 9.98 percent, R.T. Briscoe 9.95 percent, PZ Cussons 9.95 percent, UPDC 9.86 percent, and Honeywell Flour Mills 9.78 percent, a losers’ list dominated by consumer names as profit-taking rolled through the sectors that had run hardest. Foreign exchange offered a rare note of calm, with the naira steadying around 1,379.80 at the official window and the parallel market spread narrowing to roughly 20 naira, a sign of the improving liquidity that closed out June.

“47.43 percent in six months, even after the June correction. Nigerian equities gave back trillions and still finished among the best-performing markets on the continent. The rally cooled. The story did not end.”

The Big Story

On Tuesday, the same day Nigeria proudly became the first market in Africa to complete the switch to a T+1 settlement cycle, the global index provider FTSE Russell delivered an unwelcome twist. It placed Nigeria’s planned reclassification to Frontier Market status, long scheduled to take effect in September, under further review, and pushed any final decision to the end of August. The reason is a genuine irony. By shortening the time between a trade and its settlement from two business days to one, Nigeria may have inadvertently turned itself into what FTSE calls a de facto prefunded market, one where international institutions must place their cash before a trade completes rather than after. Prefunding is treated as a negative under FTSE’s Settlement Cycle criterion, one of the five core quality-of-markets tests that determine frontier eligibility. A reform designed to modernise the market and signal seriousness to the world has, at least for now, tripped a wire in the very rulebook Nigeria was trying to satisfy.

Understand why this matters and you understand how frontier investing actually works. Index inclusion is not a vanity badge. It is a plumbing decision that routes real money. When a market enters the FTSE Frontier index, the passive funds and benchmark-tracking institutions that manage trillions globally are effectively instructed to buy a slice of it, regardless of any individual manager’s opinion. That is the mechanical inflow Nigerian policymakers have been positioning for since the March reclassification announcement, and it is precisely the flow that a review delays. Markets such as the United States, India, and Canada already run T+1 and remain in major global indices, which tells you the settlement cycle itself is not the obstacle. The obstacle is the specific worry that Nigeria’s version, layered on top of a currency many foreigners still hesitate to hold overnight, forces offshore investors to take on naira exposure earlier and for longer than they are comfortable with. Confidence, not clearing speed, is the real variable under examination.

For the diaspora investor and the institutional allocator, the takeaway is a matter of timing and temperament. Nothing about Nigeria’s fundamentals changed on Tuesday. The reform is sound, the market remains one of the best dollar performers on the continent this year, and analysts broadly expect the review to be resolved rather than reversed. What changed is the calendar. Offshore money that might have started flowing in ahead of a September inclusion will now likely wait for FTSE’s verdict in late August, which means the near-term burden of holding this market up continues to rest on domestic institutions and Nigerian retail investors, exactly the shoulders that carried it through the June correction. For the patient, a delay that spooks short-term money can create entry points before the crowd returns. For everyone, it is a reminder that in frontier markets the rules of access can move as decisively as the earnings.

Nigeria’s Money

Step off the trading floor and into any Nigerian street, and you meet the other market, the one measured not in index points but in the hum of a point-of-sale terminal under a market umbrella. Nigeria processed more than a quadrillion naira in electronic payments in a single recent year, a figure so large it strains comprehension, and the engine of that volume is not the banking hall but the agent economy, the hundreds of thousands of POS operators who have become the country’s de facto branch network. When the ATM is empty, and it often is, the POS agent is the cash machine. When a trader in Aba needs to move money to a supplier in Onitsha at nine at night, the instant transfer rail settles it before the call ends. This is financial inclusion as Nigerians actually live it, built from the bottom up by small operators rather than handed down from a head office.

Yet the same infrastructure that has banked the unbanked now carries a quiet tension that every policymaker must weigh. The cashless drive has pulled millions into the formal financial system, widened the tax net through the electronic transfer levy, and given the informal economy a digital spine it never had. But it has also made Nigerians dependent on rails that still buckle under network failures, and it has layered small, repeated costs onto the very transactions the poorest citizens can least afford to be taxed on. The measure of success for the CBN’s Payments System Vision is not another record transaction figure. It is whether the woman selling tomatoes can accept a transfer that clears every time, at a cost that does not quietly eat her margin. The formal capital market may have finished June worth 147 trillion naira, but the money that moves Nigeria still flows through that POS terminal, and the health of that channel is a national economic indicator in its own right.

Africa Watch

Nigeria’s frontier drama unfolded against a backdrop of a continent quietly outperforming the world. African equities have led global frontier and emerging markets through the first half of 2026, with Nigeria posting one of the strongest dollar returns among the seventeen exchanges tracked across the region, running neck and neck with Ghana, whose gold-fuelled rally continued to draw investors, and comfortably ahead of the broader MSCI Frontier and Emerging Markets benchmarks. Egypt’s exchange extended its multiyear re-rating on the back of falling inflation and a stabilised pound, while South Africa’s Johannesburg bourse touched record territory earlier in the year on strength in gold miners. The through-line is unmistakable. Capital that once treated Africa as an afterthought is discovering that the continent’s best markets have, in dollar terms, quietly outrun much of the developed world, and the competition for that capital, the same competition Nigeria’s FTSE review now complicates, is intensifying.

What to Watch

Two things deserve close attention in the days ahead. First, the FTSE Russell review timeline, with a decision due by the end of August, because any hint of how the index provider leans on Nigeria’s prefunding question will move foreign-investor sentiment well before the formal verdict lands, and domestic institutions will be reading those tea leaves closely. Second, the arrival of half-year corporate earnings, particularly from the banks navigating the recapitalisation programme and the consumer-goods names that led this week’s losers, because after a correction driven by profit-taking rather than deteriorating fundamentals, it is the earnings prints that will tell investors whether the June pullback was a healthy pause or the start of something the numbers cannot support.

The first half of 2026 is now closed, and the ledger reads clearly. Nigeria built extraordinary wealth, gave a portion back, and enters the second half still standing among the continent’s leaders, with its next chapter resting on a decision that will be made in London rather than Lagos. Harmattan will be here for it, as always, with the numbers, the context, and the quiet conviction that Africa’s financial future deserves to be reported with the seriousness it has already earned.

Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Bestman Eleanya Founder, Harmattan hello@harmattanintel.com, harmattanintel.substack.com