Yemisi Izuora
The Director-General (DG) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr. Emomotimi Agama, has revealed that over $50 billion worth of cryptocurrency transactions flowed through Nigeria between July 2023 and June 2024, underscoring the sophistication and risk tolerance of investors that the traditional market has yet to capture.
Agama in a lead paper titled Evaluating the Nigerian Capital Market Masterplan 2015-2025 presented at the annual conference of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, however raised concern over the alarmingly low participation of Nigerians in the traditional capital market, revealing that fewer than four percent of the country’s adult population are active investors.
He described the low participation rate as a major impediment to economic growth and capital formation.
He noted that while fewer than three million Nigerians invest in the capital market, more than 60 million engage daily in gambling activities, spending an estimated $5.5 million every day.
“This reveals a paradox, an appetite for risk clearly exists, but not the trust or access to channel that energy into productive investment.”
Agama also lamented that Nigeria’s market capitalization-to-GDP ratio stands at about 30 percent, far below South Africa’s 320 percent, Malaysia’s 123 percent, and India’s 92 percent, a disparity he said highlights the urgent need to deepen financial inclusion and rebuild investor confidence.
Recalling the vision of the ten-year CMMP launched in 2015, the SEC boss said it was designed to reposition Nigeria’s capital market as the engine of economic transformation by mobilizing long-term finance for infrastructure and enterprise development.
“Today, as we stand at the sunset of that ten-year plan, our task is not ceremonial; it is reflective and diagnostic. We must ask: what did we achieve, where did we fall short, and what lessons must anchor our next decade of reforms?” he stated.
Agama disclosed that less than half of the 108 initiatives under the CMMP were fully achieved, blaming limited alignment with national development plans, inadequate tracking metrics, and weak stakeholder ownership for the shortfall.
Despite progress in areas such as Green Bonds, Sukuk, fintech integration, and non-interest finance, he said market liquidity remains concentrated in a few large-cap stocks like Airtel Africa, Dangote Cement, and MTN Nigeria.
Agama, who listed six key challenges for the next phase of reforms, pointed at low retail participation, market concentration, falling foreign inflows, underutilized pension assets, untapped diaspora capital, and a widening infrastructure financing gap.
“Nigeria’s $150 billion annual infrastructure deficit far exceeds the market’s contribution, with only N1.5 trillion approved in PPP bonds. This shows a misalignment between financial innovation and national priorities,” he observed.
The DG called for a “reimagined SEC” that serves as both regulator and enabler of private-sector-driven growth, and added the next decade must focus on trust-building, transparency, and inclusion.
“Vision without execution is inertia — and reform without measurement is aspiration without accountability,” he declared.