Between my grocery run to Ebeano and the announcement that Dangote Refinery is listing on the NGX this year, giving Nigerians a chance to participate in owning an industrial asset, my weekend turned into an economics lesson.
As I pushed my trolley past shelves of imported cereal, imported snacks, imported cleaning supplies ,basically imported everything I caught myself thinking, we fund the expansion of foreign companies every single day, one shopping basket at a time. Meanwhile, some of the most visible, cash generating Nigerian growth businesses still don’t have a clean, mainstream pathway for Nigerians to co-own them and for those businesses to raise long-term capital without turning their founders into permanent debt-servicing machines.
Ebeano is a good example of what I mean. It’s a growth company you can see. You feel its expansion in real time: more branches, more customers, more momentum. Businesses like that are not “startup ideas.” They’re cashflow businesses with operational discipline. And yet, when they want to scale new branches, local manufacturing, logistics, private label products, exports, the default playbook is usually some mix of retained earnings + bank loans + prayer.
But here’s the question I couldn’t shake:
If Nigerians can buy it, why can’t Nigerians own it?
Not in the “token shares for vibes” sense. I mean real, structured, regulated ownership where Nigerians can invest with confidence, and where growth companies can raise patient capital without mortgaging their future.
Nigeria’s capital markets have been moving in the past 2 years. Between April 2024 and early 2026, market capitalisation rose from approximately ₦55 trillion to about ₦123.93 trillion, a roughly 125% increase, and that capital market contribution to GDP has climbed to around 33%.
That’s not small because it signals significant economic growth. Yet the growth at the top does not automatically solve structural gaps in the middle. The businesses that power daily Nigerian life, the growth companies that aren’t Dangote-sized, often sit in a weird no man’s land.
They’re too big for microfinance, too “unconventional” for cheap bank credit, too small (or too early) for the main board requirements and investor expectations. This is what development finance people call the “missing middle.” And Nigeria has a lot of missing middle.
The real problem isn’t just capital. It’s “credible liquidity.” Here’s the brutal truth every founder understands: raising capital is easier when investors believe they can exit. And in public markets, that word is liquidity, the belief that if you buy shares, you can sell shares. Without liquidity, listing looks like a public punishment, disclosure, scrutiny, governance costs… but no real upside.
So if we’re serious about building a growth market for SMEs, we can’t position it as a “dumping ground” for weak issuers. It has to be framed as something aspirational, a launchpad, not a last resort.
A serious growth board can unlock the next category of leaders graduate, it can be positioned as where credible companies go to scale. This is where investors go to discover tomorrow’s champions early.
That’s a completely different vibe from come and list because you can’t list anywhere else. Of course, not every growth company should list because public markets demand transparency, governance maturity and investor protection. A growth platform must balance flexibility with discipline. But pursuing this strategy lets Nigerians co-own Nigerian growth. Instead of funding expansion through imports and consumption alone, Nigerians can own the upside of domestic champions.
Not just oil and cement scale giants but the businesses we actually use, retail chains, FMCG manufacturers, healthcare networks, logistics companies, education platforms, tech-enabled services with real cash flow. It creates a real pipeline for job creation
SMEs are where jobs come from. Not in slogans in payroll. If we can lower the cost of long-term capital and improve governance, more SMEs scale, and scaling SMEs hire.
It becomes an exit pathway for venture capital and private equity
Nigeria has had a decade of venture/PE activity, but exits are still hard. A growth board can become a partial exit/liquidity window, not necessarily a full exit on day one but enough to recycle capital back into the ecosystem.
Standing in Ebeano, what I kept seeing wasn’t just imported goods.
I saw a metaphor.
Nigeria is a country full of businesses that could become regional champions, but we’ve built an economy where the average Nigerian can easily buy foreign brands, yet struggles to find regulated, trusted ways to co-own domestic growth.
We keep complaining about jobs, FX pressure, import dependency, and weak industrial capacity.
But the quiet solution is sitting in plain sight:
Build market structures that let Nigerians fund Nigerian growth and earn from it.
If Nigerians can buy it, Nigerians should be able to own it.
Not someday. Not after another conference panel. Now, with design, discipline, and real execution.
Because the difference between a country that consumes and a country that compounds is simple: ownership. Nigeria has the consumers. The next evolution is turning more of us into co-owners.
Arese Ugwu is an author and filmmaker focused on financial literacy, capital market development and increasing long-term economic participation across Africa.
