Nigeria records $50bn cryptocurrency transactions in 1 year—SEC

Nigeria recorded over $50 billion worth of cryptocurrency transactions between July 2023 and June 2024. Emomotimi Agama, the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said this at the weekend while delivering a paper at the annual conference of Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers. According to a statement issued by SEC on Sunday, Agama said the situation had raised concern over the low participation of citizens in the traditional capital market. He said that less than four percent of the country’s adult population were active investors in the capital market, stressing that the low participation rate had been a major impediment to economic growth and capital formation. Agama said that less than three million Nigerians invest in the capital market, while more than 60 million engage in gambling activities, spending 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,” he said. Agama said Nigeria’s market capitalization-to-GDP ratio stood at about 30 percent, far below South Africa’s 320 percent, Malaysia’s 123 percent, and India’s 92 percent. He said such disparity underscored the urgent need to deepen financial inclusion and to rebuild investor confidence in the capital market. “Nigeria’s $150 billion annual infrastructure deficit far exceeds the market’s contribution, with only N1.5 trillion approved in Public Private Partnership bonds. This shows a misalignment between financial innovation and national priorities,” he said.
The SEC boss also decried the limited achievement of the 10-year Capital Market Master Plan (CMMP) which was launched in 2015 to reposition Nigeria’s capital market to mobilise long-term funds 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 said. Agama said that less than half of the 108 initiatives under the CMMP had been fully achieved.