Five powerful men have captured the NGX, and the NGX has responded by instantly appointing a weak, lily-livered operative, propped up by a weak stockbroker association, to run its trading floor.
Thankfully people like Femi Owoyemi a highly influential figure in the capital market remains very active.
Over the years, his Proshare have continued to provide structured data and fact-based guidance in the market
Femi himself has grown over the years from a very passionate side player to a very influential player with a firm seat in many board rooms and a powerful voice in the market
So, when Proshare released a report titled ‘The Billionaires Exchange: Inside the Concentrated World of Nigeria’s Stock Exchange,’ I took the time to study it.
His report opens with a well-known but often whispered assertion that five men control 37% of Africa’s most extensive Exchange.
The report went on to list these five men, Abdulsamad Rabiu, who it now claims is richer than his brother, Aliko Dangote, who is among the five.
The others being Femi Otedola, Jim Ovia and my favourite Tony Elumelu.
It goes on to provide us with some more details.
These men control a majority of the top ten companies, with a combined valuation of N62 trillion, accounting for approximately 63% of the year-end N99 trillion valuation for 2025.
What this means is that these 10 companies controls 62.4% leaving the remaining 150 companies to share the balance 38%
Now let’s look at the American S&P 500, where the top 10 control between 38% and 40%, according to the very brilliant Proshare Report.
Returning to the market, the report indicates that only 3 of the other Top 10 float above 30%, and this is where the problem lies.
Float is the term used to describe stocks available for trading.
In essence, despite our record-breaking return by ASI, our market suffers from liquidity challenges, which, in effect, deters and decreases its attractiveness to large international Institutional investors.
Let me dimension this challenge very well.
BUA, which the report says has overtaken Dangote Cement in valuation, has a float of just 3.2%, with the Rabiu family holding 90% of its shares
With a N17tr valuation, BUA only allows 5% of its shares to be traded
Aliko Dangote, the much vaunted Richest black man in the world, holds 87.3% with Stanbic holding another 12.7% on behalf of you know who, leaving a float of just 4.8% for us
Of the five, Jim Ovia seems to be the only one who is expansive.
He holds a 9.1% stake in Zenith, which has 88% of its shares available for free trading on the market.
Even though he remains Chairman and his 2025 half-year dividend of N7.5b which represents a 64% year on year increment, shows a corporate Statesman that should be emulated
My egbon, Femi Otedola, until very recently, held 88% of Geregu, until he divested, and all indications point to a possible replication in FBN where he is now the undisputed largest shareholder
Tony Elumelu, the swash buckling influential investor holds, 68.8% of Transcorp
As mentioned earlier, all five control 37% of the entire NGX, and if you add the South African giant MTN where 79% of its N30tr market Value is held by the parent holding company, you begin to see the actual reality of our market – a market dominated by private companies masquerading as public companies.
The direct implications of this are that you can’t invest $ 50m in our market because the stocks are just not there, which makes me wonder why our NGX people waste time and resources travelling around looking for FDIs or is it FPIs? Without asking themselves which stocks would they be investing in
With all of these, the Proshare report states that our market is too small, too concentrated and too illiquid.
It recommends more robust governance through putting pressure on these Oligarchs to divest and release more stocks, and here lies the major problem
These oligarchs, especially Aliko and his brother Rabiu, do not really need these listings but for their ego.
They most likely use these listings for rating esp on the Forbes list, which is now the latest billionaire playground.
The illiquidity of their stocks doesn’t bother them, as it creates scarcity, which now allows them to push up the price and, in turn valuations flowing into the Forbes list and opening global capitalist corridors.
Let me show you how bad this is to our market
60-70% of trades in 2025 according to Proshare came from 15-20 stocks, but the trades came from retail traders, with trades of between N100,000 and N5 million confirming the very illiquid stature of the market.
How is the NGX now responding?
Very poorly, if you ask me. The NGX, as it is, presently constituted, has been handed over to a subsidiary run by oneJude, who I hear is propped up by the Association of Issuing Houses and the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers.
Jude, in my estimation, and I, could be wrong, lacks the weight, capacity and courage to tackle this matter, which is far above his status and pay grade
Jude going against this Oligarchs is like dropping me in a boxing match against Mike Tyson
Instead of fighting, I’ll be begging for his autograph and basically just fall down and beg him not to beat me to death, that he should just pity me and beat me to faint only
Expecting management of the NGX, as led by this Jude, to tackle this matter is a bloody waste of time-
Jude will rather not risk his neck but would prefer to gloat lazily over his puny trading fees and his opaque valuation which gives him the bragging rights as the exchange with the best global ASI returns, even though he swims in a world class mire of illiquity and equity shallowness and a class of Oligarchs wallowing in debt.
This is where the front looking management of SEC the Apex regulator comes in.
The present leadership of SEC has shown very strongly that it has the conviction to reshape the market especially with its historic tenor limit policy on the SROs’ in the market and its strident fight against crowd and Digital funding fraud and its support for the digitalization of investible assets.
History now beckons on them to now look very squarly into the eyes of these five Goliaths and push them back.
They must increase their floats to the recommended 30-40% or be penalised or even delisted, which would be painful for the market
But it has come to that point where we must hold this bull by the horn and wrestle it to the ground, or we lose market in its entirety in the near future
This is not a job for Jude; it is the job of the SEC, with very strong investor support.
Let’s do this already.
Come and beat me
Duke of Shomolu
Last modified: January 6, 2026
