The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has revealed that Nigeria’s cryptocurrency market recorded transactions worth $50 billion between July 2023 and June 2024.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Emomotimi Agama, the SEC Director-General (DG), noted that this volume of transactions presents a stark contrast to the traditional capital market, where fewer than 4 percent of Nigerian adults are active investors.
Agama explained that the scale of cryptocurrency trading reflects the “sophistication and risk tolerance of investors that the traditional market has yet to capture.”
In a lead paper titled ‘Evaluating the Nigerian Capital Market Master Plan 2015-2025’, presented at the annual conference of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), Agama expressed concern over the persistently low participation of Nigerians in the formal investment sector.
The SEC DG described the situation as a major obstacle to economic growth and capital formation, revealing that while fewer than three million Nigerians invest in the capital market, more than 60 million engage daily in gambling, spending an estimated $5.5 million each 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 stated.
He further lamented that Nigeria’s market capitalisation-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 that underscores the urgent need to deepen financial inclusion and rebuild investor confidence.
‘CMMP Designed to Reposition Nigeria’s Capital Market’
Agama recalled that the 10-year Capital Market Master Plan (CMMP), launched in 2015, was created to position Nigeria’s capital market as a catalyst for economic transformation by mobilising long-term finance for infrastructure and enterprise growth.
“Today, as we stand at the sunset of that ten-year plan, our task is not ceremonial; it is reflective and diagnostic,” he said.
“We must ask: what did we achieve, where did we fall short, and what lessons must anchor our next decade of reforms?”
According to Agama, fewer than half of the 108 CMMP initiatives were fully realised due to poor alignment, inadequate metrics, and limited stakeholder commitment. He noted that despite advancements in areas such as Green Bonds and fintech integration, market liquidity remains concentrated in a few large-cap stocks like MTN, Airtel Africa, and Dangote Cement.
He further identified low retail participation, market concentration, declining foreign inflows, underutilised pension assets, untapped diaspora funds, and a widening infrastructure financing gap as pressing issues that must be addressed in the next reform phase.
“Nigeria’s $150 billion annual infrastructure deficit far exceeds the market’s contribution, with only N1.5 trillion approved in PPP bonds,”Agama said.
“This shows a misalignment between financial innovation and national priorities.”
The SEC DG called for a reimagined SEC that acts as both regulator and enabler of private-sector-led growth, anchored on trust, transparency, and inclusion — stressing that “vision without execution is inertia.”