Business & Economy

Abba Kyari: Mamman Daura’s Unwashed Clothe By Hassan Mukhtar

Published

6 years ago

May 2, 2020

James Williams

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Abba Kyari

Mamman Daura

Some people say Aba kyari was Mamman Daura’s foster child. Others say he was his boy while others that he was just his man. It does not really matter which was which and which was not, especially now that Abba is dead.
Abba’s death from COVID-19 excited a lot of comments across the nation all because of the very important position he held in the Buhari government – Chief of Staff, and of course his larger-than-life posturing in that office. Some of the comments in the media were negative – the sincere ones in my view; some were positive – the insincere and self-serving one’s in my view. Mamman Daura’s comment the subject of this write-up was positive like the corona virus Abba tested to which ended up claiming his life.

I see Mamman’s efforts to clean up Abba not cleaning him because he was a cloth too dirty for the soap used. Because the soap could not wash Abba, it left him the dirty clothe he has always been, fluttering on the cloth-line he was dried where people still hiss at him and spite him. I now make a point by point response on what Mamman Daura wrote on Abba after the latter’s death:

1. Abba Kyari – A Great Public Servant. This is the title of Mamman’s piece under reference. Speaking for myself and I believe for many ordinary Nigerians, I could neither see the public nor the servant in Abba Kyari as chief of staff to the President. A haughty man who looked at the public with unveiled disdain was no servant. To be a public servant, a great one for that matter, you must accept the public as your master and do its bidding. Abba was none of these, at least as COS. He neither saw the public as his master nor himself as a servant as he rode roughshod over ministers and heads of agencies. One of the things dear to the public which Abba is said to have been their great servant, is health. Abba killed the ministry of health charged with responsibility of running the public health sector by forcing the minister of health Isaac Adewole to make his request for purchase of hospital equipment and supplies like drugs through the minister of agriculture just because he and the health minister had issues. He killed the ministry of health believing he would never need it since he could always go to London for his treatment. Alas this was not to be. COVID-19 came to town to ensure it would not be. With the arrival of COVID-19, London Abba was banking on closed its doors against sick people from outside wanting to come to it for treatment. Abba caught COVID-19 and could not go to London because the doors of London were firmly closed against him. Nigerian hospitals that would have treated him, he had killed. In the end, he had to share death with the hospitals he killed.

2. The first point brings me to how Abba, in the first place, got infected with COVID-19 – something Mamman did not comment on. Abba went to Germany on an electricity power matter the minister of power should handle. This was vintage Abba who delighted in usurping other people’s offices. He was a hubristic power monger who believed only he could do the job. This was what led him to nominate himself as a board member of the NNPC while he was at the same time chief of staff. This was unprecedented and very ugly. But it was not reversed.

Abba Kyari news

Mamman Daura

3. Mal Abba Kyari was a man blessed with mountainous gifts. True, only that these mountainous gifts Mamman is referring to are mountainous gifts of wickedness, vindictiveness, crass opportunism, meanness, spite for others and even betrayal of his boss – the President. These were the mountains I saw about Abba Kyari, not those of Mamman’s imagination and insinuations. Ministers, departments and agencies of government wrote memos to the President, Abba sat on these memos refusing to pass them to the President. These memos being on how to move Nigeria forward, Nigeria could not be moved forward because the President never saw the memos and acted on them. These were acts of spite and meanness for the authors of these memos and of course betrayal of the President his boss.

4. Abba Kyari was a man of uncommon attributes of intelligence, diligence, hard work, loyalty to friends and worthy causes. Most of these virtues claimed by Mamman for Abba will ring hollow in the ears of anyone who knew Abba closely so much that the person may say tell it not in Gath. Abba was intelligent. Intelligence if it is really intelligence sounds or shines through results and outcomes. There is no visible, concrete and measurable achievement that could be associated with Abba in all the places he worked. Intelligence should make a man recreate an institution in a positive way through innovations he brings to bear on the institution. Mamman in his write-up enumerated a number of institutions Abba worked before becoming Chief of Staff. These institutions include: the New Nigeria Newspaper Mamman was editor of, NNDC, the Democrat Newspaper, United Bank for Africa among others. In which of these institutions did Abba Kyari shine as an intelligent man through brilliant initiatives that repositioned these places. He was articulate as a sub-editor of New Nigerian Newspaper, Mamman claimed. This bare sentimental statement does not tell anyone anything without showing by facts and figures how Abba’s articulation articulated New Nigeria, which is now dead perhaps because of what Abba’s articulation articulated it into. The UBA Abba left started gaspin

g for breath like a corona patient soon after Abba left and may soon suffer a coronary event. NNDC like the New Nigeria Newspaper is dead; so is the Democrat Newspaper. All these institutions where the brilliant man worked are all dead and gone to where he eventually went; where perhaps for a change, he is applying his legendary intelligence to turn them around. A bank Abba worked which Mamman did not refer to for obvious reason was AIB. Abba killed the bank. In all the places Abba worked, he was not a rank and file man, but part of management and so was in a position to deploy his alleged intelligence to make a difference, but he never did. If he made any difference, it was to crumble these places.

Diligence, hard work, loyalty to causes and friends. I can’t see these virtues Mamman claimed for Abba in the places he worked. Where is diligence and hard work in a man who sat on memos for months and sometimes even years without passing them to the C-in-C? What was he ‘diligencing and hardworking’ on when he could not pass memos to the President? Perhaps the diligence and hard work were to sit on these memos tightly to ensure they don’t get to the President. Sitting so long on Ibe Kachukwu’s memo, Abba’s buttocks developed spikes lancing the former minister of petroleum making him to cry out.

I can’t see loyalty to friends and worthy causes in a man who betrayed his boss and perhaps friend by shutting him out so that he could not hear the cry of the people who elected him.

5. Abba Kyari grew out of those jobs claimed Mamman. Did he grow out of the jobs or he was pulled out of them by godfathers like Mamman or by crass opportunism that piloted his life? If he grew out of them because of merit in him, he did not seem to have left behind deposits of this merit in these places to see them through after he left.

6. Striving to improve himself Abba went to Warwick University in England where he studied sociology ending up in Cambridge where he studied law.

Abba studied sociology in Warwick University, yet ended up a very unsocial fellow whose gaze held society in contempt. Sociology is the study of society to understand it and re-engineer it from the abundance of one’s understanding. There was nothing in Abba to show he either understood the Nigerian society or tried to re-engineer it positively when he got the opportunity of being COS; except of course he was prevented from applying his understanding by malevolence which he had in abundance.

Abba Kyari read law in Cambridge; yet one never heard his name in legal circles in the courtroom, the academia or the corporate world he roamed scouting for opportunities. Part of our bane as a nation is overrating people who graduated from so-called world-class institutions or who graduated with first class without evidence of any utilitarian value the graduate has brought to bear on society. Albert Einstein never went to any great institution; yet he was about the greatest mind of the twentieth century courtesy of his Theory of Relativity. Abba Kyari went to Warwick and Cambridge, yet many people never heard of him until he became COS which he bungled.

7. To help him deliver on his job as COS, Abba assembled a team of intelligent people to help him actualize the mandate of the office. This is not true. In fact, the contrary was the case. If one missed anything about Abba Kyari, one would not miss the fact that he was not a team player and it is only a team player that will assemble teammates to help him play, score goals and win tournaments. Abba was none of these.

He was an offish man who held the opinion of others in contempt though not having better. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If there was such team as Mamman claims, why were things not working in the Presidency? Why, for instance, were great guys not appointed into the government? Why were appointments delayed? Why are there no poster boys for the government?

8. Mallam Abba joined Buhari’s team and worked wholeheartedly in all campaigns through the drudgery of injustices of the 2003, 2007, 2011 elections without losing hope or sight of the ultimate goal. I believe even Abba Kyari in his grave will cringe from this one. Of all Mamman said in his writeup, this is the most disagreeable, blatant lie – not just half-truth or mistruth. One not only find it embarrassing and disgusting, one finds it belittling and diminishing of the great Mamman Daura. Even in 2003 when Abba supported Buhari, it was not out of belief in Buhari’s candidacy or love for him, but out of his anger and spite for Obasanjo who refused to make him CBN Governor.

In the horse-trading that preceded the 1999 election, Abba Kyari who was initially proposed as running mate to Obasanjo was dropped in favour of Atiku. However, before he was dropped, he was promised the office of CBN Governor if OBJ wins. OBJ won, but Abba was not appointed CBN Governor and I believe it was good for Nigeria that he was not appointed because he, in all probability, would have killed the apex bank the way he killed AIB as its CEO and the presidency as COS.

9. It was his sense of betrayal by Obasanjo that provoked Abba into aligning with Buhari when the latter threw his hat in the ring. In 2003, it was the long shadow of Abba’s hate for Obasanjo that appeared on Buhari as love. After the 2007 election, Abba could no longer afford the pretense of being with Buhari politically and henceforth started referring to the President as a serial loser he would have nothing to do with. Consequently, all Buhari’s political committees or movements he was nominated into, he declined sometimes saying publicly he was not interested in a serial loser.

It is the same Abba Kyari, Mamman is saying kept faith with Buhari till the sweet end in 2015. Nothing can be farther from the truth than this. For Abba, there was no faith to be kept, and he kept none. Both hope and goal were out of Abba’s sight and to be fair to him he never hid this wholeheartedly! Even halfheartedly Abba did not support Buhari beyond 2007. Given his antecedents, there was no way he could have gotten the position of COS without Mamman’s efforts to ensure he got it.

The President respect Mamman a lot and defers to him on many issues. Mamman cashed on this and saddled him with Abba as COS – an office he handled very badly. Talking straight, Mamman you gave Buhari a bad chief of staff and shouldn’t be given another opportunity to give him another bad one if this is the objective of you laundering Abba which I believe it is.

10. Abba’s stewardship as COS provides a benchmark for subsequent COS Mamman said in his piece. I am not aware of any COS there was public outcry against as there was against Abba Kyari. It is this man, Mamman is saying provided a benchmark for his successors. Does Mamman want Nigeria to burn? Mamman’s submission here goes beyond self-service of the worse form to an invitation of civil revolt.

11. Abba was more intelligent than all the ministers put together. This statement from Mamman is unfortunate, uncharitable and sad. He does not need to run down others to make his man stand out. What are the facts of Abba’s intelligence and those of the stupidity of the entire ministers? Assuming what Mamman is saying is true; Abba had a hand in the appointment of ministers in 2015 and 2019.

Why did he pick unintelligent people as ministers? Was it because of a failure of his reputed intelligence or because he wanted to turn the President into another serial loser in government by saddling him with unintelligent ministers? Was it because he wanted to have in government people he would load his intelligence over? Whichever was the case, there is nothing to laud Abba for. A further implication of Abba making ministers out of low-intellect people arising from Mamman’s claim of him being more intelligent than all the ministers is that the same man could not have assembled a team of intelligent people to help him man the office of COS as claimed by Mamman.

12. Unlike many Nigerian elites who tend to lean towards the Bretton wood institutions one-size-fits all solution, Abba looked inward for solutions. The same Abba that looked inward for solutions, Mamman in the same write up said was heavily influenced by two Nobel Laureates: Prof. Arthur Lewis and Prof. Armartya Sen none of whom was inward for Abba to be influenced by. Economics no doubt is not an exact science but a relative one and therefore one-size cannot fit all. If Abba was of this mindset as Mamman claims, he was right.

The only problem is lack of evidence to support the claim. The evidence that exist from the mouth of his eulogizer on the contrary gives him away as a man who looked outward for solutions, not inward. With the abundance of intellectuals in this country, why should he draw inspiration heavily on Indian and western intellectuals?

13. Abba turned his house in Maiduguri into an IDP camp where he was feeding and clothing 75 people. I won’t want to dwell on this to any length except to say that the Abba some of us knew never liked living in Maiduguri because he kept saying the place was too hot for him. If he had a house there and gave it to IDPs, it was probably because he had no use for it and may as well be given out. The issue here is a sensitive one, which if not as Mamman has said it is, is a matter between him and God for which there may be consequences in the herenow and the hereafter.

Mamman’s spirited efforts to wash Abba remains what it is: a wasted effort. The claims made by Mamman for Abba do not jell with the facts and therefore very unhelpful to Mamman as to Abba. Abba Kyari is dead; may he find peace wherever he is. While praying for peace for the dead, one would advise we do not stir unrest among the living by praising a man undeserving of praise so that the President is once more prevailed on to appoint his kind as COS to continue with the messy work of the dead COS.

Mamman Daura saying Abba Kyari provided a benchmark for his successors clearly shows he is in the process of providing another Abba Kyari for the President to continue with the ‘good work’ of the dead one. PMB don’t allow the likes of Mamman Daura to appoint another COS for you. Appoint your own person and you will do far better as President!

It is believed that Mr. President may not have been fully conscious of the fraternal-twins relationship that existed between his uncle, Alhaji Mamman Daura and his former Chief of Staff. Upon several similar tales from various individuals who knew the duo better than President Buhari, it is now incumbent upon him to look beyond self-seeking, self-serving and egotistical recommendations for Abba Kyari’s replacement.

In order to right all the wrongs that late Abba Kyari heaped on the Presidency in the remaining three years, President Buhari must not go far in search of his replacement. Several of his trustworthy aides with proven track record of practical intelligence, performance history and unalloyed loyalty should be considered.

Above all, Mr. President must not lose vision to restore political allies, prominent APC members that were alienated by Abba Kyari.

The imbalance in composition of states in geopolitical zones with particular attention to the South East, reconciliation of South East and South South on the abandoned property scandal, decisive but human approach to the Almajiri issue, education, infrastructure, technical education, inland Security and containment of the Fulani herdsmen rascality will stand as testament and legacy to your administration if you appoint a long serving aide, an ally, a man who has suffered like you, the humility of his failed campaigns and the pains of rejection over the years as the new Chief of Staff. Again, look inside your camp, Mr. President.

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Business & Economy

UK Retail Sales: Why The 0.8% Headline Is Misread

UK retail sales rose 1.3% y/y in September, not 0.8%. The 0.8% is a US monthly figure. What nominal sales data hides about margins and shoppers.

Published

17 hours ago

October 23, 2026

Paul Nwogo

UK Retail Sales: Why The 0.8% Headline Is Misread

Any reader who saw UK retail sales described as rising 0.8% year on year in September was handed two errors folded into one sentence. Britain’s own monitor, the British Retail Consortium’s September survey, recorded a 1.3% year-on-year increase, led by health and beauty. A 0.8% rise does exist in the September data. It is American, and it is measured month on month.

The US Census Bureau reported that retail sales rose 0.8% in September after a revised 1.3% gain in August, beating the 0.3% consensus tracked by FactSet, as AP reported. Strip out petrol stations and the gain collapses to 0.2%.

Both figures are nominal. Neither is adjusted for inflation. That omission is the entire story.

Where The 0.8% Comes From And Why It Isn’t British

Petrol stations did the lifting. US gas station business rose 6.4% in September, and the average price of regular gasoline hit $4.33 a gallon, according to AAA, up from under $3 before renewed fighting in the Middle East. Michael Pearce, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, wrote that “the large jump in headline retail sales in September was almost entirely due to rising gasoline prices.”

Producer prices confirm the direction. Final demand PPI rose 1.3% on the month in September, taking the annual rate to 6.3%, the highest since December 2022, according to ForexTraders. Energy rose 10.8% and accounted for over 80% of the broad increase, with gasoline up 20.3%. Consumer prices rose 3.7% year on year, up from 3.4% in August, the biggest monthly jump in five months.

The American 0.8% is therefore largely a fuel bill, not a shopping spree. Furniture and home furnishings stores rose 1.3%, electronics and appliances 0.6%, online retailers 0.3%. Clothing and accessories were flat. Restaurants, the only services category in the report, rose 1.1%. Employers added just 29,000 jobs in the same period, which makes the spending look less like confidence and more like necessity.

UK Retail Sales Grew 1.3% Under A Budget Cloud

Britain’s September was not a demand story either. The BRC monitor described a period defined by waiting: households holding back ahead of the October budget and the tax rises it might bring, with a consumer already pressed by a cost-of-living squeeze and rising energy costs. Health and beauty carried the growth.

The inflation backdrop is unforgiving. UK CPI was 3.1% year on year in August with core at 2.6%. September’s reading was expected to climb to 3.4%, above the Bank of England’s 3.0% forecast, as Newsquawk noted in its week-ahead preview, with fuel, airfares and an unwinding of seasonal activity pushing prices higher. Input producer prices were up 8.2% year on year in the second quarter.

The September flash PMI for UK manufacturing sat at 52.1, still in expansion. But the survey described subdued demand, rising prices and weaker business activity, with technology the single bright spot. Any sign of second-round inflation effects would tilt the Monetary Policy Committee toward a November hike. Governor Andrew Bailey speaks on Wednesday. UK retail sales, measured in units rather than pounds, likely fell.

What Volume Declines Mean For Retailers In Lagos

Nigeria’s retail market runs on different plumbing but the same arithmetic. Most trade passes through informal markets and kiosks that never file a sales return, so published figures capture a thin formal slice: supermarkets, fuel forecourts, pharmacy chains. In an economy where transport and diesel generator costs feed straight into shelf prices, a nominal increase tells a retailer almost nothing about whether more goods left the shelf.

The same test applies to UK retail sales comparisons. Divide the cash increase by the price increase. If the answer is below one, the business is shrinking while the till looks busier. Retailers reporting in naira carry an added distortion, because exchange-rate movement can lift the top line while volumes fall.

Who Wins When Sales Rise And Shoppers Don’t

Fuel retailers and energy suppliers win first, because revenue rises with the price of the thing they sell. Discount formats and health-and-beauty chains win next. Discretionary goods lose: US clothing was flat despite a headline beat, and furniture’s 1.3% gain is smaller than price increases in the same categories.

Natalie Kotlyar, who leads BDO’s retail and consumer products practice, warned against reading the US report as evidence of consumer strength. With inflation running above 3% and gas prices high, part of this gain is simply higher prices, and many shoppers are leaning on savings and promotions to stretch their budgets,” she said. Strong sales alongside paychecks that fail to keep pace cannot last, she added, so retailers must protect margins and keep inventory flexible into November and December.

The policy read is muddled. Odds of a 25 basis point Fed hike at the 27-28 October meeting fell to 17% from 22% despite hot inflation, while December hike odds rose. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh declined to signal: “I don’t prejudge meetings,” he said at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok.

For UK retail sales, the practical instruction for operators is to stop quoting the cash number. Pearce still expects consumer spending to run at a 3.3% annualised pace in the third quarter, but he sees momentum fading into the holiday season as higher prices bite. A retailer that budgets on the headline will order too much stock and protect too little margin. One that budgets on volume will do the opposite. In a quarter where fuel rather than shopping drove the number, that is the only defensible position.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did UK retail sales rise 0.8% year on year in September?

No. The British Retail Consortium’s September monitor recorded a 1.3% year-on-year increase, led by health and beauty. The 0.8% figure is the US Census Bureau’s month-on-month retail sales increase for September, a different economy and a different time frame.

Why does the 0.8% US retail sales figure overstate consumer demand?

Because it is not adjusted for inflation and petrol stations did most of the work. Gas station business rose 6.4% in September as the average price of regular gasoline reached $4.33 a gallon. Excluding gas stations, US retail sales rose just 0.2% on the month.

What should retailers in Nigeria and the UK watch instead of the headline sales number?

Volume. Divide the cash increase by the price increase. If the result is below one, the business is selling fewer goods even though revenue looks higher. UK CPI was 3.1% in August and expected at 3.4% in September, so a 1.3% cash gain is a real-terms decline.

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About Paul Nwogo

Paul Nwogo is an engineer, published author, and the Head Manager at AfriLatest. He has written numerous books available on Amazon covering a diverse range of topics, including health, personal finance, relationships, work ethics, and scam survival. With his technical background and passion for writing, Paul now oversees the editorial direction of AfriLatest, delivering practical, accurate, and engaging content on trending news, music, and global lifestyle topics.

View all articles by Paul Nwogo

Business & Economy

Nigeria Startup Funding Lead: Capital Is Not Revenue

Nigeria startup funding leads Africa again, but the $635m headline measures capital raised, not revenue. Spectrum, power and skills decide what sticks.

Published

3 days ago

October 21, 2026

Paul Nwogo

Nigeria Startup Funding Lead: Capital Is Not Revenue

Tech Outlook 2027, a technology foresight platform led by the National Information Technology Development Agency and delivered through SATH Foundation Africa, met in Lagos on Tuesday, October 20, with an agenda that had little to do with term sheets. Its subject was whether Nigeria can convert access to technology into domestic capability: data centres, connectivity, computing, skills. That question sits directly beneath the headline that Nigeria startup funding has reclaimed Africa’s lead, with press reports putting raised capital at $635 million.

The distinction matters more than the ranking. Capital raised is a flow of investor money into a company. Revenue is money a customer hands over for something they need. The two figures move on different clocks, and only one of them survives a downturn.

A Platform Built Around Constraints

Tech Outlook 2027 is not an accelerator and writes no cheques. It is a policy and foresight exercise, designed to help Nigeria anticipate emerging technology trends and translate them into strategic decisions. Its public output at the Lagos session was a list of constraints rather than a list of winners.

Ushaseer Tembe, lead for Technology and AI, spoke on behalf of Iyinoluwa Aboyeji. He argued that Nigeria has shown it can adapt existing technologies to local needs, but that the next phase requires stronger infrastructure and local talent to sustain AI businesses. He named data centres, connectivity, computing infrastructure, cloud platforms, models and applications as the layers Nigeria must assess to decide where it can build independence, and where economic value can be captured domestically.

The uncomfortable part is what that implies for the Nigeria startup funding headline. Money raised by a Lagos fintech or a Yaba software shop is not evidence that a product is priced correctly, that customers renew, or that the business covers its own power bill. On a continent where network operators are squeezed, those are not abstract questions.

What Nigeria Startup Funding Cannot Buy

The clearest evidence comes from the GSMA’s report on spectrum policy in Africa. African operators hold an average of 570 MHz of mobile spectrum below 7 GHz, about 24 percent less than the global average of 750 MHz, while paying more for it relative to revenue: 0.82 percent of revenue per 100 MHz against 0.66 percent elsewhere.

Average revenue per user across Africa fell by about 49 percent in real terms between 2015 and 2025, according to the GSMA report as covered by BusinessDay. Operators must carry roughly 160 percent more mobile data traffic between 2025 and 2030 while earning less per gigabyte.

For a startup, this is the ground floor. Average mobile download speeds in Africa stood at just over 27 Mbps in 2025, against 98 Mbps in the rest of the world. Users consumed about 3 GB per connection monthly, against 14 GB elsewhere. Only 28 percent of Africa’s population used mobile internet on their own devices in 2025, even though mobile broadband coverage reached 92 percent of the population.

That last number is the one founders should tape to the wall. About 64 percent of the continent’s population lives inside coverage and does not use mobile internet, because devices, data, electricity and digital skills remain out of reach. A product with polished onboarding and no paying user at the bottom of the pyramid is a demo, not a business.

The Burn Rate Nobody Funds

Labour is usually a startup’s largest line item, and the labour market is being squeezed from both ends. In Kwara, the state branch of the Nigerian Medical Association says doctors are losing between N30,000 and N50,000 from their monthly pay to unexplained deductions. Suleiman Rotimi, the NMA state chairman, disclosed the cuts at a news conference in Ilorin marking the 2026 Physicians’ Week, themed “Securing the Future of Medicine in Nigeria.”

Rotimi put Nigeria’s doctor-to-patient ratio at roughly 1 to 9,000 and warned that sub-standard wages, excessive cuts and manpower deficits are driving burnout and emigration, with conditions worse in rural Kwara. The state government’s response is not recorded in the BusinessDay report.

This is not a startup story on its face. It is one underneath. Skilled professionals whose net pay is unpredictable do not form the stable middle class that buys subscriptions, holds savings products, or stays with a fintech app through a bad month. Engineers watching public-sector pay erode price their own risk higher. Companies that cannot hire reliably cannot hold a delivery promise, and churn climbs quietly while the funding announcement stays loud.

Adoption Is Not Absorption

The Lagos session returned repeatedly to the gap between buying software and changing how work is done. Tembe said organisations need to “adopt AI at a native level,” arguing they should measure whether embedding the technology improves processes or increases revenue, not how many pilots they ran.

Itoro Emembolu, a faculty member at Lagos Business School, said the central challenge is not access to technology or talent but the ability of organisations to absorb and use technology effectively. She named leadership, communication and resistance to organisational change as the barriers, and called for investment in change management.

Read that against a Nigeria startup funding announcement and the arithmetic gets uncomfortable. Capital buys pilots. Absorption buys revenue. The first is available at a press conference. The second takes quarters.

What To Measure Instead

The GSMA offers a usable scorecard for reform: track new spectrum allocations, capital expenditure, infrastructure deployment, network speeds and service availability, and monitor internet adoption separately because coverage does not make devices and data affordable. The same discipline applies to Nigeria startup funding.

Ask what share of raised capital converted into paid contracts and renewals. Ask what the business spends each month on electricity and bandwidth. Ask how many customers stayed past the first billing cycle. None of these appear in a funding total, and all of them decide whether the company is still trading in three years.

The projected rewards from reform are real but conditional. The GSMA estimates that spectrum changes could add more than $120 billion in cumulative economic output across Africa between 2026 and 2035, bring an additional 50 million people within 4G coverage and 170 million within 5G, and lift average download speeds by 30 to 50 percent. The report labels these projected outcomes, not guaranteed gains. They hold only if lower costs turn into network investment rather than into margin.

Data governance carries the same weight. Professor Manasoghe, who led discussions on security, privacy and trust, pointed to fragmented databases, unnecessary collection of personal information and weak transparency around breaches as threats to public confidence in digital services, raising questions about compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act’s data minimisation principle. Firms that build on shaky identity systems inherit the cost of that shakiness.

Therein lies the test for Nigeria startup funding. The country has reclaimed the continental lead in capital raised. Whether that becomes revenue depends on spectrum, electricity, data governance and the willingness of executives to change how their companies actually work. Tech Outlook 2027’s contribution is to make that dependency explicit, and to move the argument from how much was raised to what it bought.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Nigeria’s startup funding lead mean startups are profitable?

No. Funding raised is investment capital entering a company. Revenue is money earned from customers. The source material provides no revenue figures for Nigerian startups, so the funding lead says nothing on its own about profitability, renewals or cash flow.

Why does mobile spectrum policy matter to Nigerian startups?

Most Nigerian digital products reach customers through mobile networks. The GSMA reports African operators hold about 570 MHz of spectrum below 7 GHz versus a global average of 750 MHz, and face roughly 160 percent data traffic growth between 2025 and 2030, which affects speed, coverage and the cost of serving users.

What happened to doctors’ pay in Kwara?

Suleiman Rotimi, chairman of the NMA’s Kwara State branch, disclosed unexplained monthly deductions of between N30,000 and N50,000 from doctors’ salaries during a news conference in Ilorin for the 2026 Physicians’ Week. He called for the deductions to be reversed. The state government’s response is not recorded in the source report.

What should investors track instead of funding totals?

Paid contracts, customer renewal rates, monthly spend on electricity and bandwidth, and whether raised capital produced revenue. The GSMA recommends tracking spectrum allocations, capital expenditure, network speeds and service availability, and measuring internet adoption separately from coverage.

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            About Paul Nwogo
            Paul Nwogo is an engineer, published author, and the Head Manager at AfriLatest. He has written numerous books available on Amazon covering a diverse range of topics, including health, personal finance, relationships, work ethics, and scam survival. With his technical background and passion for writing, Paul now oversees the editorial direction of AfriLatest, delivering practical, accurate, and engaging content on trending news, music, and global lifestyle topics.
            View all articles by Paul Nwogo

Nigerian Business

Dangote Refinery IPO Extended: 4.1 Billion Shares Up for Grabs

Dangote Refinery IPO extended to Oct 27 as subscriptions hit 4x the $1.6bn target. Here’s what the ₦525/share offer means for Nigerian investors.

Published

1 week ago

October 13, 2026

Paul Nwogo

Dangote Refinery IPO Extended: 4.1 Billion Shares Up for Grabs

Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals has extended its $1.6 billion initial public offering (IPO) by two weeks, pushing the closing date from October 13 to October 27. The Dangote Refinery IPO, already the biggest in Africa’s history, has pulled in subscriptions more than three or four times the original target, according to the company. The extension, approved by Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission, is aimed at letting more African investors buy in.

The offer opened on September 14 and was originally scheduled to close on October 13. It puts 4.1 billion shares on the table at ₦525 each, with a minimum subscription of 10 shares, or ₦5,250. That values the refinery at about $47 billion. A green shoe option allows an extra 30 percent of the shares to be sold if the offer is oversubscribed, potentially raising the total to about $2.1 billion.

Dangote said the decision to extend was not about the money. “We are going to extend the date because we want a lot of our African brothers and sisters to participate,” he told journalists during a tour of the facility on Monday. “It is not about the amount, it is about the number of people that we want to participate.”

The company said it is working with the Nairobi Stock Exchange to open a route for East African investors through global depositary receipts. Up to $300.4 million of the offer, close to a fifth of the total, has been set aside for East African investors, according to Kenyan media. Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority has already cleared its residents to invest.

“Following our discussions with the Nairobi Stock Exchange, we have identified what we believe is the best way to facilitate participation,” Dangote said. “We are now trying to replicate that arrangement with other African exchanges.”

What The Extension Means For Investors

The extra two weeks gives retail investors more time to complete account opening, identity verification, and other regulatory checks. Several trading platforms, including Bamboo and Cowrywise, crashed on the first day of the offer as subscription traffic overwhelmed their systems. That suggests demand is coming from a much wider pool than the typical Nigerian stock market investor.

Only about 5 percent of Nigerian adults invest in the stock market. The refinery is targeting as many as 10 million retail investors, a figure that would transform the Nigerian Exchange’s retail base if achieved. The Aliko Dangote Foundation is also giving away shares worth about ₦40 billion, or $30 million, to tertiary students and vulnerable women. Students who buy 10 shares receive 10 more free.

David Bird, chief executive of the refinery, said the extension “will give more investors across Africa the opportunity to participate in the Offer.”

Under the revised timetable, results will be collated by November 3 and the basis of allotment sent to the SEC by November 10. Trading is expected to begin about 15 business days after shares are allotted.

Why The Refinery Needs The Money

The IPO proceeds will fund a $14.3 billion expansion that would double the refinery’s capacity to 1.4 million barrels a day by 2029. The plant, which cost about $20 billion and began operating in 2024, was designed to process 650,000 barrels a day and now runs at about 700,000 barrels a day. If the expansion goes ahead, it would be the world’s largest refinery, surpassing India’s Jamnagar.

“We are targeting for three years, and probably we may be even doing faster,” said Devakumar Edwin, a group vice president at Dangote Industries.

Dangote is also planning a separate 700,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Kenya, which would bring his total refining capacity to 2.1 million barrels a day. He has already broken ground on a new facility on Kenya’s Lamu island, promising tens of thousands of jobs. But the project faces a lawsuit from the local community over land rights, and Greenpeace has raised objections over the refinery’s environmental impact.

Who Wins And Who Loses

For Nigerian retail investors, the extension is a rare second chance to buy into a company that most would never access at this stage. The ₦525 price and 10-share minimum keep the entry ticket low. The free-share programme for students and women lowers it further.

For the Nigerian Exchange, a successful listing of this size would dwarf MTN Nigeria’s $876 million listing in 2019. Akin Dawodu, Citi’s head of banking for sub-Saharan Africa, said the deal could draw investors back to African bourses. “The size of the stock exchanges across Africa, Johannesburg excepted, is very small relative to the capital available,” he told Reuters. “We have to find a way to unlock that.”

For existing shareholders, the picture is more complicated. Dangote and his affiliates own about 80.7 percent of the company. State oil company NNPC holds 6.8 percent, and Greenview International holds 6.5 percent. The IPO represents about 3.4 percent of the company. If the green shoe is used, that stake gets diluted further, but the new capital funds growth that could lift the value of what they hold.

The risks are real. The refinery’s expansion depends on global crude markets, Nigerian regulatory stability, and the company’s ability to execute a project of unprecedented scale. The Kenya project faces legal and environmental challenges that could delay or derail it. And a stock market listing brings quarterly scrutiny that a private company does not face.

What To Watch

Watch the final subscription figures when they are released. The company has not published exact numbers, only saying demand is three to four times the target. If the green shoe is triggered, the final raise could hit $2.1 billion, making it one of the largest listings anywhere in the world this year.

Watch whether other African exchanges follow Nairobi’s lead. If the depositary receipt model works in Kenya, it could become a template for how African companies raise capital across borders, a shift that would matter for every founder and CFO on the continent.

And watch the share price when trading begins, expected about 15 business days after allotment. A strong debut would pull in the retail investors the refinery says it wants. A weak one would leave them holding paper and wondering why they bothered.

Frequently Asked Questions (Dangote Refinery IPO)

When does the Dangote Refinery IPO close?

The Dangote Refinery IPO now closes on October 27, 2026, after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a two-week extension from the original October 13 date.

How much does it cost to buy Dangote Refinery shares?

Shares are priced at ₦525 each, with a minimum subscription of 10 shares, which costs ₦5,250. The offer includes 4.1 billion shares and a green shoe option for an additional 30 percent if oversubscribed.

Can non-Nigerians invest in the Dangote Refinery IPO?

Yes. The extension is specifically aimed at allowing more African investors to participate. Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority has approved a route through global depositary receipts on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, with up to $300.4 million set aside for East African investors.