The dysfunction club: How Nigeria’s economy rewards the informed and punishes the ignorant, by Taiwo Olanegan

A combination of six banks declared ₦3 trillion ($2 billion) as profit for the 2024 financial year. About 30% of this would be shared as dividends to shareholders. Are you a part? The insane profitability in the Nigerian economy is not restricted to the banking sector. Julius Berger, Fidson, Afriprudential, Okomu, also have humongous figures in the profit column of their Excel sheets. How come Corporate Nigeria is posting big profits while the rest of the nation chants Bulaba? The $2 billion figure does point to the dysfunctionality of the Nigerian economy.

This good news of fantabulous profits isn’t restricted to boardrooms. Iya Ọyọ, the Amala seller with a stall next to that GTB branch, made 200% more profit in 2024. This year, she would import more Swiss lace from Idumota, Lagos, and purchase the plot of land next to hers to erect a permanent structure for her buka. The tomato, rice, and grain planters have the same story. This economy booms!

Don’t cry wolf yet; this essay is not a Reno Omokri’s type, neither is it an image laundry for APC; instead, it x-rays the reality of our dysfunction – the oxymoron of smiling and suffering. It shows the two faces of our economy, on how a part of the mass of the population smiles and believes the economy is booming while the other face bites hard the stretched fingers of politicians and policymakers.

The Nigerian economy rewards opportunism. You could sleep as a broke ass and wake up to a breakfast in the same lounge with Aliko Dangote. If you’re not there, you may never be there. If you’re not in, you may never be in. However, the barriers to entrance aren’t made with iron bars; with a feeble kick, you could shatter the glasses and join the club and cruise your way to Forbes.

My nephew is a university professor; he is salaried. Nevertheless, his financial education, saving culture from emoluments, fellowships, and research grants have enabled his sizeable portfolio in Nigerian stocks. He pretends to be a teacher but he is a wealthy young man, a part of the informed but not privileged Nigerians that would eat dividends out of the $2 billion profits pilfered from us by Nigerian banks. How did he start the journey of building private wealth? An orphan, at 19, in his second year at university, with a ₦20,000 scholarship from the Ondo government, he listened to the advice when I pitched him to invest in Presco’s IPO 23 years ago. Do you know what an IPO is? I bet you don’t. But you know who Daddy Freeze and VeryDarkMan are. Ko si problem!

I engaged Mutiu in a discussion as we rode on his new kẹkẹ. I asked if he knew he could lend the FG money, and in four years’ time, he may not need to labour hard again. How, he wondered in befuddlement! We both did the math of his daily contribution of ₦3,000 for 330 days. That gives him ₦1 million per year, ₦2 million in two years, and ₦3 million in three years. In 36 months, if he saved his earnings in a good coop, he could borrow three times his capital, that is, ₦10 million, and put the sum in federal government securities. In fact, he could even lend it to Aliko Dangote at 29% per annum.

Oh, you don’t know! Aliko Dangote has been in the loan market, begging teachers, keke drivers, bricklayers, plumbers, doctors, and others to lend him funds to run his sugar company. If 28-year-old Mutiu, kẹkẹ driver, listened to my schooling, he would be worth ₦21,477,000 at the expiration of President Bulaba’s term in 2031.

There would be many sectors of this economy generating $2b profits in the years ahead. Thus wealth redistribution would be increasingly dysfunctional. The privileged would access better privileges. The informed would tweak more data to improve on their portfolios, and sadly, the poor would get poorer. It doesn’t matter if the nation’s headship is President Bulaba or EluuPee. The question is, are you wired and are you prepared? Are you even aware? Do you have the business knowledge per your profession? If you are a medical doctor, lawyer, writer or teacher, and you lack how to pitch or sell your services you won’t make this rapture.

I tried to purchase a trouser made from African batik prints from an Instagram shop. It was advertised for ₦30,000. By providence, I got the same material from a cloth seller and took the yards to a tailor down my street; he charged ₦1,500! I asked him a zillion times, “You mean you want to sew this for ₦1,500?” His answer was affirmative and cast in adamantine. He delivered an excellent pair of trousers for me. That’s a young, good tailor but a bad businessman who underpriced himself. Like Mutiu, my friend, there’s little government can do to take such fellows out of the debris of poverty. It’s a dysfunction!

In Nigeria, the rich and the informed would keep getting richer at the expense on those below the ladder. Like the tatashe farmer who sold a bag for ₦20,000 three weeks ago, but now sells same for ₦100,000. And the Instagram vendor who sells his batik sokoto for ₦30,000. It’s a dysfunction I insist. Those who use the leverages of financial knowledge, capital and networking to create products and services would subdue those who stand ignorantly or cynically by the roadside.

The 2024 audited profits of Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Holding Company, United Bank for Africa, Stanbic IBTC, Fidelity Bank, and Wema Bank, valued at ₦3T ($2billion), can meet the 2025 FG budget for infrastructure. This fact is scary! It cross-sectioned and showed the concentration of humongous wealth in the hands of a select few. In 8 years, the $2billion profitability of the six banks may be doubled. Tony Elumelu, Aig Imokhuede and others would be listed in Forbes. What should you do?

You don’t have to quit your job, neither do you need to open a shop. But you must improve on your financial literacy, because there is more to Nigeria than Natasha – Akpabio scenty news. Start saving, cowrie by cowrie, to raise a capital, like my nephew did while he was an orphaned undergraduate. Stop underpricing your jobs, products and services like that young tailor. It would ruin you. Above all, be determined to get out of the debris and join the Dysfunction Club. There are millions enrolled already. In rice paddies, tatashe farms, online teachers, land banking and stock trading.