By Tunji David
Nigeria will eventually produce Africa’s first trillion-dollar company.
The pieces are already on the table: a population of 220 million, a young demographic, and a fintech sector that has leapfrogged traditional banking.
The real question is not if it happens. It is where the wealth from that breakout company ends up.Right now, all signs point to a split reality.
The company could be built on Nigerian streets, but the returns cashed out in New York.
OPay’s IPO Plan: Lagos-Built, Wall Street-Bound
OPay is reportedly preparing for a US IPO, leveraging its base of over 40 million customers in Nigeria. The company started as a ride-hailing play, pivoted hard into payments and agency banking, and now runs one of the densest offline-to-online payment networks in the country.
That is the paradox. OPay’s growth was funded by Nigerian transaction volumes, built on the backs of thousands of Nigerian agents, and scaled using infrastructure across Lagos and the country.
Yet the liquidity event , the moment real wealth is created for founders and early investors, is slated for abroad.For Nigeria, an overseas IPO means three things.
Capital formation happens outside the NSE, with the company’s valuation, trading volume, and price discovery occurring under SEC rules, in USD, benefiting US brokerages and investors first.
Tax and reinvestment leakage follows, with capital gains, dividends, and primary proceeds flowing to foreign accounts that do not recirculate into Nigerian SMEs, real estate, or public markets.
And a talent and prestige signal is sent: Lagos is good for building, but not for owning.Flutterwave, Paystack, and the Road Not TakenOPay is not alone. Flutterwave and Paystack followed a similar script.
Paystack was acquired by Stripe in 2020 and removed from any Nigerian capital formation path. Flutterwave has consistently signalled a US or dual listing, not a Lagos-only IPO.
These companies widen Nigeria’s GDP on paper through transaction volumes, employment, and tech exports — Paystack alone processes billions in annual volume.
But they do not widen the capital base of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The NSE remains under ₦170 trillion in market cap, dominated by banks, telecoms, and consumer goods.
A single fintech unicorn listing could add ₦5 to ₦10 trillion overnight and force institutional investors, pension funds, and retail traders to engage with tech equities. Without that, Nigeria’s stock market stays disconnected from the fastest-growing part of its economy.
Why the Benefits Leak Abroad The reasons are not far-fetched. US markets offer deeper capital pools and higher multiples for tech, a Nigerian fintech listing at 10x revenue in New York might only get 4x on the NSE.
Investors want exits in hard currency, and a naira-denominated listing exposes them to devaluation risk, as demonstrated in 2023 and 2024. And the regulatory framework for high-growth, loss-making tech companies in Nigeria is still evolving, while SEC and NASDAQ offer predictable rules.
The result is a build-in-Nigeria, sell-to-America model. It creates jobs and foreign exchange inflow but does not create a local investor class around tech.
How Nigeria Can Keep the Wealth at HomeIt requires tradeoffs. NSE reforms — tech-friendly listing rules, dual-class shares, and special purpose acquisition vehicles — would help.
The NSE Growth Board is a start, but it needs credibility and liquidity. Nigeria’s pension funds hold over ₦25 trillion as of March 2026; allowing higher allocations to tech and venture equity would create a local bid for IPOs. Dual listings, primarily in Lagos with a secondary listing abroad, are viable, as Safaricom’s model in Kenya demonstrates.
And retail participation is ready: mobile brokerage apps like Rise, Bamboo, and Trove have shown Nigerians want exposure. A local OPay IPO could onboard millions of first-time investors.
If OPay, Flutterwave, or Moniepoint list locally first, they would force a repricing of the entire Nigerian tech ecosystem. Analysts, banks, and funds would have to build expertise in software, unit economics, and SaaS metrics.
That knowledge spillover is how you build a capital market.What Are the Stakes?If Nigeria’s first trillion-dollar company lists only abroad, it becomes a proof point for founders and a payday for foreign VCs. If it lists at home, even partially, it becomes infrastructure for the next hundred startups.
The GDP impact of a fintech processing ₦10 trillion annually is real. But GDP without capital market depth is just activity, not ownership. For ordinary Nigerians to benefit, they need a seat at the ownership table, not just the customer table.
Nigeria has built the customer base. The next decade will show whether it can build the owners too.
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