Nigeria does not lack capital but sufficient investable opportunities capable of attracting and absorbing it, the UN Global Compact Network Nigeria has said.
The message emerged at the 2026 CEO Forum of the UN Global Compact Network Nigeria in Lagos, where business leaders, policymakers, financiers, regulators and development partners examined how capital, policy and private-sector action could translate into stronger economic growth.
The forum was themed, “Financing a Dignified Future: Aligning Capital, Policy and Business Action.”
Speaking at the event, CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Network Nigeria, Naomi Nwokolo, challenged participants to focus less on repeatedly identifying Nigeria’s longstanding economic constraints and more on what could be changed immediately.
“A dignified future is one in which businesses can grow and remain competitive, entrepreneurs can access capital to scale, workers earn a living wage, communities participate in economic opportunity, and the natural environment is not sacrificed for short-term gain,” she said.
Director-General of the North-West Governors Forum, Maryam Yahaya, who represented the forum, said governments were accustomed to presenting investors with the region’s potential and asking them to invest.
She said the conversation should instead focus on understanding what was preventing investors from committing capital.
“If it is security, tell us. If it is power, or our processes are too slow, or if a regulation does not make commercial sense, we would like to know,” Yahaya said.
Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal presented his state’s experience as an example of how preparation and policy predictability could influence investment.
The state’s 10-year development plan, covering 2025 to 2034, is intended to provide investors with greater policy certainty.
Lawal said construction had begun on a lithium mining and processing plant in Zurumi Local Government Area with Chinese investment, while Zamfara was also pursuing large-scale solar investment with GCL Group.
He said the state was seeking to move beyond exporting raw materials by promoting local processing, participation, skills development and job creation.
According to Lawal, improved security and better geological data had helped attract investors, with companies from China and the United Arab Emirates approaching the state after gaining access to geophysical information.
He said Zamfara’s internally generated revenue had risen from about ₦90 million when he assumed office to roughly ₦45 billion monthly.
The governor also cited the development of an international airport as part of efforts to improve access for investors and businesses.
“Don’t wait until the food is ready and then you start rushing. Come, partner and build with us,” he said.
The discussion then shifted from investment capital to financial inclusion, with Deputy Managing Director of First Bank of Nigeria, Ini Ebong, arguing that access to financial services should be treated as economic infrastructure rather than corporate social responsibility.
“Financial inclusion is not a CSR line item, neither is it charity. It is about building infrastructure,” Ebong said.
Citing the World Bank’s 2025 Global Findex Report and EFInA data, he said 63 per cent of Nigerian adults had accounts and 84 per cent owned mobile phones, but only 43 per cent saved formally and nine per cent borrowed from formal sources.
Ebong said the figures suggested that while access was improving, financial resilience remained weak.
He said FirstBank’s response included an agent network of 322,000 agents covering 99 per cent of Nigeria’s local government areas. The bank said more than 3.4 million previously unbanked Nigerians had accessed formal financial services through the network.
It also said its digital lending platforms disbursed more than ₦1 trillion in 2025, while FirstGem, its women-focused initiative, had financed more than 50,000 accounts through a ₦5 billion revolving fund.
But Ebong said a deeper constraint was the ability of potential borrowers, particularly small businesses, to become financeable.
“There’s way more capital to be deployed towards lending in Nigeria than there is capacity to absorb it,” he said.
He identified weak bookkeeping, inadequate documentation and the failure of many small businesses to separate personal and business finances as some of the barriers preventing businesses from accessing finance.
For Adeniyi Falade, Group Chief Operating Officer of Custodian Investment, the same problem was visible in the pension industry.
Falade said Nigeria’s pension industry had accumulated about ₦32 trillion in less than two decades, yet less than three per cent was allocated to infrastructure and about two per cent to real estate, while nearly 70 per cent remained in Federal Government bonds.
He said the central issue was therefore not simply the availability of institutional capital but whether enough bankable projects existed to absorb it.
“Creating the right bankable opportunities, the right bankable projects” was critical to moving capital into the real economy, Falade said.
The energy sector presented another example of the challenge.
Managing Director of Sahara Power Group, Anthony Youdeowei, said bringing a distribution network to world-class standards could require about $750 million over 10 years, citing a USAID study.
Sahara has built a new power plant and recently laid the foundation for another in Lagos State. Youdeowei, however, said increasing generation alone would not resolve Nigeria’s electricity problems.
“If the power cannot get to the end consumer, then there really is no point,” he said.
He said sustained investment in the power sector would depend on policy certainty and tariffs that allow investors to earn a return.
