Kwairanga Sets The Record Straight

Outperforming Ndi Okereke-Onyuike, who was Managing Director of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and has a wall of awards to her credit; Aliko Dangote, who was once President of the Council of the Nigerian Stock Exchange; and high-performing, transformative Oscar Onyema, the past CEO of NGX, is no small feat.

That is exactly what Umaru Kwairanga and Temi Popoola have been doing as Chairman and Group Managing Director of the Nigerian Exchange Group, respectively.

The board and management of NGX has just outperformed the world. Recent Bloomberg data rating 92 global stock exchanges this year, showed Nigeria’s benchmark equity index return as much as 67 per cent, beating South Korea’s Kospi, which stood at second place with 66 per cent returns.

The gains were mostly driven by financial services companies. But Bloomberg also linked the performance to economic reforms, strong oil prices, improved foreign exchange, with the Naira appreciating 4 percent against the dollar since January.

Kwairanga, with 25 years of experience in banking, pensions, investment, and manufacturing and previously served as a council member of the stock exchange, was appointed chairman of NGX in October 2022.

He is on the board of Ashaka Cement, Jaiz Bank, Tangerine APT Pensions Limited, FBN Senegal Limited and is the Managing Director of Finmal Finance Services, an investment bank.

Popoola, an investment banker trained on Wall Street, worked as an asset manager in London, England at the start of his career. He also worked in UBA, CSL Stokebrokers and later became CEO of Renaissance Capital. He became the GMD/CEO of NGX in January 2024.

The Kwairanga-led team could see the fortunes of the exchange and Nigerian listed companies grow even further in the near future.

Airtel Africa PLC is presently the most valuable company on NGX, at N21.8 trillion, about $15.77 billion.

But on the top 10 most valuable companies in Africa for 2025, not a single Nigerian company made the list. Two are Moroccan and all the rest are South African.

Three are telecommunication companies, four are financial institutions and two are mining companies. Naspers, a technology and media company with a market value of $40bn sits at the top.

All that is about to change with the partial listing of Dangote Refinery on the NGX, which could see the exchange further outperforming counterparts on the continent and across the globe.

The profitability and impact local refining has on the balance of payment of virtually all the countries in Africa is not in dispute. And while investors look to reap the benefits of listing the continent’s biggest refinery on the NGX, so will be people managing the index.