The AfDB’s 2026 African Economic Outlook dropped yesterday in Brazzaville. Here are the highlights.
🌍 Africa grew 4.4% in 2025, outpacing the global average of 3.1%
📈 22 African countries grew above 5% in 2025
🏆 12 of the world’s 20 fastest growing economies were African
⚡ East Africa led the continent at 6.6% growth in 2025
🌾 West Africa grew 4.8% in 2025 driven by agriculture and infrastructure investment
📉 Inflation fell from 21.8% in 2024 to 13.6% in 2025
💰 Africa faces a $1.3 trillion annual financing gap. But with the right reforms it could unlock $1.43 trillion annually from domestic sources alone.
The gap is not about scarcity. It is about architecture.
Africa is growing faster than most of the world. The question is whether the financial system it operates in is built for the Africa that exists today.
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Service Centre: Took my BYD Song DM-i to BYD… they said no gray market cars 😅
Ended up at @evworldafrica
Owning an imported EV? A different kind of journey.
Three Mexican nationals and several cartel linked operatives arrested after an NDLEA raid on a massive methamphetamine laboratory hidden in a forest in Ogun State. Meth valued at over ₦480 billion were recovered. It is the largest meth lab ever uncovered in Nigeria.
🌍 "Why don't you start one?" In four words, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu turned a moderator's question into a continental challenge from the main stage of the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali.
🛒 The question on the table was simple. Why does Africa, with all its commodity wealth spread asymmetrically across borders, still lack a continental exchange platform where producers and buyers can trade with one another rather than routing every transaction through external markets? Tinubu's answer turned the question back on the room. The continent's two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, have the scale, the volumes, the capital markets infrastructure and the political weight to launch precisely that platform. The case for waiting is increasingly difficult to defend.
📊 The numbers behind the provocation matter. Nigeria's non-oil exports to African markets grew 38% year-on-year in 2024. Intra-African trade is projected to climb from 15% in 2023 to 25% by 2030 under the AfCFTA framework. Cargo clearance times at major Nigerian seaports have already dropped by roughly 30% since 2023. The architecture for deeper intra-continental trade is being built piece by piece, but a continental commodity exchange would mark a qualitative leap, moving Africa from price-taker to price-setter on its own resources.
🤝 The deeper message is one of leadership by example. For years, the integration debate has been carried by communiqués and frameworks. Tinubu's challenge cuts through that. The two giants of the continent should stop debating who should move first and instead move together. That is what pan-African capitalism looks like when it stops being a slogan, African producers trading African commodities on African platforms, settled in African currencies.
🇷🇼 The question Kigali is putting on the agenda this week is no longer whether the AfCFTA will be implemented. It is who will dare to build its missing institutions.
#ACF2026 #AfricaCEOForum
Please get the news correctly.😂
The South West Development Commission has secured a provisional rail operating and track access licence from the Nigerian Railway Corporation.
It means the NRC has given them permission to operate on existing railway infrastructure.
So, the SWDC may:
✓ procure or lease its own coaches and locomotives,
✓ manage schedules and routes,
✓ invest in terminals or logistics hubs,
✓ perhaps rehabilitate dormant narrow-gauge corridors.
𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚, 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲
I had the pleasure of a courtesy visit to Mr. Yusuf Murangwa, Rwanda’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning today on the sidelines of the just concluded Africa CEO Forum in Kigali.
Our discussions centred on shared priorities around:
• economic reforms and investment competitiveness
• regional integration and deeper cooperation under the AfCFTA
• investment promotion and ratification of double taxation agreement between our countries
• a harmonised African voice on global fiscal issues
• capital mobility, visa regimes, and ease of doing business across Africa
• public financial management transparency and institutional efficiency
• sustainable financing and revenue mobilisation for development
We also exchanged valuable insights on fiscal policy reforms and Rwanda’s institutional execution model, which continues to attract global attention for its discipline, coordination, and implementation effectiveness.
Africa’s future will be shaped not by isolated national successes, but by stronger regional collaboration, policy consistency, and our collective ability to create competitive, integrated economies that attract investment and create opportunities for our people.
This is the Africa We Want and the Africa we must build, together.
#AfricaCEOForum #RegionalIntegration #AfricaRising
Whose Loan Book is Healthiest?
Nigerian Banks Q1 2026 Report Card
Access & Zenith are running the cleanest books with the lowest NPL ratios (2.68% & 3.79%) well below the 6.5% industry average.
GTCO is the capital king at a massive 39.50% CAR, giving it the biggest safety buffer.
On the flip side, Ecobank (ETI) is flashing a red flag: 9.50% NPL (nearly 1.5x industry avg) and the lowest CAR at 16.80% barely above regulatory minimum.
Strong asset quality + solid capital = lower risk.
Which bank are you watching closely in 2026? 👀
#NigerianBanks #BankingSector #FinancialLiteracy #InvestSmart
Between August 2024 and July 2025, the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency attended to 8,692 cases, and is currently averaging 400 cases per month.
Guess where it’s happening?
Your estate. Your place of worship. Maybe your street.
Abuse thrives in silence.
0-8000-333-333
SGBV - It Concerns Us All!!!
If PENCOM is making an exception for Dangote Refineries, you should pay attention.
According to the latest data released by the National Pension Commission (PenCom), pension assets reached:
•₦29.52 trillion in March 2026
The majority of the funds are invested in:
•Nigerian federal government securities (about 60%+)
•Domestic equities
•Money market instruments
•Corporate debt
•Infrastructure and private equity funds
Dangote Petroleum Refinery falls under Domestic Equities
Dangote Refinery just filed a fresh lawsuit at the Federal High Court in Lagos, asking the court to nullify fuel import licences issued to NNPC and major marketers.
The argument is simple. Nigerian law only permits fuel imports when local supply is insufficient. Local supply is no longer insufficient.
In Q1 2026, local refineries supplied 3.18 billion litres of petrol. Imports collapsed by 60.2% year-on-year. Dangote alone now accounts for the majority of domestic supply.
So the real question is, why are these import licences still being issued?
This is no longer a refinery story. It's a power tussle over who controls the most lucrative downstream market in Africa.
Watch this case. The verdict will shape Nigerian fuel pricing for years.
Rents across Lagos have continued to rise sharply across major residential areas, from Lekki and Ikeja to Surulere, Ayobo, and the Ikorodu axis, leaving many tenants under increasing financial pressure as household incomes struggle to keep pace with inflation. https://t.co/WaG8wh6Iuf