Standard Bank in Talks to Buy Stake in OPay Ahead of Billion US Listing
Trend One: Nigeria's Reform Dividend Meets the Cost-of-Living Squeeze
Nigeria's macroeconomic data moved in two directions at once this week.
On August 18, the Minister of Finance, Taiwo Oyedele, said fuel-subsidy removal and the naira's liberalisation saved the federal government about N15.8 trillion between June 2023 and December 2025. He listed ten spending lines for the money: wage increases and timely payment of salaries and pensions, settlement of pension arrears, capital-market wealth creation, infrastructure, the NELFUND student-loan scheme, subsidised mortgages and transfers to 15 million households, agricultural interventions, and tax exemptions for low-income earners and small businesses.
The same day, the naira strengthened to a five-month high of N1,343.32 per dollar, up N6.22 (0.46 percent) from Monday. External reserves stood at $52.32 billion as of August 17, up 27.73 percent from $40.96 billion a year earlier. The CBN said reserves remained above $52.5 billion, a 17-year high. NAFEM turnover jumped to $1.41 billion on August 17, the highest in five weeks and more than seven times the $185 million recorded on August 11.
The Federation Account Allocation Committee, meeting in Owerri, shared a record N3.007 trillion among the federal government, 36 states and 774 local councils for July. Gross statutory revenue rose 17.8 percent month-on-month to N4.359 trillion, from N3.700 trillion. The federal government received N1.146 trillion, states N943.352 billion, local councils N673.649 billion, and a further N243.478 billion went to oil-producing states as the 13 percent derivation share.
Against this, housing costs moved in the opposite direction. Rent inflation jumped to 33.8 percent in July from 14.79 percent in June, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, the steepest one-month rise in the 2026 series. Headline inflation eased to 15.43 percent from 15.91 percent, and food inflation stood at 20.31 percent. The 2027 presidential race officially opened on August 19, five months before the January 16 vote. INEC expects registered voters to top 100 million. The ruling APC's control of the national assembly and 31 of 36 governorships leaves the opposition, divided between Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, with little room to articulate a differentiated economic programme. Turnout in 2023 was 27 percent.
Trend Two: Global Capital Moves on Africa's Digital and Industrial Assets
Three financing events this week pointed to the same direction.
South Africa's Standard Bank Group, Africa's largest lender by assets, is in talks to take a stake in Nigerian fintech OPay ahead of a planned US listing at about a $4 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported on August 18. OPay swung to a net profit of $72.47 million in 2025 from a $50.98 million loss in 2024, with revenue up 161 percent to $536.25 million and gross transaction value more than doubling to $358 billion. Nigeria accounted for 88.1 percent of revenue. Separately, OPay said it now runs more than 5,000 real-time monitoring rules and has blocked over one million fake identities, holding transaction fraud below 0.001 percent.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery completed a $1 billion underwriting programme ahead of its planned IPO: a funded $600 million private placement plus a $400 million underwriting commitment. Adviser Marob Strategies, chaired by Benedict Oramah, said it would now distribute participation across sovereign wealth funds, governments and institutional investors, framing the deal under the AfCFTA.
Japanese agency JICA committed N20 billion to expand the Apapa transmission substation in Lagos, announced August 19. The same week, the Transmission Company of Nigeria commissioned two 60 MVA substations at Apapa Road and two 100 MVA transformers at Ijora, lifting Apapa to 180 MVA and Ijora to 230 MVA. ECOWAS revived its Startup Awards with a $65,000 prize pool, up from $40,000 in 2021, drawing more than 6,000 applications since August 3. Analytics Intelligence and OADC (a WIOCC Group company) partnered to roll out sovereign AI and NeoCloud services, offering AI processing units hosted in OADC's data centres.
Trend Three: Elections, Governance and Security Across the Region
Political transitions and their spillovers dominated the rest of the continent.
Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema was re-elected on August 18 with about 60 percent of the vote, against roughly 38 percent for challenger Brian Mundubile. Electoral commission head Mwangala Zaloumis said five of 226 constituencies remained uncounted. The campaign was marked by the arrest of 11 people, including six opposition figures, and a suspended vote count amid reported violence; Mundubile alleged, without evidence, that result sheets had been falsified. Zambia has had peaceful transfers of power at every election since 1991.
In Senegal, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who dismissed Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko on May 22, launched his own party, Kiiraay-Les Patriotes républicains, on July 25, ahead of the 2027 calendar.
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa called on SADC leaders at a Durban summit to jointly address irregular migration, after anti-migrant protests led more than 176,000 foreign nationals to leave in recent weeks. At least four migrants were killed. South Africa took over the rotating SADC chairship and proposed an Africa-wide migration conference.
A landslide at the Zamboye gold mine in western Central African Republic on August 19 buried dozens of miners; local officials estimated about 40 dead, other sources up to 100, with rescue teams still searching. The CAR has seen at least three other fatal mine collapses this year. In DR Congo, the eastern Ebola outbreak has become the deadliest in the country's history, with conflict, delayed detection and public distrust complicating the response.
Nigeria's Defence Minister, General Christopher Musa, told a Blueprint Newspaper lecture on August 19 that cyber attacks are now the greatest threat to the 2027 election, citing fabricated videos, cloned voices and coordinated disinformation.
On August 19, Beninese-born singer Angélique Kidjo became the first Black African to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, four decades into a career spanning 18 albums and five Grammys.