KEY POINTS
- More than 80 percent of women-owned businesses in Nigeria lack access to formal credit, the federal government says.
- Women make up over 50 percent of Nigeria’s population and over 40 percent of agricultural labor but remain locked out of capital markets.
- SEC says only about 7 percent of CEOs of listed Nigerian companies are women.
Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, Nigeria’s minister of women affairs and social development, has put a hard number to a long-standing problem. More than 80 percent of women-owned businesses in the country operate without any access to formal credit, throttling their ability to scale or contribute meaningfully to economic growth.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim made the disclosure Monday in Abuja at the grand finale of the “Give-to-Gain” Summit marking 2026 International Women’s Month. She said the credit gap is choking women-led enterprises and limiting their contribution to national growth.
A bigger share, smaller seat at the table
Notably, women account for more than 50 percent of Nigeria’s population and contribute over 40 percent of the agricultural labor force. Yet, the minister said, they have little access to finance, land and structured economic opportunities.
Specifically, most women-led enterprises sit in the informal sector, where banks rarely lend and growth capital rarely flows. Sulaiman-Ibrahim called for targeted interventions to expand access to credit and markets. She framed the credit gap as a development tax that quietly erodes women’s economic potential year after year.
At the same event, Bola Ajomale, the SEC’s executive commissioner for operations, represented Director-General Emomotimi Agama and doubled down on the message. Agama urged the country to integrate women more fully into Nigeria’s capital market to build wealth and drive long-term growth.
Furthermore, Agama said Nigerian women own about 41 percent of micro-businesses and number an estimated 23 million entrepreneurs. However, they rarely access capital market instruments that enable wealth creation and business expansion.
“The capital market provides the bridge between income and wealth. It enables enterprises to raise growth capital and allows households to build assets over time,” Agama said.
Inclusion improving, gap widening
Although financial inclusion among women improved to 70 percent in 2023, the gender gap has actually widened. Specifically, the rate of progress for women trails the broader population, leaving the divide more visible than before.
Moreover, regional disparities run deep. Northern Nigeria carries the heaviest financial exclusion, especially among women, farmers and dependents. The patchwork picture means national averages mask sharper local gaps.
Agama urged listed companies, market operators, institutional investors and policymakers to take deliberate steps to lift women’s representation. Notably, only about 7 percent of chief executives of listed Nigerian companies are women.
Additionally, the SEC plans to integrate gender considerations into sustainable finance frameworks, support women-led enterprises through targeted financial instruments and strengthen investor protection to build market confidence.
“The full participation of Nigerian women in the capital market is not a social aspiration; it is the economic arithmetic of our national ambition,” Agama said.
Agama said Nigeria’s ambition of a $1 trillion economy depends on the full participation of women, particularly through capital market opportunities. With formal credit still out of reach for 80 percent of women-led businesses, the gap between aspiration and reality remains hard to close. The next step, by both the SEC’s reckoning and the minister’s, is whether policy follows the diagnosis.
