Damimola Olawuyi

"Nigeria teems with a new breed of rich Nigerians — rich with hopes. Every week, they do the football pools, hoping they can add to their lean resources. Pools agencies have found it a lucrative business. So powerful is the grip of this gambling craze on Nigerians." — TRUST, 1973

Nigerian Police Force Microfinance Bank just dropped its Q1 2026 numbers and not a single loan went bad. Zero. Even with loans at 23.5% from a pool of ₦2.7bn to MSMEs, no defaults recorded. Are defaulters scared or they do something differently?

UBA should have realized that the current crop of investors on the NGX are far smarter and more savvy than generations past... Access to information is at our fingertips than ever before. We now make use of tools such as LLM's that didn't exist 5 years ago, and financial literacy is improving at a very high & impressive rate. So give us some credit & don't treat us like E-idiots that don't know their left from their right. You goofed when you failed to report the FY 2025 situation early, like a responsible institution should, to her shareholders so they can make informed decisions on whether or not to move their money or ride the storm with you. You added insult to the injury yesterday by trying to use paid influencers.. "To do what exactly?" What was the plan? To sway folks that put hundreds of thousands or, in some cases, millions of their hard earned NAIRA on a stock they believed will perform??? Una no try at all...

Another thing, the Nigerian market must improve on is earnings reporting culture. How can you keep investors waiting forever then when you like you drop it, are our banks and organisations bigger than the likes of JP Morgan, Bank of America & Co who have AUM's in hundreds of billions of USD and in some cases Trillions of USD??? $NVDA the biggest company in the world by Market Cap and others in the US markets had done their earnings call for FY 2025 before Q1 2026 ended and gave us guidance for the new year. Reports should come out much earlier and with clear timelines, In the NYSE and wider U.S. markets, investors already know when companies are reporting. Earnings dates are communicated in advance, calls are scheduled, guidance is discussed, and the market can prepare accordingly. That is how a serious market functions. On the NGX, investors are too often left hanging until a company decides when it wants to drop results. No consistency, no certainty, no proper investor communication. It creates unnecessary speculation, weakens confidence, and makes the market feel less efficient than it should be. Investors should not have to guess when audited numbers will appear. The Government, Nigerian Exchange Group, and Securities and Exchange Commission Nigeria all have to sit up in this regard if we want our markets to stand tall on the global stage. Strong markets are built on standards, enforcement, transparency, and discipline. If we truly want deeper participation, stronger local confidence, and increased foreign interest, reporting standards and investor communication must improve. The numbers matter, but the process matters even more.

UBA Q1 2026 is out and I don’t know who’s defending this one. ₦801B revenue but only ₦147B profit. Costs up 30%. Impairments almost tripled. FX revaluation wiped ₦342B off the books. And operating cash flow? Negative ₦2.2 trillion. They raised ₦395B from shareholders last year through a rights issue. EPS still fell 42% to ₦3.11. No dividend either. Monday morning will tell us everything we need to know.