Capital Markets and Entrepreneurship in Kano

Capital markets.

Merchants from Kano built trading networks

extending across West Africa

and through the Trans-Sahara trade routes to North

Africa and beyond.

Commerce is therefore not new to Kano.

Investment is not new to Kano.

Entrepreneurship is not new to Kano, and you can

actually testify

when you see people like myself

being an entrepreneur,

born and bred in Kano.

So the patient accumulation of wealth across

generations is certainly not new

to this great city we are in,

led by

our own, our Emir,

His Highness,

the Emir Muhammad Sanusi

II CON, who has wealth of experience, not only

in the Emirship, but in governance.

What we are discussing today is how we take that

tradition, great tradition

of enterprise into another dimension.

From enterprise to ownership, from savings wealth

to investing wealth, and from participating

commerce to participating in ownership of productive

assets.

It is therefore fitting

that we gather here today to discuss another important

dimension of that tradition, ownership of productive

enterprise through the capital market.

Today is about an IPO, but I

believe the larger idea for, uh, before us

is much more than more significant.

It is about how we can broaden participation in the

ownership of successful Nigerian businesses

and give more Nigerians

an opportunity to share the value created by our

country's productive enterprises.

Over the years,

Dangote Group has worked to demonstrate that Africans

consent-- can, can, can conceive,

finance, build, and operate businesses at

ownership of the wealth that these enterprises create