By Akaninyene Esiere
So far, June has been my busiest month in 2026 yet. Trying to draw the curtain on my career spanning 33 years post-NYSC didn’t come easy. As my sixtieth birthday on June 18 drew near, I realized I had a lot of work to do before my last day at work on June 17. I had some official travels to do and some HR stuff to conclude before the D-Day. When I was suppose to be slowing down, I still had a lot on my plate. On my last day at work, I woke up before 3 AM and started working. It wasn’t what I had desired, but I had to do it!
Add to these were the ongoing World Cup and the just concluded Wimbledon Grand Slam. It was obvious that a few things had to give, and, sadly one of them was your REFLECTIONS! I missed one or two editions as I couldn’t steady myself to put my mind on what to write about talk-less of actually getting to write.
It would not be out of place for me to thank so many people who made my last month at work and my birthday month so memorable. Two even went out of their way to arrange send forth events because they missed group events. My HR family made my final exit even more memorable. I am grateful and truly indebted.
As would be expected, as these things were going on, I did not take my eyes totally off some of the happenings nationally and globally. Two of such events will be highlighted here:
1. THE MELTDOWN AT NGX
No one expected it; no one predicted it; but it happened at a rate that caused more than a shock. One of the major happenings of June was the near meltdown of the Nigerian capital market. In just one month, N13.3 Trillion was wiped off the market. This had never happened before. By this I mean the loss of such wealth in the market in one given month. Never. The closest was last November when N5 Trillion was lost in one day following the fear that the Tinubu’s capital gains tax increase caused.
Let me put that figure in proper context. The N13.3 Trillion loss translated to a N443.33 Billion loss each day of the month, weekends inclusive. The daily loss is exactly the 2026 budget of Ebonyi State (N444B), and just under those of Adamawa (N486B); Bauchi (N467B); and Plateau (N499B) states. It is well over those of Yobe (N371B); Osun (N427B); Nasarawa (N382B); Gombe (N369B); Taraba (N436B), and Ekiti (N375B) states.
The N13.3 Trillion loss in June represented nearly 9 percent of the Nigerian Capital Market capitalization, and about the entire 2026 budgets of the first ten states with the highest budget figures combined and the budgets of 21 poorest states combined; and over three times the budget of Lagos, by far the richest state in the country.
The one month loss is more than a third of the 2026 budget of Ghana, West Africa’s second largest economy; and Nigeria’s closest brother-nation.
In theory, the capital market lost N13.3 trillion in June. The reality is that it is not the market that lost that amount but the over two million Nigerian equity investors who lost their money, their savings and their investments. This perspective humanizes better what June did to the market. Out of that amount that was wiped out, Aliko Dangote, by far Africa’s richest man, had a very deep haircut as he lost over N3 trillion, more than double the 2026 budget of his home state, Kano. Many big companies lost over a trillion Naira each.
What caused such unprecedented losses? Many blame it on profit taking and the usual market correction. Partly true. But the main culprit for the crash was the Nigeria Exchange Group’s (NGX) introduction of the T+1; the introduction of Trading Day plus One extra day for the settlement of tradings. This came into effect on June 1. The huge loss was never imagined nor anticipated. In fact the exact opposite was hoped for; that aligning the market with “global best practices” of a day settlement after trading would ginger the market more and attract more foreign investors into the market. That move backfired as the very foreign investors in the market did the exact opposite: they pulled out their money at the introduction of the new settlement regime and the market turned belly up.
For industry watchers, much of the month of May was used to drum up the wonders that the new settlement regime would bring. Every investment house, registrars and other capital market operators went to town touting the immense benefits that the new regime was going to bring.
It did not take long for the market to respond negatively as from the blast of the whistle on June 1, stocks started falling and they fell literally every trading day throughout the month of June.
The fear of what that new regime would bring made foreign portfolio investors nervous and they started calling up their money by offloading their stocks. Local traders panicked and followed suit thus dragging the market further down.
Proof that the fall was triggered by foreign investors selling their holdings is not far fetched as most of the stocks that dropped acceleratingly were big ones where foreign investors hold stocks. They are the stocks usually referred to as the SWOOTs (Stocks Worth Over One Trillion Naira). These stocks lost weight very disproportionately in June. In fact, of the N13.3 trillion market loss, SWOOTs took both the lion and the elephant shares of nearly N12 trillion.
Most of these stocks were
Aradel Holdings, BUA Cement, Dangote Cement, FirstHoldco, GTCO, MTN Nigeria, Zenith Bank, Seplat Energy, Okomu Oil, Lafarge (now HBM), Fidelity Bank, Wema Bank, Geregu Power, International Breweries and Ecobank International. The only SWOOT that had a gain in June was Airtel.
Profit taking, dividend payments adjustments and usual market corrections contributed to the June market decline, but not as much as the fear of what the new T+1 settlement regime would be.
Following the new settlement regime and the dramatic market fall, FTSE Russel, a global (read Western) provider of stock market indexes and investment benchmarking services wholly owned by the London Stock Market Exchange, did a greater damage to the market by withholding the reclassification of the NGX as a “Frontier” market; something that it was willing to do in September which helped drive the gains that we saw in May.
The panic in the market made the leadership of the Nigerian Exchange Group go to London last week to meet with Russel and international investors to assure them that the situation was stable and safe for their investments. Interestingly,
none of the impacted 25 SWOOTs had any negative corporate reports in June. Their prospects and fundamentals are still very strong and will soon be declaring robust second quarter earnings.
Thankfully, the market has started a sluggish recovery in July; but no keen market watcher will forget June 2026 in a hurry.
2. THAT MEMORANDUM OF (MIS)UNDERSTANDING
Donald Trump, both the 45th and 47th President of the United States of America likes to brag about his deals making prowess. On June 17, 2026 he stunned the world with an unTrumplike Memorandum of Understanding he signed with Iran. That was beneath the man. He literally apologized to Iran for the war he started and paid reparations with the MOU. In one word, he declared Iran the winner of the 39 days war with the Persian nation.
Not many in the western world and the Arab community could understand what that meant. Israel was even livid about it; and somewhat knew it would not stand up to scrutiny.
Only if Iran had “chopped and cleaned mouth”, as they say in Nigerian local parlance. Iran did not only go to town feeling triumphant but also rattling the king of Mar-a-Lago, who had been whipped by the opposition as a loser, by restarting attacks on ships sailing through the now famous Strait of Hormuz.
What surprised me was that the attacks on the ships started within the days Iran was conducting the funeral ceremonies of its former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The country had sounded out that it was conducting the ceremonies, which had been delayed for over four months following the hostilities, and had warned America and Israel not to attack her during the period. What then happened that Iran decided to attack the ships on the sea during that period? A huge miscalculation, if you ask me.
His ego having been severely bruised by the June 17 MOU, Trump was looking for opportunity to remedy it. And Iran gave it to him on platters as America did not waste time retaliating with attacks on Iranian ports and military installations.
Today, the situation has deteriorated with the blockading of Iranian ports, the destruction of its military infrastructure, and the throwing of missiles on the Gulf States. Oil prices that had dropped to pre war levels have started to rise again.
The crisis in the Middle East is slicker than the black gold that gushes out of its belly.
REFLECTIONS! in your hands!
As part of my 60th birthday celebration, I decided to publish some of the REFLECTIONS! articles in a book form with the same title REFLECTIONS! A 311 page collector’s item, I could not squeeze all the articles into one book.
I strongly recommend it for students studying Mass Communication in higher institutions.
You can reach me at [email protected] or contact the publisher via WhatsApp +234 908 327 5507 for a copy or bulk purchase.
Esiere is a former journalist!
©️2026
