Mallam Kasimu Garba Kurfi, The MD of APT Securities and Funds Limited Talks on the GDP Growth, Economic Reforms, MPR Among Other Issues

Mallam Kasimu Garba Kurfi, MD, APT Securities and Funds Limited.

By Uche Ikebudu

Q: The GDP growth increased by 4.07 percent in Q4 2025. And Q2 2025, the GDP grew by 4.23 percent. This is the highest GDP growth in 10 years.What’s your take on the GDP growth trend and the economic reform policies of the present administration.

Ans: I think, so far so good and it proves beyond reasonable doubt that the policy of the government is really responding positively to the economy. Because when you look at the Gross Domestic Product, in 2023 at the time that the current government took over, we were just marginally 3.2 but now we’re talking are talking 3.87 or 3.9in 2025 ( 4.25percent and 4. in the 2nd quarter and 4th quarter of 2025 respectively). So this shows that things are are moving better and faster and we’re projecting even to higher up beyond 4 percent in 2026.

All these indicate that the economy is growing faster than the population, because where the economy is growing less than the population growth, you produce more poverty, because what it means is that you’re not able to meet up your population but now the economy is ahead of our population and therefore we are saying that if the economy continues this way, then the likely number of the poor will reduce, it’s just a matter of time, because, there is no way you will be having more growth into your economy and you will be increasing poverty. No way. It happened in China, in India, all where they were able to promote their GDP growth to 5, 6, 7 percent. The number of poverty reduced to the barest minimum. And this is what we are hoping the economic policies will continue to do. And if they continue with the trajectory definitely, surely, the growth of the GDP can hit 5 to 6 percent, there by doubling our population growth and meaning that the likely hood of the number of poor people will reduce is likely to come.

Q. You have just spoken about the economic agenda of Federal Government, I also would like to to talk about the stabilisation and appreciation of the Naira, as well as touch on the CBN monetary policies and what all these have done for the ececonomy.

Ans: Ok. The growth of the GDP is a summary of the economic activities, because if the economy is not doing well, there is no way the GDP will gross. So I can say in summary, it’s so far so good and it shows positive trend. However when you look at the individual policies, like monetary policy, we can say so far so good, CBN have tried their best. First in recapitalisation of the banks. Today most of our banks are , they’re not only good players in Nigeria, but good players across Africa. Take the case of UBA, Ecobank, Zenith, GTB, Access,, they’re all across Africa and doing very well. And this charity began at home because the CBN ensured that they are fully recapitalised beyond the need of Nigeria and that is why they were able to demonstrate better performance across Africa.

Secondly, The Monetary Policy, we were amazed that MPR went as high as 27.5 percent, which is the highest ever in the history of Nigeria, but gradually, it’s coming down, now it’s reduced to 26, we hope it will be further down, because in an economy such as ours we want lower interest rate. When we have lower interest rate, more companies will borrow and there will be more expansion in the country, more activities and more employment and this is what we are hoping to see but so far, we can say that they have tried in reducing the the MPR as well as improving the valuation of the currency.

If you look at it, there was a time the currency traded as much as 1, 800, 1900 per dollar. So today we are talking of 1, 350 and there is the hope that it may go further down. And the beauty of it is that is that people who are hoarding forex, dollar, they are no longer doing it, because from October last year to date, we are talking 5 consecutive months that the Naira keep on appreciating and the dollar keep on devaluing. Those who hoard the dollar they are loosing. So most of them have started bringing out their dollar in other to make sure that they go into other activities.One of the markets that benefitted from this is the equity market. We see the inflow of cash from forex into this market and foreign investors are also coming because the beauty of it is that now there is stability and they are assuring you that anytime anyday you want to withdraw your dollar, you can do it. This makes our ATM Card reliable. Now Nigerians have no fear to travel out with their ATM Card, even if it’s Naira, they will be able to withdraw, which has not been done before.

Apart from this, the European Tax Fund has also removed Nigeria from the blacklist, now what it means is that it gives more confidence for people to transact with Nigerians abroad in particular and all these have to do with the policies 9f the economy. And coming back to even the industry, if you look at it before the coming of this regime, they met over 5000 licensors for Bureau De Change, but due to recapitalisation, we are talking less than 5000 and therefore that also brought more sanity to the industry and allowed professionals in the business to sustain their business.

Aside that one, the increase in foreign reserves, today we are talking 34 to 35 billion dollars in foreign reserve from less than 4 billion that this administration met in 2023, and all these have to do with good policies.

Aside this, the Dangote Refinery today can substantially provide much of our consumption locally, therefore the Dangote Refinery buy crude only in Naira and that appreciates the value of the Naira and make the demand for dollars to import refined products less. So far, aviation fuel, diesel and to some extent PMS are all supplied by the Dangote Refinery and he seems to be equal to the task. He can meet most of our demands and that enhances the value of the Naira and also reduce the cue for fuel. For the past one year you hardly see any cue in any the filling stations. And the price keep going up and down according to the dictates of the international market.

Q: Let’s talk about Tax Reform and the Tax Identification Number. How do you think the government should streamline it’s activities around the TIN so as to not adversely affect non taxable individuals?

Ans: Well, you see, Tax Reform is one of the reforms that no body likes execpt the government. Across the world, anywhere there is tax reform you see individuals and companies will not like it, because paying more tax means more revenue to the State. When you look at the our competition of the Tax Revenue vis a vis a vis the GDP, you will see that our denomination is very low. We are talking about 10 percent. Across the world you will see that 25 to 30 percent of their revenues are generated from tax. In the tax reform they look at so many ways and one of the ways is to insist on Tax Identification Number, but having seen that it’s difficult to to generate TIN, they now change it to NIN. So they said they will use your NIN as your TIN (to generate your Tax Identification Number.). This is a welcome development and definitely sure, if they use it more people will be in the bracket of tax and more people will pay tax and the more tax you pay, the more revenue earned by the government.What we are hoping is that while they’re doing this reform in the tax the government would also look their responsibilities because there is no point in you asking that I must go and examine my car for road worthiness, so I have to pay to get my car road worthiness yet the roads are not worth travelling in. You see a lot of potholes on our roads. This is not good enough. If the government should insist that I must go and pay for the road worthiness check, then government should insure that the roads are worth travelling. A lot of accidents you hear on the in Nigeria are due to bad roads and this is no body’s responsibility but the government.Yes, the government should collect tax but the government should meet up with their responsibilities not only in roads but also in terms of health. We should have hospitals and maternities that people can go to and get access. Not you go and just get reference without adequate doctors to see. Don’t talk of even drugs. This is not good enough.And also we need to see that we improve our economy through lightning. If electricity is provided and available, I can tell you that our economy growth will be much better than where we are. We welcome the reform in the tax but we want the government to also look at their responsibilities in terms of good roads, electricity, health, education, security. Security. Insecurity is one of the issues that is retarding our economy and the earlier the government addressed insecurity the better for the economy and the common Man.

Q. MTN recently made over ₦5 trillion in turn over, how do you assess MTN as a company.

Ans: MTN is no longer only a telecoms company. They are going beyond telecommunications because they are providing data and with the new revised act of election, it shows that electoral results will be transferred through data, so more business for MTN. They do money transfers and e transact. I see MTN as a conglomerate. They are doing more than one thing at a time. So their achieving ₦5 trillion turnover is not a surprise. Today the living reality is that if you call your driver or security man and give him money, he will first buy data before he buys food. So what it means is that data first before food. And therefore I’m surprised for the turnover we have seen because of the demand for data. Most of the people cannot communicate without data because of the social means of communication. Without it you’re not communicating with the world. And you cannot do this without data. And when you buy more data they make more money and therefore having ₦5trillion turnover is not surprising for us.

Q. Lafarge Africa declared an interim dividend of ₦4 and then a dividend of ₦6, totalling ₦10 in dividend. Give us the back story of how they ended up paying this amount after paying much less in dividend for over 50 years of their operations in Nigeria.

Ans: Ok. Lafarge has been here for many years and initially but Blue Cycle, but then they now sold Lafarge Africa to to Huaxim Cement Company Ltd, a Chinese company and I think this is a blessing in disguise because Lafarge has been in Nigeria for over 50 years but nothing much achieved because to the best of my knowledge never paid more than ₦2in dividend. Today by the time the Chinese took over they paid interim dividend of ₦4 which is far ahead of any dividend they have paid before. And to round it off, they ended up with paying ₦6 to make it ₦10. Let me tell you, by their audited account 2025, they were able to achieve ₦1 trillion turnover and they were able to achieve an earning pet share of ₦17 per share.

In the history of Lafarge, they never achieved this. Out of ₦17, they now paid ₦10. That is about 60 percent of their earnings. This is not surprising.It is across board. BUA Cement decided to pay ₦10. Not only BUA Cement. Look at the issue of Dangote Cement, they come with their audited account and they decided to pay ₦45 which they have never paid before.So it seems like in the industry they are making a lot of money and in view of this, we want the government to look at this.

The truth of the matter is that a bag of cement now costs about ₦10,000 and this shouldn’t be because gypsum and other raw materials are all available and the huge profits declared by these companies show you that they’re making a lot of money from selling cement and the government need to look at it to see that there is a concession that they reduce the price they’re charging us so that they make a profit and the price of cement will be much less, so that more infrastructure and development across the board will take place especially housing deficit will be bridged.

We need the government to build more houses so that the people will have a decent living. Anywhere you see a decent accommodation people will live peacefully. And this is common across the world. Anywhere you get a decent environment, people are living peacefully because people have accommodation. People without accommodation are always in crisis.Therefore we need the government’s intervention. But Lafarge has done very well but the should see that the price of cement become cheaper, so that the common Man can afford it and at the same time they make their profit. Not as huge as they are making now.

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