By Osaretin Osadebamwen
In a decisive move to reshape Nigeria’s financial landscape, The Alternative Bank (AltBank), on Thursday, convened an exclusive private intelligence forum in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Themed ‘Beyond Interest’, the high-level gathering brought together investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and institutional leaders to champion a new paradigm for capital deployment—one that measures success not just by returns, but by the productive capacity it builds within the economy.
The programme, which was also supported by AltDrive and Nigeria’s first full-fledged composite takaful operator, Noor Takaful, featured a series of intelligence briefings from public-sector leaders, capital-market operators and non-interest finance advocates.
Opening the forum, Muhtar Bakare, Chairman of The Alternative Bank, delivered a compelling diagnosis of Nigeria’s economic stagnation.
He argued that the nation’s core constraint is less a shortage of financial resources than a critical deficiency in the trust required to deploy patient capital for long-term development.
“What we lack is not effort. We lack capital that stays long enough to turn effort into capacity, capacity into durable jobs and durable jobs into stability,” Bakare stated. He underscored the critical distinction between “extractive” capital—which harvests value without strengthening the economy—and “productive” capital, which invests in enterprises, assets, and systems that generate sustainable wealth for workers, suppliers, and the nation.
Delivering a keynote address, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, represented by Commissioner for Finance Abayomi Oluyomi, positioned the state as a catalyst for private investment, citing Lagos’s infrastructure programme, the state’s recent dual bond issuance and the Lekki corridor as instances of public action changing the risk-return calculus for private investors.
“The future of finance is not only about the price of capital; it is increasingly about the quality of the economic activity that capital enables. Lagos is not only open for business; Lagos is prepared to do business,” Sanwo-Olu stated.
Reinforcing this sentiment, former Governor and Minister Babatunde Raji Fashola urged investors to prioritize investments anchored to tangible, productive assets over those chasing short-term yields, arguing that capital tied to the public good delivers more durable value.
Abubakar Suleiman, a pioneer of Non-Interest Banking in Nigeria and Board Member of Sterling Financial Holdings, detailed The Alternative Bank’s evolution from a modest non-interest window in 2014 to a standalone institution with assets approaching ₦500 billion, serving nearly a million customers.
He championed a “full ledger” approach to investment that accounts for impacts on customers, employees, communities, and infrastructure alongside investor returns.
“The Alternative Bank has shown that non-interest banking can grow, win customers, and generate profit. The business case for ethical capital already exists. Our task is to apply it with discipline,” said Suleiman.
He pointed to WasteBanc, AltBank’s recycling initiative with the Lagos Waste Management Authority, and to Nigeria’s sovereign Sukuk programme as evidence that values-aligned finance can hold to commercial standards while connecting capital to identifiable, productive assets.
The forum also tackled broader structural challenges. Dr. Stanley Jacob of Meristem argued that Africa’s core financial challenge is infrastructural, not one of liquidity, and that the convergence of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) with the tokenisation of real-world assets could hand Nigeria a first-mover advantage in continental capital markets.
Ajibola Tobi-Osho seconded the point, noting that while Nigeria has moved from crisis management to macroeconomic stability, the binding constraint has shifted from inflation to capital allocation, with banks parking record liquidity at the central bank rather than lending to the businesses that drive jobs and growth.
‘Beyond Interest’ drew a room of senior investors, executives and public-sector leaders, including Olatunji Mayaki, Hassan Yusuf, Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes, Tonye Cole, Aminu Tukur, Korede Demola-Adeniyi, Chief Idris Olorunnimbe, Yemi Keri, Sadiq Dantata, Garba Mohammed, Dr. Adesegun Akin-Olugbade, Sulaiman Adedokun, Jimi Ogbobine, and more.
The forum concluded as a pivotal moment for Nigeria’s financial sector, pressing stakeholders to judge every investment by the capacity it builds, marking a crucial reckoning in the nation’s pursuit of durable economic stability.
