Corporate Affairs Commission

Medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) play a significant role in the building and sustenance of a nation's economy. Small and medium scale enterprises constitute about 80% of Nigerian businesses and therefore are very crucial to the Nigerian economy. However, MSMEs mostly depend on credit facilities to build and sustain their companies but have little of immovable assets to offer as security. Another challenge of MSMEs is poor management and governance, which also is a credit risk.

In his contribution to this symposium on Eleanor Fox and Mor Bakhoum’s book, Making Markets Work for Africa: Markets, Development, and Competition Law in Sub-Saharan Africa (OUP, 2019), Jasper Lubeto notes the omission of Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, as a case study in the book. This excellent book went to press before Nigeria’s competition law came into force in January this year. To add to the rich discussion in this symposium, this essay discusses the historical development of Nigeria’s new competition law as well as the players and forces that shaped it. Finally, it reflects on the challenges and opportunities open to the new agency established to oversee competition law and policy in Nigeria. This essay also precedes two other essays on Nigerian competition law in the next two days.