November 5, 2025
President Trump’s threat of military action against Nigeria, prompted by reports of Christian murders carried out by Islamist militants, which caused a major backlash in early November 2025 has significantly influenced investor sentiment, leading to selloffs in Nigerian equities, bonds, and the naira.
About N800 billion have lost by Investors since the US president made the critical tweets about Nigeria.
Medium- and large-cap stocks in the banking, oil and gas, and consumer goods sectors experienced the largest declines.
The tweets have culminated to selloffs in stocks such as SKYAVN -10.00 per cent, NASCON -10.00 per cent, OANDO -9.99 percent), NESTLE -9.66 per cent, NEM -8.20 percent, PZ -6.02 percent), GTCO -4.86 percent, ACCESSCORP -2.95 percent, UBA -2.47 per cent, ZENITHBANK -2.30 per cent, NB -2.10 percent, ETI -2.05 percent, DANGSUGAR -1.61 percent, and 27 others contributed to Tuesday’s decline.
Nigerian dollar-denominated bonds were not left out in the decline, making up all ten of the world’s worst-performing emerging-market bonds that day (yields increased as prices fell).
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Naira’s value dropped 1% against the dollar, and foreign exchange inflows plunged to $1.04 billion from $1.37 billion the previous week in the official foreign exchange market.
However, analysts view these downturns as buying opportunities, despite ongoing economic reforms in Nigeria and the strong year-to-date (YTD) performance of the Nigerian Exchange before these events.
Meanwhile Panic selling was triggered immediately after Trump’s post on X, where he labeled Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” and threatened intervention
Although analysts at Coronation Research had previously expected a “mild bullish tone” based on Q3 earnings, but this outlook quickly reversed. The Nigerian Stock Exchange’s YTD gain shrank from approximately 50% to 48% following the decline.
President Trump’s proposed tariffs, ranging from 20% to 60% on imports including those from emerging markets initiated earlier in 2025, triggered a global downturn that significantly affected the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NGX).
Bring an oil-dependent economy Nigeria is facing risks as non-oil industries deal with export restrictions, and increased U.S. shale production reduces demand for Nigerian crude oil.
Over the past decade, Nigeria has relied on the U.S. and its allies for over $7.8 billion in security support and humanitarian aid, a freeze or suspension of this aid given the poor performance in oil revenues could increase Nigeria’s borrowing needs and widen the fiscal gap.
