The budget of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for 2025 is 49.7 trillion Naira. At the rate of 1,545 Naira to a dollar, this is roughly 32 billion dollars.
There is a nice summary of the budget here.
According to ChatGPT, NigeraPropertyCentre.com is a “prominent online real estate platform in Nigeria”. Maybe we can use this site to try and have some insight into the Nigerian economy.
At about 1:24 pm GMT (2:24 pm Nigerian time), I visited the For Sale page of Nigeria Property Centre. I browsed properties for sale. The first page has 21 properties listed. The aggregate value of the first 20 houses for sale is 140 trillion Naira, 91 billion dollars roughly. Here is the link.
Two of the properties listed are the following:
- https://nigeriapropertycentre.com/for-sale/commercial/lagos/ikeja/2625899-7-storey-commercial-building
- https://nigeriapropertycentre.com/for-sale/land/commercial-land/rivers/port-harcourt/1780714-oil-well-land
These two properties alone are worth more than the budget.
The 2025 budget allocates 3.5 trillion Naira on education. More than 8 of the 21 houses on the first page are listed for prices exceeding the whole education budget.
In comparison, the UK commits 94.3 billion pounds to education. I am not aware of a property listed anywhere in the UK close to that value. The most expensive listed property in the UK is the Holme in Regent Park. It is listed at 250 million dollars. This amount is less than 1% of the education budget.
The most expensive commercial property deal in the UK is 1.3 billion pounds. Actually to my surprise, the second most expensive commercial property (valued at 1.2 billion pounds) in the UK is the head office of my employer in Central London. To be honest, it doesn’t feel like that inside the building! At least seven properties listed on Nigeria Property Centre cost more than the most expensive commercial property in the UK.
Due to reputation of Nigeria Property Centre, I do not think these are made up numbers. Let’s assume these are the real prices.
Nigeria has a great opportunity to raise money from these property sales. In the UK, stamp duty starts from 0% when your property is less than 250,000 pounds in value. It increases to 12% when your property is 1.5 million pounds or more.
In Nigeria, stamp duty appears to be around 1.5% of property value, depending on the state. It’s strange that in some states of Nigeria, stamp duty is charged on leases. It also applies to tenancy agreements, loans, and mortgages. And even on rents!
If the prices at this site are real, properties prices in some Nigerian cities are very high. They are high compared to the UK. If the Nigerian government implements stamp duties akin to those in the UK, it will significantly increase revenue. This revenue will raise a third of the 2025 budget. This revenue would come from just the top 20 properties listed on the first page of this site.
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