Mr. O’tega Ogra, Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Digital Engagement and New Media and President of Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN), has challenged Nigerian businesses to build brands and solutions that go beyond Lagos and compete across Africa and the world.
Ogra delivered the keynote address today at The Industry Newspaper’s Top 50 Nigerian Companies of Impact 2026 Awards held at the Lagos Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, themed “Building Resilience, Driving Growth: Nigerian Companies Shaping the Next Decade.”
He opened with the example of Bergmans Security Consultant and Supplies Limited, a Nigerian firm now leading the $3.1 billion AfCFTA customs modernisation project. “A few days ago, Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of AfCFTA, arrived at Nigeria Customs and saw B’Odogwu, our Unified Customs Management System, already running,” Ogra said.
“The Secretariat had options. Companies from outside Africa wanted the work too. It chose an African company. A Nigerian company.”
Through its subsidiaries AfriTrade CMP Limited and Trade Modernisation Project Limited, Bergmans will implement the continental project after proving the model in Nigerian ports. “The Nigerian market became its proving ground. The expertise developed here is now being taken to the continent,” Ogra stated. “Companies that learn to build functioning systems in difficult conditions acquire experience that travels.”
Ogra said the kind of resilience Nigeria needs now is not just about survival. “There is ingenuity in a manufacturer generating his own electricity. There is ingenuity in an SME rebuilding its model every time costs change. But there is also a lot of productive energy being consumed by those problems,” he noted.
“Our ambition over the next decade should be to make it easier for Nigerian companies to spend more of their energy competing and less of it compensating. That requires the government to do its work. It also places an obligation on business.”
He cited banks, fintech, Nollywood, and Nigerian music as sectors that turned local challenges into global advantages. “Nigeria gives our companies something many businesses elsewhere would envy: a huge domestic market in which to learn. The question is what we do with it.”
As ADVAN President, Ogra said Nigerian brands must travel with Nigerian culture. “Our culture already travels extraordinarily well. Our businesses should travel with them. We should be building more Nigerian brands for which Lagos is the beginning of the story, not the limit of the market.”
He stressed that trust, not just attention, will define the next decade. “In advertising, attention can be bought. Trust cannot. The consumer eventually decides what the brand means.”
On technology, Ogra said AI is no longer a future event. “The useful question is what happens when a task that took three days can be done in an afternoon. What happens when a manufacturer can anticipate machine failure? That is where AI becomes useful to me: when it becomes productivity.”
He added that the companies shaping the next decade will be those that apply technology to real problems quickly.
Ogra urged the media and corporate Nigeria to tell a more balanced story of the country. “Nigeria cannot understand itself only through its failures. A new factory is part of the Nigerian story. A Nigerian company winning a continental assignment is part of it, too. Confidence is also built from evidence.”
He defined “Companies of Impact” by the question: “What became possible because this company existed? Perhaps somebody got a first job. A local supplier grew. A technology platform made thousands of SMEs more productive. Or a Nigerian company built infrastructure at home that became relevant to an entire continent.”
Congratulating the 2026 honourees, Ogra said the recognition should come with pressure. “Nigeria needs many more companies worthy of this list. Businesses capable of solving difficult problems here, employing Nigerians, and discovering that what they learned at home has value elsewhere.”
“Ten years from now, I hope people routinely come here to study Nigerian companies, Nigerian technology, Nigerian manufacturing and Nigerian brands because something built here has become the reference point elsewhere. That is a more useful measure of resilience. And a much more ambitious definition of impact.”
The annual list recognises Nigerian companies driving national development through job creation, innovation, governance, and measurable social impact.
