By Bamidele Atoyebi

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recent call for Nigerians to begin teaching their wards about the stock market has stoked a deep sense of fulfilment in me because it speaks directly to a vision I have been espousing in the mining sector since 2024: catching our children young, ingraining on their minds opportunities, and giving them practical knowledge of opportunities about wealth that exist around them.

When Mr. President recently hosted the Nigerian stock market team and was shown the performance and progress of the market, he did not stop at acknowledging that the market was doing well. He took the conversation further. He said:

“So if the stock market is doing well, well, we are doing well. If we can teach this in the classroom to our undergraduates…”

He further spoke about building a nation of prosperity, encouraging private-sector investment, stabilising the currency, creating trust in the economy and, most importantly, challenging Nigerians to interrogate ourselves about what we are producing that other nations are not which gives us comparative advantage.

For me, that statement goes far beyond the stock market.

Nigeria’s capital market itself provides a striking context for that conversation. When President Tinubu assumed office in May 2023, the NGX All-Share Index stood at 55,769.28 points, with equity-market capitalisation at about ₦30.37 trillion. By August 2026, the index had risen to roughly 242,000 points, while market capitalisation had moved above ₦160 trillion at various points in 2026. FGN bond yields and the CBN’s Monetary Policy Rate have also risen substantially, reflecting a very different fixed-income and monetary environment. The figures demonstrate the scale of the market’s expansion and repricing since 2023, even though inflation, exchange-rate movements, new share issuance and bank recapitalisation mean that nominal market growth should not be equated directly with real investor wealth.

It reinforces a philosophy I have propounded for years: we must begin economic education early. We must catch our people young. We must expose our children to opportunities before they grow up believing that the only respectable or available paths in life are medicine, law, engineering and a few other conventional professions.

This is exactly why, in 2024, I wrote Nigerian States and Their Mineral Resources for Primary and Secondary School Pupils.

The idea came after deliberations with my wife and thereafter I began to reflect deeply on the enormous mineral wealth God has given Nigeria. I asked myself a simple question: How can a Nigerian child develop an interest in what Nigeria possesses when that child does not even know what exists beneath the soil of his or her own community?

Nigeria is blessed with abundant rare earth mineral resources. But there are people living in communities, local government areas and states where these resources exist who are oblivious that they have them. And if people do not know what they have, how can they begin to think about developing it? How can they build businesses around it? How can they invest in it? How can they acquire the skills necessary to participate in the value chain?

That was the gap I wanted to address.

My book was therefore not written simply to teach children the names of minerals. I wanted to begin a process of economic awakening.

I wanted a child in primary or secondary school to open the book and discover that there are resources in his or her own state. I wanted that child to begin asking questions. I wanted the child to know that beyond becoming a doctor, lawyer or engineer, there are opportunities to become a mining engineer, geologist, mineral explorer, environmental scientist, investor, entrepreneur, processor, equipment supplier, artisan miner, researcher, policymaker and much more.

The objective is to expand the imagination of the Nigerian child.

A child who knows that gold exists in a particular part of Nigeria can begin to imagine what responsible gold mining can mean. A child who learns about limestone can begin to understand that limestone is not merely a word in a textbook but a resource that can support industries. A child who learns about tin, kaolin, gypsum, barite, marble and other minerals can begin to understand that every part of Nigeria is endowed with something valuable to contribute.

That is the kind of consciousness I want to build.

And this is where President Tinubu’s recent statement gives me particular joy.

If Mr. President can say that our children should learn about the stock market in the classroom so that they can understand investment and the opportunities available to them, then it justifies exactly what I have been saying about the mining sector.

Why should we wait until a Nigerian is 25, 30 or 40 before introducing him or her to investment?

Why should we wait until a young person has graduated from university before telling that person that Nigeria has enormous opportunities in mining?

Why should our children grow up thinking only about a few professions when there are entire industries they have never been introduced to?

We have to catch them young.

We have to teach them.

We have to open their minds.

And we have to move beyond theory.

This is why the book I wrote is already designed for primary and post-primary school students. I do not want mining education to become another subject where pupils memorise definitions, write examinations and forget everything immediately afterwards.

We want to practicalise it.

The vision is to develop a robust programme around the book that will take children beyond simply reading about Nigeria’s mineral resources and help them understand the practical opportunities associated with them.

The book has already received the support and appreciation of the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake, who wrote the Foreword.

In that Foreword, the Minister captured the essence of what we are trying to achieve. He recognised that Nigeria’s mineral wealth is not valuable merely because it exists beneath our soil. Its real value depends on the knowledge, imagination and capacity of the generation that will inherit it.

That is exactly my conviction.

Resources alone do not create prosperity. People create prosperity from resources.

Gold sitting beneath the ground does not create jobs until somebody has the knowledge, skills, capital, technology and institutions to develop it responsibly.

A mineral deposit does not automatically create a thriving community.

A stock market does not automatically create investors.

A country can possess enormous wealth and still remain poor if its people do not understand how to identify, develop and participate in that wealth.

That is why education is so important.

And this is also why I see a strong connection between President Tinubu’s statement on the stock market and the mining education initiative I have been pursuing.

The President is saying, in essence, that we should introduce our children early to the economic mechanisms that can create prosperity.

I am saying the same thing about our natural resources.

Teach them what they have. Teach them how it works. Teach them what opportunities exist. Then give them the skills to participate.

That is how we build a generation that does not merely look for jobs but understands how to create value.

It is also consistent with what I have always believed about President Tinubu’s leadership philosophy.

I have said repeatedly that I have studied Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s political and leadership philosophy from a very young age. I have deliberately sought to understand the principles behind his approach to leadership, governance, people development, grassroots engagement and progressive politics.

For me, tapping into political spirit is not simply about being around a political leader.

If you do not respect the source, if you do not crave the source and if you do not study the source, you cannot genuinely tap into what that source represents.

I have craved that political knowledge and leadership orientation for years. I have studied it. I have tried to understand it. And I have tried to translate what I have learnt into practical initiatives.

That is why I sometimes find it remarkable when I develop an idea and, at another time, hear President Tinubu re-echoing a similar principle.

It is not necessarily about who said something first.

Sometimes, a leader may articulate an idea before you hear it. Sometimes, you may independently arrive at a similar conclusion because you have been studying the same leadership philosophy and are responding to the same national realities.

What matters to me is the alignment.

I have experienced this in different areas.

When we started BAT Ideology, one of the things I was passionate about was how we could ensure that even when not everybody could be appointed into government, everybody could still be carried along.

How do we make people useful where they are?

How do we mentor and coach our members so that they can take responsibility within their communities?

How do we make people understand that leadership is not simply about waiting for an appointment?

How do we build people who can take care of their grassroots, their local communities and their states without constantly depending on somebody above them?

I described some of these principles as Politics 101 and Politics 701.

The idea was simple: leadership must multiply itself.

You cannot personally solve every problem. You cannot appoint everybody. But you can develop people, empower them, give them a sense of responsibility and create structures through which they can contribute.

That philosophy of building people rather than merely occupying positions is one of the things I have continued to admire.

It is the same philosophy behind my approach to mining education.

I do not want to wait until government creates thousands of mining jobs before young Nigerians participate in the sector.

I want to prepare young Nigerians who will create, manage, invest in and expand those opportunities.

This is also why I believe Mr. President’s vision of a $1 trillion economy is achievable.

He has said that Nigeria has the population, the brains and the audacity to pursue a $1 trillion economy. I agree.

But to achieve that ambition, we must build the human resources that will make it happen.

We must produce investors.

We must produce entrepreneurs.

We must produce innovators.

We must produce scientists.

We must produce mining engineers.

We must produce geologists.

We must produce manufacturers.

We must produce people who understand the capital market.

We must produce people who understand technology.

We must produce people who can look at a problem and see a business opportunity.

And that education cannot start only at university level.

It must start from the classroom.

That is why President Tinubu’s statement resonates so deeply with what I have already been working on.

The mining book has been ready for primary and post-primary school students since 2024. Its formal launch has been delayed by procurement-related processes we have experienced within the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, but the vision itself has not changed.

In fact, the President’s latest statement has strengthened my conviction that we are on the right path.

We are not interested in producing another book that sits on a shelf.

We want to use the book as a foundation for something practical and much bigger: a structured programme that can expose Nigerian children to the mineral resources of their states and the careers, businesses, investments and innovations that can emerge from those resources.

I want the child to be able to say: This is what we have in my state. This is what it means. This is what can be built from it. This is the skill I can acquire. This is the business I can establish. This is how I can contribute.

That is how we change the mindset.

And if we can do that with mining, we can do it with the capital market. We can do it with technology. We can do it with agriculture. We can do it with manufacturing. We can do it across all sectors where Nigeria has an opportunity.

We should stop educating our children merely to pass examinations.

We should educate them to recognise possibilities.

Nigeria’s greatest natural resource is not only what is beneath the ground. It is also what is inside the minds of its young people.

That is why I believe knowledge is the first mine we must open.

Before we extract gold, we must extract ideas.

Before we develop minerals, we must develop minds.

Before we create investors, entrepreneurs and industrialists, we must introduce children to the possibility that they can become those people.

This is why I am excited by the President’s stock-market message.

For me, it is another reminder that the direction is right.

I have always believed that we must catch our people young. We must give them value orientation. We must expose them to opportunities. We must teach them that Nigeria is not simply a country where they were born; Nigeria is an economic territory filled with possibilities that they can understand, develop and transform.

This is also what we stand for in BAT Ideology.

Our responsibility is not simply to talk about politics. It is to build people.

It is to develop leadership capacity.

It is to expose young Nigerians to possibilities.

It is to make them understand that they have a role to play in building the Nigeria they desire.

So when President Tinubu says we should teach our children about the stock market, I do not hear only a statement about the stock exchange.

I hear a larger philosophy:

Catch them young.

Teach them early.

Open their minds.

Give them practical knowledge.

Expose them to investment and enterprise.

Let them understand what Nigeria possess and prepare them to turn those possibilities into prosperity.

That is exactly the spirit behind my mining book.

And that is why I see the President’s statement as more than an interesting coincidence. To me, it is a powerful reaffirmation of the direction I have chosen.

I have always said that if I raise an idea today, I may hear President Tinubu re-echo it tomorrow or perhaps he had articulated the same principle before and I simply encountered it later. Either way, what matters is that the progressive leadership philosophy is aligned.

That alignment gives me greater confidence that we are thinking in the direction Nigeria needs.

We must not wait until President Tinubu is no longer here before we begin saying, “We wish we had learnt more from him. We wish we had understood his leadership philosophy. We wish we had tapped into his experience.”

Let us tap into it now.

Let us study the ideas.

Let us understand the principles.

Let us learn from the experience.

Let us build people.

Let us catch our children young.

Because leadership is a resource too.

Just as I believe Nigeria must not allow its mineral resources to remain untapped, I believe we must not allow the knowledge, experience, political wisdom and leadership capacity available to us today to go untapped.

President Tinubu has a lot to offer.

Nigeria has a lot to offer.

Our mineral resources have a lot to offer.

Our young people have a lot to offer.

The question is whether we are prepared to recognise these resources early enough, develop them responsibly and put them to work.

The Nigeria of prosperity will not be built by what we merely possess. It will be built by what we teach, what we develop, what we invest in and what we have the courage to turn into value.

That is why I wrote the mining book.

That is why I believe in catching them young.

That is why President Tinubu’s call to take stock-market education into the classroom gives me even greater conviction that the time has come to take economic education in Nigeria from theory to practice.

Honourable Bamidele Atoyebi is the Convener of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Ideological Group, National Coordinator of Accountability and Policy Monitoring PR and a Publisher of Unfiltered and Mining reports.