At a global gathering in New York, surrounded by presidents, chief executives, investors and some of Africa’s most influential business leaders, The United Nations General Assembly UNGA 81. A question from Yobe State cut through the familiar conversation about growth.
It was not about another road. It was not about another government contract. And it was not simply about attracting investment.
It was about what happens to the people left behind when conflict destroys almost everything they have.
At Unstoppable Africa 2026, the flagship gathering of the Global Africa Business Initiative held alongside the 81st United Nations General Assembly, Yobe State’s Secretary to the Government, Dr Mohammed Goje, asked business leader Alhaji Aliko Dangote about opportunities for government to invest in shares as a way of creating sustainable financial security for widows and victims of conflict.
On the surface, it was a question about investment. At a deeper level, it was a question about the purpose of capital-and about who should ultimately benefit from the wealth that capital creates.
Unstoppable Africa was designed to advance a different conversation about Africa: not merely its potential, but its capacity to own, scale and retain value. The 2026 edition brought together more than 2,000 African and global business leaders, with discussions spanning investment, infrastructure, transactions, capital and African ownership.
Against that backdrop, the question from Yobe stood out because it connected the language of capital markets with the lived reality of communities affected by conflict.
For communities that have experienced insurgency and displacement, rebuilding cannot end simply because a displaced family has returned home.
A house can be reconstructed. A school can be reopened. A livelihood programme can provide temporary income.
But what happens when the grant ends, the project closes and the humanitarian actors leave?
That is the harder question.
Nigeria has spent years investing in reconstruction, rehabilitation, humanitarian assistance and livelihood support. These interventions remain essential. But there is a compelling case for considering another dimension of recovery: Asset Ownership.
Imagine a social investment vehicle professionally managed at arm’s length from political interference, with clearly defined beneficiaries, independent trustees, transparent reporting and strict fiduciary safeguards.
Instead of asking only how much government can spend on vulnerable families today, policymakers could also ask how vulnerable families can acquire or benefit from assets capable of generating value tomorrow.
That is the idea embedded in Goje’s question.
It is not necessarily about buying shares in any particular company. Nor should public money be placed in equities without rigorous risk assessment, legal authority, appropriate investment governance and full public disclosure. Any such model would require careful examination of Nigeria’s public-finance and capital-market frameworks.
But the policy imagination behind the question deserves attention.
Africa’s development debate has spent enormous energy asking how to attract capital. Perhaps we should also ask a more fundamental question:
Who owns the assets created by that capital?
If Africa’s markets are expected to become major engines of global growth, the benefits of that growth cannot be understood solely through government revenues, corporate profits or large institutional investments.
There must also be pathways through which ordinary citizens-particularly those who have borne the greatest costs of instability-can participate in the wealth being created around them.
This is particularly relevant for Yobe.
A conflict-affected state cannot afford to think about development only through annual budgets. It must think about resilience across generations.
A widow whose husband was killed in conflict does not need sympathy alone. She needs income, security, dignity and an economic future for her children.
That is where social protection meets investment policy.
And that is why the question asked in New York deserves to travel far beyond New York.
It challenges policymakers to think beyond a culture of relief toward resilience; beyond beneficiaries toward asset ownership; and beyond expenditure toward long-term value creation.
This is also where the broader conversation about Africa’s economic future becomes meaningful.
The organisers of Unstoppable Africa have emphasised the need for the continent to move beyond exporting raw potential and toward creating and retaining more value through African businesses, capital, supply chains and investment.
But ownership should not be understood only at the level of corporations and sovereign wealth.
Eventually, it must reach the ordinary citizen.
A widow in Gujba Town may never sit on the board of a multinational company. She may never attend an investment summit in New York. But she should not be permanently excluded from the economic value generated by an economy that is transforming around her.
That is the uncomfortable-but necessary-question.
Can governments create mechanisms through which vulnerable citizens participate in long-term wealth creation without turning public funds into political instruments?
Can development partners move some interventions beyond short-term grants toward sustainable asset-building?
Can states establish transparent social investment funds with independent professional management?
Can corporate Africa explore models through which communities affected by conflict become participants in long-term economic value creation rather than remaining recipients of corporate social responsibility?
These are difficult questions.
They require legislation, regulation, professional investment management, independent oversight and extraordinary transparency.
But difficult questions are precisely what policy leaders should be asking.
Perhaps that is what made the exchange between Goje and Dangote worth noticing.
The significance was not simply that a government official asked a billionaire about shares.
It was that, in a room discussing Africa’s vast economic opportunity, someone remembered the people who are rarely present when that opportunity is discussed: the widows, the displaced, the victims of conflict and the families rebuilding their lives from almost nothing.
Africa’s economic future cannot be truly inclusive if millions of its most vulnerable people remain spectators to its prosperity.
The next frontier of development may therefore not be simply attracting more investment.
It may be finding credible, transparent and sustainable ways to ensure that those who have suffered the most can own a piece of what comes next.
That is a conversation worth having.