In Nigeria’s financial and real sectors, compliance and enterprise risk management have moved from being back-office formalities to front-page determinants of corporate survival. This is because a critical look at recent corporate failures reveals a recurring thread: promising firms, particularly in the once‑buoyant fintech landscape and the real‑sector giants, have crumbled under the weight of compliance breaches and poorly managed risks.
Analysts pointed out that in the financial sector, lapses in anti-money‑laundering controls, Know‑Your‑Customer procedures, and reporting obligations have triggered regulatory sanctions and investor flight. In the real economy, from manufacturing to infrastructure, weak governance structures, cavalier risk‑taking, and disregard for statutory requirements have led to insolvencies, abandoned projects, and shattered public trust. Analysts argued that the narrative is no longer about isolated missteps; it is about a systemic underestimation of compliance and risk management as strategic levers, without which firms are only as stable as the next regulatory audit or market shock.
For a nation that has to deal with many business and economic challenges, the ability of companies, especially startups, to put their house in order is seen as a necessity; after all, it only makes sense to avoid complicating the already difficult operating environment in Nigeria.