The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revoked the operating licences of 46 microfinance banks nationwide, effective July 1, 2026. The decision, announced in a statement signed by Acting Director of Corporate Communications Hakama Sidi‑Ali and approved by CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso, was taken under Sections 12 and 13 of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA), 2020.
Buried inside the routine regulatory language is a geographic pattern that CBN’s statement does not draw attention to — and that no other outlet reporting the story has flagged: Kano State alone accounts for at least 15 of the 46 revoked institutions, close to a third of the entire national list, making this less a nationwide sweep than a reckoning concentrated in one state’s microfinance sector.
The Official Grounds
According to the CBN statement, the revocation order was triggered by one or more of the following:
Insufficient assets to meet liabilities
Closure of operations without CBN approval
Inactivity and cessation of financial intermediation
Failure to commence operations within 12 months of licence approval
Failure to maintain minimum capital funds unimpaired by losses
CBN framed the action as consistent with its “ongoing efforts to safeguard the stability of the financial sector, protect depositors, and ensure that licensed institutions comply with current laws and regulatory requirements.”
Not CBN’s First Purge — Or Its Second
This is at minimum the third mass MFB licence revocation exercise CBN has carried out since 2023.
May 2023: In a single exercise published across two official gazettes on May 22-23, 2023, CBN under then-Governor Godwin Emefiele revoked licences of 179 microfinance banks, 3 finance companies, and 4 primary mortgage banks. The 179 figure comprised 132 institutions revoked for licence non-compliance and 47 for prolonged inactivity and closure — both published simultaneously under the same regulatory action.
July 2026 (this action): 46 additional microfinance banks.
Across these two major revocation exercises, CBN has pulled licences from at least 225 microfinance institutions under the same statutory grounds — insufficient capital, dormancy, and non-compliance with BOFIA. That trajectory raises a question CBN’s press statement does not address: whether this July 2026 action is a residual mop-up of stragglers from the 2023 recapitalisation deadline, or a fresh cohort of failures accumulating independently of that earlier exercise.
What the Statement Doesn’t Say
Three questions CBN’s press release leaves unanswered — and that TheDiggerNews.com is pursuing:
- Depositor exposure. CBN’s statement references “protecting depositors” but provides no aggregate figure for total deposits held across the 46 institutions, nor a timeline for NDIC-administered payouts. In prior mass revocations, NDIC has historically issued a separate statement confirming commencement of depositor verification. No such statement had been located from NDIC at the time of this report’s filing.
- The Kano concentration. No official explanation has been offered for why one state accounts for roughly a third of this list. Whether this reflects a regional capitalisation crisis, aggressive local licensing in prior years now unwinding, or a coordinated CBN examination cycle targeting Kano-based institutions specifically remains unaddressed.
- Rebranded institutions. At least two banks on the list — Zain MFB (formerly Dawakin Tofa MFB) and Ajwa MFB (formerly Gezawa MFB), both Kano-based — carry visible rebrand histories. Name changes preceding a licence revocation can indicate a prior ownership or governance change that failed to resolve the underlying capital or compliance deficiency. This pattern warrants direct inquiry to CBN and, where reachable, the affected institutions.
TheDiggerNews.com is seeking a formal response from the CBN’s Corporate Communications Department. Any response, or documented non-response, will be reflected in a follow-up report.
Kehinde Adegoke is an award-winning investigative journalist with more than 15 years of distinguished experience exposing stories that mould public discourse. With three industry nominations across diverse beats, he has earned recognition for fearless reporting, incisive analysis, and a commitment to accountability. As Managing Editor and CEO of TheDiggerNews.com, Adegoke leads a pioneering newsroom dedicated to exposing unseen truths, amplifying marginalised voices, and establishing new standards in investigative journalism.
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