For most of its existence, the Nigeria Commodity Exchange existed more on paper than in practice. It had a mandate, a name, and the legal framework to function as a structured marketplace for agricultural commodities, but it lacked the leadership and operational momentum to make that mandate mean anything. That changed in October 2023 when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed Anthony Atuche, CFA, as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, ending a period of transitional management and placing the Exchange under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment.
The NCX was set up to do something Nigeria has needed for a long time: give farmers, traders, processors, and investors a transparent, regulated platform through which agricultural commodities can be bought and sold at fair, discoverable prices. Without such a platform, the country’s agricultural sector remains vulnerable to the kind of opacity that keeps producers underpaid and keeps serious international investors at a distance. Atuche walked into that gap and got to work.
One of his first institutional moves was pushing to remove the NCX from the federal government’s budgeting framework, a structural shift that repositioned the Exchange as an operationally independent institution rather than another line item in a government budget. In April 2026, President Tinubu formally reconstituted the Exchange’s Governing Board, with Alhaji Dalhatu Abubakar Al-Hamsad appointed as Chairman alongside six non-executive directors. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, who presided over the inauguration, described the reconstituted board as the strategic direction the Exchange needed to fully become what it was designed to be.
The most substantive piece of work the NCX has produced under Atuche’s leadership is the Shea Value Chain Transformation Framework, unveiled at a Stakeholders Sensitization Forum hosted at the Exchange and chaired by Minister Oduwole. Nigeria produces vast quantities of raw shea nuts, but exports most of them without processing, which means it captures only a fraction of the value the global shea butter market generates. The global industry is projected to grow from about $2.27 billion in 2025 to over $2.4 billion in 2026. Nigeria’s share of that growth has been limited by an absence of the market infrastructure needed to support local processing at scale. The framework that Atuche has put forward targets 30 percent local processing of Nigeria’s raw shea nut production, with projections that this would increase export revenues by two to three times their current levels. To support it, the NCX launched a new Shea Market Architecture built around certified warehouses, warehouse receipt systems, and a dedicated trading platform designed to improve traceability and access to finance.
In July 2026, Atuche led the NCX management team to Kano for a strategic visit to the Kano State Investment Promotion Agency, where the two institutions formalised a partnership to modernise agricultural trading in one of Nigeria’s most commercially active states. The agreement is focused on integrating Kano’s commodity market infrastructure with the NCX’s national platform and attracting foreign direct investment into Northern Nigeria’s agribusiness sector. Speaking after the meeting, he was direct about why international investors have stayed away. “When a buyer in London or Beijing executes a contract on the NCX, they require absolute certainty regarding the grading standards and delivery logistics of the Kano-sourced commodities,” he said. The partnership with KANINVEST is designed to provide exactly that.
Anthony Atuche has also been methodical in his stakeholder engagement since taking office. He has hosted the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, the CEO of the National Data Protection Commission, and has represented the NCX at major agricultural financing forums, including a panel on the future of food security where he was one of four speakers addressing an audience of investors, traders, and development finance institutions.
When the reconstituted board was inaugurated in April, he summed up where the institution was headed. “I’m really just excited to begin implementation properly and drive towards the one trillion USD GDP economy that was set by the president,” he said. For an Exchange that spent years in institutional limbo, that kind of clarity of direction is exactly what was missing.
The Nigeria Commodity Exchange is not finished building, but it is building. And under Atuche, it is doing so with a level of purpose the institution has not had before.
Samuel Agboola is a member of the editorial team of TheScript Newspaper
