Opportunities in Nigeria
Africa’s largest Muslim population, and the infrastructure to build on. What each participant gains in developing the waqf ecosystem here, and how to begin.
Waqf is administered under state law in the north, where Zamfara’s Zakat and Endowment Board Law of 2000 was the first such law since the end of colonial rule and Kano’s Zakat and Hubusi Commission followed in 2003. Incorporated Trustees under Part F of the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020 (CAMA) give a body separate legal personality to hold property and contract in its own name, and the country has four non-interest banks, takaful operators and a growing body of Shariah-compliant funds.
Nigerian scholarship on zakat and waqf institutions has pressed for stronger governance, clearer accounting to donors and administrators appointed on merit. A record layer is a tool for that work: once property is given, the giver can no longer see what happened to it, and where that is fixed, giving follows.
The state boards and commissions administer. We do not, and there is no federal register to replace
Where a State Zakat and Endowment Board or a Zakat and Hubusi Commission administers a waqf, that authority is theirs under state law and nothing here competes with it. Nigeria has no federal waqf statute and this platform is not an attempt to become one: it is infrastructure an administrator uses to show what it has done.
The parties to a waqf
The shape is the same in every country. What differs is who fills each box, and under what law.
What each stakeholder gains
State Zakat and Endowment Boards and Hubusi Commissions
What you administer is published as a by-product of administering it: what was endowed, where it is held, what it earned, who benefited, and who assured each of those and until when. For an institution that would rather demonstrate its stewardship than assert it, there is no more direct instrument.
Waqifs, families and founders
Dedicate cash, property, shares, sukuk, gold or a defined right, and say exactly what it is for, who benefits and for how long. Your conditions are recorded as constraints the platform enforces rather than as prose in a document nobody reads again, and what becomes of the endowment stays visible to you.
Non-interest banks and fund managers
We record what you confirm you hold, with your own statement as evidence, and an endowment becomes a product you can offer customers whose appetite for one no bank now meets. Waqf capital is patient capital with a stated policy and a published record, the kind of instrument a market concentrated in sovereign sukuk is short of.
Shariah advisers and assurance firms
Every ruling names who made it and what it rests on, and an adviser assuring a waqf must be independent of its administrator or is refused the seat. Governance, Shariah, financial and impact assurances each carry a named giver and an expiry, a professional market that does not yet exist for Nigerian waqf.
Mosques, foundations, universities and Incorporated Trustees
Part F of CAMA gives you separate legal personality to hold property and contract in your own name, but not the record that an endowment is kept as it was given. That record is what this adds, for scholarship funds, named chairs and research endowments as much as for a mosque’s own waqf.
Waqf administrators and Incorporated Trustees
A state commission, an Incorporated Trustee registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, or a mosque or foundation administering its own endowment is the platform’s principal customer, and the widest set of choices is yours.
In Nigeria the argument is the record rather than the range. An administrator who can show a donor what was given, where it is held, what it earned, who was paid and who independently assured each of those makes the case for its own institution as directly as it can be made.
A waqif is shown only the forms their Operator accepts, so these choices are your product range rather than limits we set. What every Operator decides is set out on Waqf Operators.
How to begin
| Step | What happens | What it involves |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Settle which vehicle carries the waqf | An Incorporated Trustee under CAMA Part F, administration by a state board or commission, or both, decided by Nigerian counsel before anything else. |
| 2 | Seat an independent assurer early | Earlier than elsewhere, because an independent assurance is the strongest signal an administrator can offer a donor, and the platform enforces the independence rather than taking it on trust. |
| 3 | Record a holder | A non-interest bank confirming what it holds in the ordinary course, so that an endowment is funded and confirmed rather than merely announced. |
| 4 | Publish the passport | One endowment whose record anybody can check, showing what is current, what has lapsed and what nobody has yet assured, makes the case better than describing it. |
| 5 | Then widen | More forms, more asset classes, and instruments the non-interest capital market can use, once the first four have earned the credibility. |
What is not built yet
- No waqf in Nigeria is administered on this platform yet.
- The Nigerian implementation does not exist: not the Incorporated Trustees route, not administration under a state board or commission, and not how the two interact.
- No approach has been made to any state board or commission, to the Corporate Affairs Commission or to a regulator, and we would rather make one alongside a Nigerian partner than alone.
What we are asking for
We are not asking for investment or commitment.
- Nigerian counsel to decide which vehicle should carry a waqf, and how it sits with state administration in the north.
- A state board or commission willing to tell us where this would not work under its own state law.
- A state board, commission, mosque or foundation willing to put one endowment on a record anybody can check.
- A non-interest bank willing to be recorded as a holder and to confirm holdings in the ordinary course.
- Shariah advisers willing to read the rulings and tell us where they disagree.
We are also starting in India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Work with us in Nigeria
How a waqf may be made, and the basis on which each form is allowed, is open to read without an account. If you can bring any of the above, write to us.