Nigeria’s stock market surged by over 51% YtD in 2025, with twenty-two SWOOT (Stocks Worth Over One Trillion) Naira companies recording an average share price YtD gain of 69%.
Among the SWOOTs; Presco, MTNN, International Breweries, Okomu Oil, Nigerian Breweries and Nestle recorded triple-digit share price growth
While this is impressive, the gains can only be realized when you sell your holdings, which means that these returns aren’t always accessible immediately.
This is where dividends come in.
Investors in equities earn returns through two main streams: capital gains and dividend income. Capital gains refer to the price difference between when you purchase a stock and when you sell it.
Dividend income, on the other hand, is the portion of a company’s profit that it shares with its shareholders.
Several SWOOT companies pay reliable dividends. While companies like Dangote Cement and BUA Foods pay only final dividends, banks, Seplat, Okomu, and Presco pay interim and final dividends, with Seplat paying quarterly.
Okomu and Presco have already paid two interim dividends and are expected to pay a final dividend based on their 2025 full-year results.
What matters most is dividend yield; how much cash investors earn for every naira invested—alongside dividend size, growth, and payout sustainability.
A higher dividend yield indicates that you’re earning more in dividends for each N1 you invest.
That said, here are five dividend stocks to consider taking a position in this January, with the banking sector dominating in terms of yield.
Using Zenith Bank’s numbers, the dividend headroom for 2025 is good.
Zenith earned N764,204 billion in the first nine months of 2025, already 74% of its N1.03 trillion full-year profit for 2024.
In 2024, it paid N5.00 per share (interim and final), a 79% increase, at a payout ratio of about 22%. For 2025, it has only paid an interim dividend of N0.25, which absorbed just N10.26 billion, barely 3% of H1 profit.
If UBA maintains a payout close to 2024’s 22%, total dividends for 2025 would come in around N160–N180 billion, which implies a final dividend of roughly N3.8–N4.05 per share.
