Billionaire wealth jumps 3 times faster in 2025 to $18.3trn — Oxfam

…Says African billionaires’ wealth grew four times faster in 2025

By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA –  AS the 2026 World Economic Forum, WEF, opens in Davos, Switzerland, a new report  released by Oxfam in Nigeria yesterday  revealed that billionaire wealth across the world jumped three times faster in 2025 to $18.3 trillion.

According to Oxfam in the report, titled ‘’Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power,’’ the wealth of African billionaires grew four times faster in 2025 than in the previous five years combined

“Billionaire wealth jumped by over 16 per cent in 2025, three times faster than the past five-year average, to $18.3 trillion – its highest level in history,” the report said.

According to the report, in Nigeria, this surge is even more aggressive.

It said while the country battled its worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, the wealth of African billionaires grew twice as fast as the global average by 36.5 percent in a single year, adding that this disconnect was epitomised by Nigeria’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, whose wealth has climbed to $24.8 billion.

The report analysed how the super-rich were securing political power to shape the rules of economies and societies for their own gain.

It also asserted that nowhere is this “rule of the rich” more visible than in Nigeria’s tax system, as it  exposed how political connections allow billionaires to bypass the struggles of the common man.

Oxfam said further:  “A shocking case study in the report reveals that, despite posting profit margins of 86 per cent, Dangote Cement paid an effective tax rate of just two per cent over the analysed period.’’

Meanwhile, the Country Director, Oxfam in Nigeria, Tijani Ahmed Hamza said: “While Nigerian small businesses are being choked by multiple taxes and ordinary citizens pay 100% of the price for government failure, the super-rich are paying effectively two per cent.

“This is not just inequality; it is state capture. When the richest man makes more in a single morning than a worker on minimum wage earns in 35 years yet pays a lower effective tax rate than a teacher or nurse, the system is broken.

“The surge in billionaire wealth coincides with a deepening debt crisis. The report highlights that in Africa, spending on debt servicing is now 150 per cent greater than the combined spending on education, healthcare and social protection.

“Nigeria is borrowing to pay debts because we refuse to tax the super-rich.  We are starving our schools and hospitals to feed our creditors, while granting tax waivers to monopolies that are already posting record profits.”

Meanwhile, Oxfam in Nigeria called for a new era of public action, including: “A National Inequality Reduction Plan, NIRP, for Nigeria: The government must dismantle the monopolies that rig the economy.

“A Wealth Tax on the Super-Rich: Oxfam calculates that a wealth tax of one per cent on net worth above $1 million could raise billions annually, enough to double the national health budget.

“End Tax Waivers: A complete moratorium on tax holidays for corporations that are already profitable.

“Accountability for the political empowerment of ordinary citizens, including stronger protection for people’s freedoms of association, assembly and expression and for civil society organisations and trade unions.”

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