shareholder

When a company divides its ownership into little units called shares, anyone holding those shares owns a genuine slice of the whole business. That is a shareholder, and yes, it can be you.

Hold one share of a company with a million shares, and you own one millionth of everything, the buildings, the brand, the future profits, and the debts too. Owning a piece brings two things, hand in hand.

A claim on the rewards, paid to you as dividends when the company shares out its profit, and as a gain if the share value rises and you sell for more than you paid. And a fair share of the risk, because if the business struggles the shares can fall, and if it collapses, shareholders are paid last, after the staff and the lenders, sometimes receiving little.

Here you can become a shareholder by buying shares of companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange, through a licensed stockbroker, using your CSCS account, and in most listed companies you even get a small vote at the yearly meeting, a real say in big decisions. The one truth to keep close is simple and freeing.

A share is ownership, not a savings deposit, so its value moves, which means only money you can happily leave invested for years truly belongs there.