7 Dividend-Paying Stocks in Nigeria to Watch in 2026

Dividend investing sounds simple enough. Buy shares in a company, hold them, and get a portion of its profits as cash. 

But not every stock that pays a dividend is a good investment, and a high yield can sometimes hide bigger risks.  

To understand what investors should look for, we spoke with Opeyemi Ogunsanya, a web developer and finance content creator, about how to assess dividend stocks and the Nigerian shares worth watching in 2026. 

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What Makes a Dividend Stock Worth Buying 

Before we get to the list, Ogunsanya shared how he screens a company before investing. "The first thing I check is the company's dividend history over the last five to 10 years," he explained, adding that he can accept three years for a newer stock.  

He also has a personal cutoff for yield. His minimum is 7%, because that number lets him recover his original investment through dividends alone within five to seven years, while the share price hopefully grows too. 

But a high yield alone doesn’t mean the dividend is safe. Ogunsanya warned that some companies pay dividends from retained earnings instead of from what they made that year, which is a red flag. He also looks closely at the sector the company sits in and how strong its retained earnings are, since these tell you whether the payout can survive a bad year. 

The Seven Stocks You Should Watch in 2026 

Based on recent dividend history and performance, Ogunsanya named seven companies: 

/1. GTCO 

GTCO paid a total dividend of ₦12.76 per share for the 2025 financial year, made up of a ₦1.00 interim payout and an ₦11.76 final dividend, a 59% jump from the ₦8.03 paid in 2024. That’s the highest dividend ever declared by a Nigerian bank, and it works out to a yield near 10% even though profit dipped for the year. 

/2. Zenith Bank 

Zenith Bank doubled its payout for 2025, moving from ₦5.00 in 2024 to ₦10.00, split between a ₦1.25 interim and an ₦8.75 final dividend. This came after the bank posted about ₦1.04 trillion in profit after tax, and shareholders received roughly ₦410 billion in total.