Toyota

Toyota Nigeria was born out of a three-way partnership in 1996 between Elizade, R.T. Briscoe, and the Japanese trading house East Asiatic Company. Over decades of patient consolidation, Elizade built its family stake to 74%, with Sumitomo Corporation holding the remaining 26%, and today the company is the sole importer and distributor of Toyota vehicles in Nigeria, working through the same seven accredited dealers it has relied on for years. Chairman Michael Ade-Ojo, now 87, has led the company since selling his first car in Nigeria in 1965, and Toyota has been the top-selling brand in Nigeria for 15 straight years.

The bigger story heading into 2026 is what happens after the sale. In 2015, Elizade delivered on Ade-Ojo's long-standing call for local assembly with a $50 million facility in Ikotun, Lagos, capable of assembling 40,000 vehicles a year for both Toyota and Chinese partner brand JAC. That plant, now run under Elizade JAC Autoland, received a visit from Nigeria's Federal Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment in December 2025, who called it a model for the country's manufacturing future.

What the plant has not yet done is change buying habits at scale: Nigeria's car market remains dominated by used imports, commonly called tokunbo, and convincing more Nigerians to choose new, locally assembled vehicles over them is now the priority. Toyota's annual Motor Show continues to showcase the product pipeline, including hybrid and electric variants such as the Urban Cruiser and Corolla Cross hybrid, positioned as the brand's answer to the government's push for greener vehicles. Beyond cars, the wider Elizade Group stretches into banking board seats, an Ondo State university that has grown to roughly 3,000 students, and a scholarship scheme running since 1991, a footprint that says something about how the family behind Nigeria's dominant car brand thinks of itself: less a single company defending market share, more a long-running institution that happens to sell cars as its most visible product.