Lagos-based investor Tony Elumelu plans to buy the state-owned Abuja Commodities Exchange or set up an exchange of his own, according to a Bloomberg report.

Elumelu is chairman of Heirs Holdings Ltd., a Nigerian investment company with interests throughout Africa in banking, energy, real estate and agriculture.

If it’s unable to buy the exchange, Heirs Holdings will apply to Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission to set one up, Elumelu said in an interview with Bloomberg Africa TV, scheduled to be aired Dec. 14.

Heirs Holdings collaborated with the Nigerian government to establish in November an electronic warehousing system linking farmers and traders — part of the groundwork to set up a commodities exchange, Bloomberg reports.

Through its African Exchange Holdings Ltd. unit, Heirs has stakes in the Kigali, Rwanda-based and Lagos-based National Association of Securities Dealers trading platform. The company collaborated with the Nigerian Grain Reserve Agency and the Agriculture Ministry, the report said.

“We now have seven warehouses in the country,” said Elumelu, who is the former CEO of Lagos-based United Bank for Africa and current chairman of Transnational Corp. of Nigeria Plc, which has interests in hotels, oil exploration and agriculture. “From there, the next thing that is left is to have a formal market.”