There is marked high profitability of banks, and high banking competition in sub Saharan Africa. The nature of the market structure dictates the existing level of competition and profitability. This paper applies a panel granger causality test to investigate the direction of causality between competition and profitability in sub Saharan Africa. Investigation uses the World Bank Data (2007-2017) for the listed best performing multinational banks in 2016 in the region, obtained from the Bankscope for analysis. Bank competition is measured using profit elasticity index (Boone Indicator) while profitability is measured using ROA. Estimation uses a two step ‘system’ generalized method of moments and finds a positive, bi-directional granger causality between competition and profitability. This implies that rapid spread of multinational banking groups in sub Saharan Africa region is motivated by both high level of bank competition and profitability. High competition raises longrun bank profitability but also, high profits motivates entry of rival banks into the industry. Therefore, to scholars, great caution should be taken when defining the dependent and independent variables in studies that concern the relationship between competition and profitability of banks, given this finding of presence of a stead state equilbrium in sub Saharan Africa.