Even though I disagree with his choice of words and phrasing ( although I understand why) I understand why he said this ,
As a Nigerian one thing I will say is the only decent byproduct of Nigeria having a succession of utterly useless governments is that Nigerians were forced to become extremely entrepreneurial , they hustle hard ..... everyone has some type of business or hustle ,
and Nigerians will go wherever they can make money , and what happens is Nigerians will go to somewhere like Kenya spot a business opportunity or gap in the market and before you know it , its the equivalent of " how did these Koreans come from nowhere and they own most of the stores in this black neighbourhood"
The thing is Nigerians welcome foreign investment in Nigeria , we dont have a problem with it , the problem is its also an extremely difficult place to conduct business, you have to be built for the shyt ,
This more than anything scares off a lot of foreigners and secondly , any Nigerian that can run a successful business in Nigeria will find it a cakewalk in most other African countries ....
I know some horror stories ...... I was doing deals here and there and some contracts , but just doing a favour for a friend of a friend resulted in me setting up something long term
A South African Banker who I didnt know had spent three weeks in the country trying to get a meeting with a government department and was getting nowhere , and he had paid a lot of money to various people who had promised to get him a meeting
he was complaining to his South African girlfriend , she had knew my brother from University and she said , I have a Nigerian fried , Ill see what he can suggest , she calls my brother who was in London , he tells her I was in Nigeria for a month and he gave her my number ,
she gives me this bank guys number , we had about a five minute conversation , he just told me the bare outlines of the proposal , half of which I didnt understand, he gave me the department and a few names of who he wanted to meet , didnt know any of them
i phoned someone , who phoned someone , I got a call and I just clarified that I had nothing to do with this guy or the business we just had a friend in common , The banker got a call within an hour of me talking to him from someone from the department giving him a 9am meeting with the second most senior head of the dept
Obviously he called to say thanks but I think what really shocked him wasnt the fact that I got results so quickly , it was I wouldnt take any money from him , obviously up till then hed been rinsed by every tom dikk and harry , It was just a favour for a friend
I think what shocked him was that his money couldnt open any doors whereas I didnt know anyone and I got him a meeting ..... Doing that favour led to a lot of stuff
Nigerian Govt fukked over Richard Branson big time , they dont give a fukk .... if you can make money over there you will clean up anywhere in Africa
A foreign oil company got a roughly $50 million contract , I know some people involved on the Nigerian side
Anyway after going through all the usual back and forth with all the relevant departments , after the contracts were signed from what I remember the whole process was almost 18 months , they were told they had to fly to Delta state and get the OK from a man , that they shouldnt start the contract without talking to him , they wouldnt tell him who he was , they were given a name and a number ....
A week later they fly into Delta state , these foreign senior corporate execs , they are picked up from the airport , taken to the hotel , a few hours later they are taken to the meeting , They are taken to either a park or some local field and they were told , the man you want to speak to is sitting under that tree, and theres a man in sandals dressed like a cab driver sitting on a plastic chair under a tree , they go over to him , explain what they were doing , what the contract was for etc.... all he said was " dont worry you wont have any problems "
till today they dont know who he was , but upon all the state and federal departments they had dealt with If that guy who was dressed like bum didnt give the OK the contract would be dead and buried .... To the average Nigerian theres nothing significant about the story , explain in to an outsider and its just bizarre Thats the everyday shyt one has to deal with , you can do business there , anywhere else is a breeze
