5 Reasons Why You Should Start Business in Nigeria Today

Are you thinking about starting business in Nigeria and don’t have enough reasons why you should put your idea to action? Maybe you fear the failure of the venture.

It is normal to find oneself in this form of circumstance, especially, when it relates to business involving risk taking with the hope of reaping monetary reward.

We shall in this second article in Doing Business in Nigeria Series be highlighting some of the strong reasons why you should start business in Nigeria today.

Now, to be straightforward with you, I don’t take heed to what the World Bank, AfDB, IMF and other similar institutions’ statistics say about Nigeria economy. I am not scared of investing in Nigeria and I don’t see reason why an investor should either.

I am equally not stimulated by the politically inclined propaganda promoted on the media about Nigeria and I urge you not to.

The fact is that the chances of business success in Nigeria is always more than that of business failure if you have a proper business model that fits into the country’s business environment. I will tell you why in this article.

I am an entrepreneur on ground, and I have personally assessed the conditions on ground and mapped out ways to harnessing several business opportunities and competitive advantages available to investors doing or wanting to do business personally in the country.

Without wasting more time, let us go straight to looking at some of the reasons why you should start business in Nigeria today.

1     Number one destination for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa. It is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and the number one destination for Foreign Direct Investment in Africa.

Despite the said economic challenges facing Nigeria as the result of oil price slump, the country has continually witnessed high inflow of foreign investors to many of its sectors.

Nigeria has remained a hub for most entrepreneurs and investors in Africa, the obvious reasons for the increasing Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) into Nigeria are not farfetched. The legal framework guiding theoperation, fund transfer, property ownership laws and tax policy in Nigeria are investors friendly.

The friendly investment laws are encouraging to investors, this have among other conscious prescriptions and efforts by the government built confidence in the mind of potential and foreign investors owing businesses in the country.

Nigeria is a host to countries like South African, Britain, China etc. We have many multi-national and large foreign companies and business outlets in Nigeria.

General Electric is partnering with power generation companies in Nigeria to boost the nation’s power supply. GlaxoSmithKline U.K has increased its stake in GlaxoSmithKline Nigeria PLC. Tiger brand acquired Aliko Dangote’s stake in Dangote Flour.

Wal-Mart has moved heavily into Nigeria through its subsidiary, Shop Rite located in major cities like Abuja and Lagos and MTN South Africa mopped up shares of MTN Nigeria.

Chinese companies are partnering with Nigerian companies to setup manufacturing plants right here in the country. An example of such plant is Innoson vehicle manufacturing company in Nnewi, Anambra state.

Similarly, Nissan has also established an auto manufacturing plant in Nigeria. The list goes on and on, but the point I want to stress here is that this is the right time to invest in Nigeria.

2.      Large Market and High Products Absorption: Nigeria is not only the giant of Africa economically; the country is also the most populous in Africa with about 170 million people.

The population in Nigeria is predicted to pass that of United States by 2050. What this means for businesses in essence is that the market is large enough to absorb any of their product or service offered; providing enough marketing and product/service awareness is created.

Another encouraging impact of this population statistics is the cheap labour availability. It is generally accepted fact one of the reasons China grew to become an industrial hub is because of her large population, which in turn brought down the cost of labour.

Nigeria as well has such population potential and will benefit any business that results to taking advantage of such opportunity.

3.      The Need for Innovative Products: Nigeria is fast developing and there is a huge need for innovative products for her continuous development. The rapid economic growth and development Nigeria is witnessing has made it an ideal country to invest.

There is no doubt that Nigeria is growing economically, technologically, socially etc. A lot have changed in the country’s business environment and in products/services composition over the years.

The country will therefore, continually serve as investments haven to innovative businesses with innovative products/services especially those directly concerned with effective and efficient mobilization and utilization of domestic (local) resources in the country.

Local and foreign companies who make investments in innovative product will stand a chance of reaping high rewards from their investments in the country.

This is why entrepreneurs and institutional investors from countries like South Africa, China, Lebanon, Brazil, India, etc are scrambling to invest in Nigeria.

4.      Huge Business Opportunities: You ought to start doing business in Nigeria because the country offers large range of business opportunities.

The interest of most entrepreneurs and investors doing business in Nigeria are usually on big cities like Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. However, tremendous opportunities are laying wasting in other cities such as Jos, Owerri, Kano, Akwa Ibom, Makurdi, Ibadan, Enugu, etc.

Similarly, foreign and local investors doing business in Nigeria have over the years focused their investment on oil and gas and telecommunication sub-sector.

It is worth emphasizing that there are however many other available and profitable business opportunities in solid mineral mining, construction, agriculture, showbiz, manufacturing etc in Nigeria.

5.      Resilient Economy: Nigeria economy though similar to most developing countries is uniquely different. The country’s economy is usually very resilient to unfavourable economic global situations like crude oil prices fall and economic crisis.

For example, Nigeria financial and other sectors were partially affected by the 2008/2009 crisis; these sectors as well were resilient enough and survived the economic crisis storm that is still affecting some developed countries of the world till date.

Though, Nigeria is currently perforated with challenges such as falling oil prices, security, infrastructural decay, unemployment, power failure, corruption, fall in education standard, accommodation, etc.

There is however high optimism that the challenges will soon be things of the past as government at all tiers are working assiduously to improving the economic condition of the country.

Nigeria government is currently implementing several policies aimed at encouraging local content production and small scale enterprises. Any entrepreneur who is well positioned to take advantages of such opportunities will reap some benefits from the country.

However, people with entrepreneurial mind-set know that these problems are opportunities; and only those who know the reason why and act to turn the opportunities into profitable businesses in Nigeria.

The above listed five reasons are limited; there are my top 5 reasons why you should start business in Nigeria today.

What other reason do you think is missing? Drop your comment in comment box please.