Africa’s most populated country is, from an international perspective, also one of the continent’s most misinterpreted countries for the simple reason that it has more than 200 million people. Allegedly hobbled by low-growth projections as per data coming out of the World Bank and the International Monetary fund, the same Bretton Woods institutions tend to overlook that around 90% of Nigeria’s people are unbanked, Africa House has found. One of the trade consultancy’s directors, Duncan Bonnett, recently told delegates at a Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry business breakfast that it was important to remain realistic when considering the African giant’s prospects. “If interest rates hit 30%, what do Nigerians care? They still have to eat and clothe themselves.” Domestically Nigerian companies are also investing at a furious pace into their own companies, often in tandem with foreign partners, but also increasingly off their own bat. Considering the benefits to be had through the African Continental Free Trade Area, “a 10-25% reduction in import duties suddenly means companies that used to be on the cusp of becoming competitive, do become profitable and competitive”, Bonnett said. He added that Nigeria was also one of the countries that was experiencing a re-braining of its skills base from highly educated individuals returning home, many of them from the UK where Brexit jitters were adding a renewed sheen of appeal to the green grass of home. Equipped with nicely clipped English accents, expat doctors and other professionals are flooding back into Nigeria where, as an example, in recent years a heart transplant has been done without any foreign intervention. Such is the country’s potential, through sheer market size where 16-18 mega-cities are expected to mushroom by 2035, that “had it not been for 40 years of energy issues, Nigeria could easily have been Africa’s industrial heartland”. So although initial figures are low, exploration data and project developments in countries like Nigeria are at an early stage and the growth curve should be much steeper than conservatively estimated, Bonnett believes