service for charter flights and handles the sales of aircraft. It’s a smart move. Frequent, safe and reliable flights should be the lifeblood of cities like Lagos, where there seems to be a new business opportunity around every corner. Nevertheless, Nigeria is not all about Pina Coladas, disco dances and cavorting in fountains of dollar bills. ‘It’s an extremely challenging and difficult place,’ Hundah says, ‘and most expatriates will tell you that if you can work here, you can work anywhere in the world.’ Newcomers, therefore, should brace themselves for an assortment of pitfalls on the road ahead. The cost of doing business is high, while ‘a local partner is absolutely crucial, especially one politically well-connected’; in a similar vein, ‘regime change can impact opportunities and contracts gained’. And, from Hundah’s remarks, one has the impression that for outsiders on the inside, it’s hard to fathom exactly what the hell’s going down at any given moment. ‘There is generally a lack of information,’ he says, ‘and if obtained, it’s often inaccurate or difficult to verify.’ In particular, he cautions against ‘the assumption that every opportunity is an MTN waiting to happen’. Gary van Staden, a political risk analyst, would agree. It’s foolhardy to adopt the stance that ‘there are millions of Nigerians, so obviously there’ll be a market for this or that product. You have to ensure you’re targeting a need. There is no guarantee that whatever gizmos you’ve got are going to sell just because there are so many people.’ In other words, he says, the biggest risk lies in ‘a misunderstanding of what is required and needed, and not doing enough research… Nigeria is the kind of place where, if you go blundering in without doing your homework, you’re going to get your fingers badly burned.’ What would ‘homework’ cover? ‘It would be to make sure you’re talking to the right people and connections, to businesses and officials that have some real input in terms of what happens… You have to be extremely careful about with whom you’re doing business. Do your research, don’t try to take shortcuts, and hire proper legal teams.’ The latter are essential for dealing with Nigerian laws and regulations governing the start-up and operation of local firms that represent foreign interests. These frameworks can be burdensome – the World Bank ranks countries in terms of the ease of doing business with them and, while South Africa comes in at number 35, Nigeria trails behind at position 133. However, as Hollingdrake explains, moves are afoot to streamline the admin via the so-called one-stop-shop mechanism, ‘a government-driven initiative to promote easy access to the Nigerian market’. He adds that ‘a major impediment, one which large retailers struggle with, is clearing goods to or from the port. Trust me, this is not a small issue. It can make or break an economy and you as a client.’ Ships queue, import regulations chop and change, and often goods are either denied entry or caused to perish during long waits for clearance. Again, remedial measures are being taken, and though port access remains an issue. ‘There is evidence some goods are arriving and being cleared in seven working days. It will make South Africans’ heads spin to see that happen.’ If you shouldn’t go into Nigeria clownishly underprepared and
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starry-eyed with greed, the flipside to this is not to be paranoid, either. ‘The perception,’ Van Staden says, ‘is that Nigeria is a very corrupt, dangerous place to do business. It is not – but it is a corrupt, dangerous place. So there are places where you have to be careful. If you want to walk around somewhere at 3am and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner”, you’ll be mugged, and don’t complain about it.’ Learn to understand the economic, political and cultural environment, he says. ‘Understand what the people’s likes and dislikes are, what’s a red rag to them and what’s not.’ As for the sectarian violence, it’s a ‘very old conflict’ rooted in strife first recorded 200 years ago. ‘It takes on a new dimension when you get sophisticated weapons, bomb-makers coming from the Middle East, and links with Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda and others,’ says Van Staden. Settlement will require large-scale political and economic measures, but ‘essentially you’re dealing with a northern Nigerian conflict’ isolated from the country’s economic mainstream in the south. And corruption? ‘If Nigeria has higher levels of corruption than South Africa,’ he observes, ‘we’re closing the gap very fast. They come from a history of military rule, corruption, of having to bribe your way through everything, and they’re trying to address this. We’re moving in the opposite direction, becoming more corrupt by the minute rather than less.’ South Africans ‘have no room for complacency’, especially so in business dealings with their Nigerian counterparts. That complacency rests on an assumption of superiority, the biggest red rag of all. Don’t go into Nigeria with the attitude of, ‘Hi, the mighty South Africans have arrived,’ Van Staden says. ‘They get extremely pissed off. They’re looking for the respect they think they’ve earned as a leader of Africa for much longer than the 18 years South Africa has been around.’ Inasmuch as South Africans view Nigerians through 419-filtered lenses, Nigerians look back at us with equal suspicion. ‘They think South Africans want to take over, that they’re [self-styled] big boys on the block, and maybe not that trustworthy… That they’re after a quick buck and not really interested in any sustained development. Everybody has their own perception.’ ‘It’s not the most ideal working condition,’ says Hundah, echoing Van Staden’s assessment, ‘but in a way both parties are stuck together by economic prosperity and the vast opportunities that exist between them. Both parties have to lose these attitudes towards each other.’ South Africa, he adds, should ‘be more open’, more ready to ‘take a chance with Nigeria’. Indeed, set against the infamous number 419 is another conjuration, fleshier and more hopeful: 9ja. It’s shorthand for Naija, slang reviled by the government yet embraced among the country’s youth. ‘Nai’ refers to Nigeria and ‘ja’ supposedly means ‘disappear’. Hence, ‘Begone, Nigeria.’ However, it’s anything but unpatriotic. As a blogger remarks, ‘When we say Naija, it means that we, the youth, are determined to cleanse the country and show the world the true colours of this great nation.’ It’s a rallying call, meant to be uttered with attitude. It rejects the bad Nigeria and affirms new beginnings. With exasperation, it recognises the country’s problems; with spiritedness, it summons the future.
PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTYIMAGES.COM
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