0:00

In the past few decades, it's been like watching

0:03

the world shrink right

0:05

in front of us. Globalization

0:13

has turned our planet into this super

0:15

connected place where everything's

0:17

buzzing borders.

0:20

They've become kind of blurry. I. Businesses.

0:23

Oh man, they're popping up all over

0:25

the globe and Tech.

0:27

Well, it's like the ultimate game changer,

0:30

making even the most remote spots

0:33

possible market hotspots,

0:35

but the winds of change are blowing.

0:37

Once again, enter

0:50

globalization. While it

0:52

might sound like we're hitting the brakes,

0:55

it's a bit more complicated than that. Countries

0:58

are revisiting the whole global

1:00

trade angle. Thanks to the volatile past

1:02

few years we've witnessed from

1:04

rising trade tensions, evolving

1:06

geopolitics and supply chain crises

1:09

driven by covid. We're

1:23

moving from that whole worldwide

1:26

party mode to a chill

1:28

regional hangout scene.

1:39

Over the past few weeks, we've delved

1:41

deep into the stories of remarkable

1:43

companies, visionary founders,

1:46

and dynamic landscapes of emerging

1:48

markets. So where are we

1:50

zooming in today? The

1:53

answer, Nigeria, Africa.

1:56

We're exploring the remarkable story

1:58

of Nigeria, a nation that

2:00

has emerged as the largest economy

2:04

With a diversified economy and

2:06

abundant natural resources, Nigeria's

2:09

journey isn't just about oil

2:11

anymore. It's about tech,

2:13

entertainment, and an entrepreneurial

2:15

spirit that refuses to be

2:17

quelled. Join us as we

2:19

unravel the secrets behind Nigeria's

2:22

transformation on the global stage.

3:02

Some songs that have been coming

3:05

up in my on

3:07

repeat playlist. It's been like

3:09

number one for the last maybe

3:11

three months. Just one song, bro. Who

3:14

Told You featuring

3:17

Drake. You know that song?

3:19

no, no.

3:20

Who told you bad men can't dance?

3:22

You don't know that song? It's so

3:25

good. It's so good. This

3:27

really popular song is kind

3:29

of a part of a wave of

3:32

Afrobeats, dude. It's been

3:34

hitting the nation. Everywhere

3:37

I go, when you hear clubs playing music,

3:39

there's some Afro beats. So crazy,

3:42

of like, um, reggaeton,

3:44

right? Where six

3:47

years back, how many people were actually listening to

3:49

like, reggaeton?

3:51

Yeah. I mean, people in Latin America

3:53

probably,

3:54

talking about like the global stage, right? Bad

3:56

Bunny wasn't a thing. Now Bad Bunny is the biggest

3:58

artist in the world. So there's, there's

4:00

a huge wide shift.

4:02

Hell yeah. And I feel like bad

4:05

bunny working with artists

4:07

like Drake and folks in the U

4:09

S like that was kind

4:11

of insane for us to see and to have songs

4:13

where like English and another language was

4:15

there. I don't know. I felt like that was

4:17

really cool to see that.

4:18

Yeah, and and with this whole

4:20

Afrobeat sensation, it definitely

4:23

is an export of like culture

4:25

of the African culture, which is really

4:28

cool to see a big driver of all

4:30

this comes from Nigeria.

4:32

Exactly. And, um,

4:34

Nigeria, of course, if you've paid

4:38

attention to the news, know that it's

4:40

a growing economy it's

4:42

got a GDP of half a trillion

4:45

as of 2022. It's quite

4:48

a large economy,

4:49

Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed that

4:51

it is half a trillion, right?

4:54

That seems like a big number, considering

4:57

how infrequent. It's

4:59

mentioned in business

5:02

media.

5:02

Yeah. I mean, if you've

5:04

been paying attention, kind

5:06

of like what shows like the economist, which

5:08

I fricking love, they've been talking about

5:11

this phenomenon of Africa being

5:14

kind of the next economic powerhouse

5:16

because it's growing so much. And

5:19

the theory that the economist at least laid out

5:21

was that because

5:23

Africa had a really young

5:26

population, Yeah. And especially in like Nigeria,

5:28

dude, 70 percent of

5:30

the population is under 30.

5:34

Isn't that crazy?

5:35

Say that again. Say that again.

5:37

percent of the population is

5:40

under 30 years old.

5:41

That's insane.

5:43

that's a big number. That's a big number. And it's,

5:45

it's a young population. A lot

5:47

of new ideas are coming out. Like

5:50

it's significance in the African stage has

5:52

been growing, but it's not

5:54

immune to like

5:56

what's happened in the world in terms of inflation.

5:59

The topic that we've been talking about the last two years,

6:02

like it's still kind of crazy over there

6:05

and unemployment is still

6:07

pretty bad. Like it's up 30%.

6:10

So it has its problems, but You're

6:12

right. It's economic significance in

6:14

the region is is growing.

6:16

Yeah. And what's interesting is, uh,

6:19

you know, a lot of, um, Indian

6:21

companies have explored

6:23

Nigeria and Western countries

6:26

too with subsidiaries

6:28

in Nigeria. So Airtel, which

6:30

is a big telecom company

6:32

in India has an Airtel Nigeria.

6:35

Right. Which is public and one of the biggest stocks

6:38

on their stock market. Same with like, uh,

6:41

Cadbury, you know, growing up in

6:44

the developing world. You, you might know

6:46

as well, Jed, we had Pepsi,

6:48

we had Cadbury, we had, you know,

6:50

those staples. So you do see

6:52

those subsidiaries still having

6:55

a big presence in the Nigerian

6:57

market, but staggering that

6:59

it is home to the largest

7:02

youth population in the world.

7:05

Yeah. It's pretty interesting and I

7:08

think one of the things that make it such

7:10

a powerhouse is

7:13

the natural resource of oil.

7:16

Right? I think if you know anything

7:18

about oil reserves in the world, Nigeria

7:21

has one of the largest. So

7:23

it's been kind of endowed with this natural

7:26

resource that they have

7:28

been exporting at like very

7:30

large rates. Like

7:34

it's been very significant

7:36

in its entire GDP. Oil

7:38

takes up a lot of that. And

7:41

right now, kind of the

7:44

recent developments in

7:46

the industry and oil

7:48

prices in the last few years has been

7:51

very volatile. It's hard to

7:53

stick to one resource. We

7:55

were chatting right before this call and we talked about,

7:58

you know, Saudi and how that's

8:00

going for them. Them switching

8:02

from a really resource

8:05

heavy economy into like something more like

8:07

tech.

8:08

Yeah, it's just about spreading risk, right?

8:11

80 percent of Nigeria's

8:13

export revenue comes from oil. Like,

8:15

that is just one

8:18

misstep in that direction

8:20

could cripple your entire economy. So, uh,

8:23

which is happening right now, right? In recent years,

8:25

they have been hit hard by

8:27

the decline in oil production causing

8:30

a recession. Right. Yes, it did rebound

8:32

into 2021, but still

8:35

the growth has been slower than what it was in

8:37

the early 2010s. My money's

8:39

coming from just one source. I need

8:41

to start diversifying that risk.

8:43

I need to start investing

8:45

in other economies. And

8:47

that's what we're seeing with Nigeria, where they're investing

8:50

in agriculture, tech. The

8:52

population is young, so they want

8:54

a cell phone, they want e commerce.

8:56

And we are seeing these trends accelerate.

8:59

Yeah, really interesting. And

9:02

you know, what's kind of been happening

9:05

to oil generally has really

9:07

been pushing that trend, you know, pushing

9:09

them to make those decisions about risk and

9:11

how to spread it. Like for

9:14

a 13th consecutive quarter,

9:17

oil sector has contracted, you

9:20

know, it's It's a

9:22

long and slow burn for

9:24

them, but investing in these new

9:26

things, you know, like one

9:29

of, one of the biggest kind of projects

9:31

that has happened to the last few years is that then go

9:33

to refinery, this

9:35

refinery helps them actually refine

9:38

the oil, instead of just being able to

9:40

extract the natural resource, the raw natural

9:43

resource, right? A capability

9:45

they didn't have before. So.

9:48

That's kind of one of the big investments that

9:51

is going to define how they interact with other

9:53

industries going forward, spreading that risk.

9:58

So you mentioned that the oil sector

10:01

shrank, right, for the 13th straight

10:04

quarter. So how is

10:06

it that this country

10:08

with so much dependence on oil

10:11

still managed to grow, considering

10:13

their biggest industry shrank?

10:16

So what's the cause? Is it, is it the non

10:18

oil stuff?

10:20

It's gotta be dude. It's gotta be

10:22

right. Like these other economies

10:24

like tech have been growing like crazy,

10:26

a lot of investments. Also

10:28

there's foreign investment like crazy

10:30

because of kind of the relative

10:33

stability that it's achieved over the last few

10:35

years. Very relative by

10:38

the way. Still not

10:40

like Western standards in a way,

10:42

but you know, it's

10:44

getting there. Therefore investment

10:46

is flowing in, especially

10:49

for tech tech is a huge

10:51

driver in this, you know, a lot of large,

10:54

um, tech giants are already forming

10:56

up from Nigeria. Like flutter

10:59

wave, right?

11:00

I just pulled up the stat and it showed

11:03

that this whole diversification

11:06

of the economy

11:08

is kind of bearing fruit because even

11:11

though the oil sector shrank, the non

11:13

oil sector grew by 4.

11:16

6%. So overall, you know, The economy still

11:18

grew so very interesting to show

11:21

that shows that hey, you know Your

11:24

tech and entertainment can emerge

11:26

as a key driver of growth We

11:28

started this call talking about afrobeats.

11:30

They are actually exporting their culture.

11:33

Yeah, dude. Burn a boy, burn a boy,

11:35

baby.

11:36

Yeah. Yeah

11:37

you know what I mean? Like,

11:38

Okay, he was The

11:41

opening act

11:43

for the 2022 champions

11:45

league final. So

11:49

his, his rise to stardom is incredible.

11:52

He's selling out stadiums in

11:54

the UK, in Europe, in Paris,

11:56

uh, in the U S. So, yeah, I mean, the

11:58

beacons. Of this

12:01

new Africa, this new Nigeria,

12:03

right? So, uh, it's definitely coming

12:05

together and hopefully this

12:07

continues over the next 10, 20 years. Uh,

12:10

because there are, the trends

12:12

are not lying. Like, uh,

12:15

you have these global tech giants that are

12:17

establishing presence in Nigeria.

12:20

Stripe acquired Paystack, right?

12:23

Flutterwave, you just mentioned, raised

12:25

over a billion dollars.

12:27

Raising a lot of money. Google, Microsoft,

12:29

Facebook, all of them have offices out there. Also,

12:32

we mentioned the population was young. Right.

12:35

And so a lot of them are open

12:37

to these kinds of new tech

12:40

environments, and they're getting used to that,

12:43

like getting used to working in that. And so

12:45

very interesting where it all

12:47

plays into the tech wave, the

12:49

population. And so it's

12:51

more successful in this area. There's a lot of people that

12:54

are, you know, taking

12:56

larger risks and coming into these tech spaces

12:59

to try to innovate. One of the interesting startups

13:01

that are coming out of Africa

13:03

and Nigeria specifically is, is Jumia.

13:06

Think about what Amazon kind

13:08

of did for the U S it

13:10

was a huge unlock for small

13:13

businesses, for consumers in general,

13:15

right? Like expecting now

13:18

that I can get a package by either tonight

13:20

or tomorrow is ridiculous, dude. If

13:22

I wanted something, whatever it is, I could

13:25

order it online. That's a huge

13:27

unlock for the economy because that presents

13:29

a lot of opportunity for other companies

13:32

to build up. There are brands that have

13:34

been born in Amazon, that

13:36

have made it out of Amazon, right? And

13:38

become an independent brand. And

13:40

so Jumio is one

13:43

of those things, a platform that allowed

13:45

other businesses to grow. As well.

13:48

And it's a fricking large company, dude.

13:50

10 K people in Nigeria now.

13:52

And. That growth

13:54

of digital trade just helps

13:57

bring more people participating

14:00

in the economy.

14:01

Yeah. Jumia has achieved

14:04

so much, right? There's a lot of transactions

14:06

happening on Jumia today. And

14:09

it's still like doing the

14:11

same thing as Amazon was burning through

14:13

money, right? Not making enough money

14:15

to, to keep up. And it's

14:17

really difficult to operate with within this environment,

14:20

but that shows you that even an unprofitable

14:23

company can strive in this economy.

14:26

It's growing. It's growing. They're

14:28

able to mimic what happens in Silicon

14:30

Valley.

14:31

And other global players start

14:33

looking at these economies

14:36

for growth, big global players. enter

14:39

the African market through

14:41

acquisitions. Now Paystack, we just

14:43

mentioned another Nigerian

14:46

fintech company. They

14:48

provide payments processing solutions,

14:50

right? To businesses and consumers.

14:53

Stripe, which is the largest, uh,

14:55

payment processing solution out there

14:57

in 2020 and bought them for 200

14:59

million, right? So this is

15:02

one of the largest exits for an African

15:04

startup, which is massive, huge

15:07

lift for the entire economy.

15:10

Uh, the tech and startup ecosystem,

15:12

because everyone thinks now, Hey, you know what,

15:14

maybe I can start something and

15:17

get enough traction and there could be

15:20

significant dollar amount for

15:23

this business, for this idea, right?

15:26

Paystack has been an incredible success

15:29

story. They, they, what. What process

15:31

close to 25 million transactions

15:34

per month, right? What every bill, what

15:36

over a billion. So, um, you

15:38

know, these big companies, big international,

15:41

uh, multinational corporations

15:44

are looking to Africa to be their

15:46

growth engine.

15:49

It's an opportunity for them to grow where

15:52

they're having, you know, like a

15:54

lot of the large FinTech

15:57

FinTech firms, Visa and MasterCard,

16:00

right. Are investing in companies

16:02

like Paystack because they're trying to look for growth.

16:05

They're already based in areas where growth

16:07

has kind of stalled and there's not

16:09

too many new customers anymore. Like in

16:11

a market like this, Nigeria, one of the

16:13

most populated countries in

16:15

Africa, you know, they can

16:18

really grow in these spaces. So it's

16:20

interesting what's happening for them in,

16:22

um, tech generally.

16:25

yeah. Now, uh, just shifting

16:28

gears a bit, uh, Jed, how, how does

16:30

their, um, trading and their

16:32

policies look like, because I know we did cover

16:34

it in the Mexico episode,

16:36

in the Brazil episode, so I kind of wanted to

16:38

touch on that because It's

16:41

great saying, Hey, population

16:43

is young. They're addicted to phones. E

16:45

commerce is growing. They are trying to diversify

16:47

from oil to tech, but there's

16:49

got to be some policies and regulations

16:51

that's probably allowing

16:54

a lot more commerce, right?

16:56

Yeah. It's super important for their growth

16:59

and the growth as a region, I think in Africa.

17:01

Um, so there's. Two

17:03

major organizations. I think I'm just gonna glaze

17:06

over, which is one is the African continental

17:08

free trade area. It

17:11

is a coalition of countries

17:13

that have signed up in Africa to be able

17:15

to support each other, similar to what NAFTA

17:17

would be in the U. S.

17:19

For North America. It's kind of

17:22

the same type of free trade. Right.

17:24

Lowering import export taxes

17:26

for certain goods that are strategic,

17:29

um, for their advantages so that

17:31

the region can grow as a whole.

17:33

So that's one interesting thing where

17:35

Nigeria takes a really huge

17:38

leadership role. So

17:40

when they're important policy decisions,

17:42

Nigeria has a very large vote.

17:45

Um, for that region and that increases,

17:47

it's kind of soft power in the area. Yeah.

17:51

And then another one is the

17:53

economic community of West African states.

17:55

It's similar to what, um,

17:57

the AF CFTA is

17:59

as well. Uh, where it allows

18:02

for easy trade and

18:04

sort of like cultural trade in between

18:06

the countries as well, like it's

18:09

economic benefit, economically beneficial

18:11

for both countries, supposedly, that's at least

18:13

the intent. Of these organizations.

18:16

So we're also seeing that where

18:18

everybody's investing in regional growth,

18:20

finding out what is best to do for,

18:23

um, each other in the region. I

18:25

think that's key to a lot of these like developing

18:28

nations experiencing crazy

18:30

growth at the moment and

18:33

who've changed like entire economies, right?

18:35

Like we're talking about Nigeria shifting from

18:38

oil to tech. Like that's,

18:40

what's happening as a result of these partnerships

18:42

as well. Flutter wave

18:45

is operating in multiple African.

18:47

Um, countries because

18:49

of easy trade like this as well, right?

18:52

Like there's a lot of incentives for trade in between

18:54

these African countries. What's

18:58

happening in Nigeria and generally Africa

19:00

has been pretty interesting. And

19:03

this soft power concept that we talked about

19:05

is also another way to say that economically

19:08

they're improving. So

19:12

it's nice to see that the average

19:15

GDP per capita will probably also

19:17

grow as a result of this. So it's a nice

19:19

positive, um, thing

19:22

that's happening for the region and for the folks

19:24

that live in Nigeria. It's crazy

19:26

dude, like one in every

19:29

five Africans is Nigerian.

19:32

That's how significant, kind of like,

19:35

Wow.

19:35

from a demographic perspective, Nigeria

19:38

is in addition to the soft

19:40

power it's like, you know, currently

19:43

growing into. So it's,

19:46

It's nice that we're able to explore stuff like this. I

19:48

enjoyed the research that we did.

19:50

And I wanted to actually drop a

19:52

link, a Howard business study link

19:54

of the interplay between soft power and hard

19:56

power. You cannot be a true big,

19:58

big. Economy, unless

20:00

you can leverage both, right?

20:03

So we'll drop that link. It's really interesting.

20:05

Soft power is more about being able

20:07

to shape the preferences of others.

20:10

They want your KFCs. They want

20:12

your Nike sneakers, the

20:14

Air Jordans, you know, that's, it shapes the

20:16

preferences of someone else. So

20:18

it's interesting how, you know, music

20:21

media, uh, coming out from

20:23

this part of the world is actually influencing

20:26

people on the global stage.

20:27

Exactly. We hope

20:29

you liked this episode on Nigeria

20:32

and our kind of foray into talking

20:34

about African countries. It was really fun

20:36

to do all this research and to learn

20:38

about how much Nigeria has grown and changed.

20:41

Um, but thank you so much for

20:43

tuning in tonight. And as

20:46

always, stay curious.

20:52

The information and opinions expressed

20:54

in this episode are for informational

20:57

purposes only. And are not

20:59

intended as financial investment

21:01

or professional advice. Always

21:03

consult with a qualified professional before

21:06

making any decisions based on the concept

21:08

provided. Neither the podcast,

21:11

nor is creators are responsible

21:13

for any actions taken as a result

21:15

of listening to this episode.