Nigeria is not enough

It is time for Nigerian companies to Japa

Every year the FT produces a ranking of Africa’s fastest-growing companies. I look forward to it for several reasons. One obvious one is that it lets you get a sense of the continent’s economic direction of travel and surfaces companies I’d never heard of. But what I like most about it dates back to a few years ago when a friend’s company made the list. I called to congratulate him, and he mentioned how rigorous the exercise had been. The FT checked everything about the company’s finances - including bank statements - with the thoroughness of a statutory audit. That level of scrutiny gives me confidence that the figures in the ranking are reasonably reliable.

The 2025 report is now out and I had some thoughts about the Nigerian companies on it. Here’s what the top 10 looks like:

The top three spots all go to Nigerian firms, and four of the top ten hail from Nigeria, impressive by any standard. I know Remedial Health well, so its inclusion is no shock: the founder-CEO is a driven operator intent on knitting Nigeria’s pharmacies into a modern, efficient network.

But the list also gives me an opportunity to jump on one of our favourite hobby horses here at 1914 Reader. It allows you to filter by country, and when you do that for Nigeria, you get about 28 companies on the list of 50. Again, very impressive by any measure.

But look at the list of Nigerian companies and something jumps out:

The vast majority (if not all) are companies serving only the Nigerian market. The Nigerian firm with the highest revenues on the list is Moniepoint, generating $265 million in 2023. It currently operates in Nigeria and Kenya and is expanding into other African countries. The next highest revenue earner is the Nigerian supermarket chain Marketsquare, which does less than half of Moniepoint’s revenues.

To further drive the point home, here's what you see when you filter by revenues across the entire continent:

Of the top 15 companies by revenue, only one Nigerian company makes the list - Moniepoint at number 12. Dig deeper, and it’s not hard to see why. The top two spots are taken by mining companies in South Africa, exporting globally. KCB Group in Kenya operates across seven countries in East and Central Africa. Axian Telecom from Mauritius serves markets as far-flung as Senegal, Togo, and Madagascar, among others. Co-operative Bank of Kenya has expanded into South Sudan and Ethiopia, and is currently establishing operations in Uganda. And consider Choppies: Botswana is a country of fewer than three million people, yet a supermarket chain from there generates $639 million in revenue.

Here’s what its footprint looks like:

Continue down the list and the pattern remains the same. Herholdts sells solar products across Southern Africa, and Palmci is, of course, a palm oil exporter. MNT bucks the trend somewhat as it operates solely in Egypt - but Egypt has a GDP per capita double that of Nigeria, making it comparable in some ways to the Nigerian companies on the list, including Moniepoint.

Quickmart is also a solely Kenyan operation and is Kenya’s second largest supermarket chain. The final company on the list before you get to Nigeria’s Moniepoint is Morocco’s Dislog Group. Last year it acquired a Spanish distribution company for $44 million and now has operations in 10 countries in North Africa and Europe.

Nigeria is all you need, maybe

What to make of all this? The clearest takeaway is that Nigeria, despite its population of over 200 million, is actually a very small market. The reasons are straightforward: a decade with practically no economic growth has left the country significantly behind its global peers.

You can grow very quickly in Nigeria from a standing start, but you soon hit the market's ceiling. Then you face a choice: stay home or go abroad. It's not an easy decision, as transitioning from a domestically focused business to one targeting external markets is challenging. Companies typically need to be ‘born global’ - that is, having an export-oriented product or operation from day one - or they risk becoming bogged down locally, losing sight of opportunities beyond their borders.

For Nigeria, this challenge is particularly critical due to the psychological effects of crude oil. People - encouraged by political leaders and policymakers - tend to believe that the country needs nothing beyond what it already has, leaving many Nigerians with an insular outlook. As I wrote in 2018 when MTN had been on the receiving end of several large regulatory fines in Nigeria:

The reasons for this deep-seated hostility to trade are varied. They range from the historical (the slave trade, and colonialism after it, didn’t exactly leave people gagging for more of either) to the geographical (Nigeria is hardly on the way to anywhere). But here’s my simple but unoriginal theory—Nigerian businesses have never really successfully travelled outside of the country in the way that is common in South Africa and several western countries where a company like MTN earns most of its profits from outside South Africa. A few Nigerian banks have made half-hearted attempts to expand across the continent but where they don’t end up in fiascos, they hardly make any money. The country’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has lately been on an expansionist drive across Africa with his cement business but so far with mixed results. Ultimately, Nigeria continues to subsidize his investments elsewhere—more than 90% of the cement group’s profits still come from Nigeria.

Nigerian leaders have no experience of having to defend the rights of a successful Nigerian business which does very well abroad and repatriates profits back to the country. The closest thing to that is the country’s large diaspora who send billions of dollars back home every year. But beyond that, there is just no experience of a company like MTN or Multichoice or Shoprite for Nigerians. Nigerian leaders thus play up the country’s 180 million people as a “market” and naturally make it out as something to be protected from ‘exploitation’ by rapacious foreigners. In that sense, perhaps it was always coming for MTN.

Japa for companies

Of course, Nigerian companies are under no obligation to adopt an export mindset. With over 200 million people, Nigeria will always offer some form of market, regardless of the country’s poverty or broader economic stagnation. But this comes with clear trade-offs. One unavoidable consequence is that Nigerian businesses consistently underperform relative to the nation’s size, lagging behind their continental peers.

Moreover, exporting does much more than expand revenues - it sharpens a company’s competitive instincts. When selling to people who owe you nothing, you’re compelled to continually innovate, maintain rigorous standards, and deliver exceptional customer service. Practices you might easily get away with at home become impossible when competing internationally. In other words, engaging with external markets forces Nigerian companies to raise their game.

John Maynard Keynes once remarked ruefully that the most difficult part of having new economic ideas is persuading others of their virtue. In Nigeria’s case, it is unclear who will champion the argument for an economy that prioritises exports. Nigerian leaders certainly have little incentive to do so; acknowledging that local businesses need to look abroad would amount to admitting their policies have impoverished Nigerians, forcing companies to seek external markets. It is far easier politically to insist that the domestic market alone is sufficient.

While the FT’s ranking rightly celebrates Nigerian companies growing rapidly at home - a genuinely impressive achievement - the broader message should not be overlooked: Nigeria and its companies are dramatically underperforming relative to their potential and the country’s size.

The Japa phenomenon of the last decade or so is well understood and accepted. It is time to extend this acceptance and understanding to Nigerian companies. A Japa wave of Nigerian companies will do the country a world of good.