How do you measure the pulse of Nigeria’s economy if you are an entrepreneur and run a B2C business? Try these indicators:
– Count the number of active aircrafts parked in Nigeria’s leading local airports at 9pm over a week; ask someone working in FAAN to help. Compare that number with your previous benchmark. The delta will tell you where things stand.
– Climb the tallest buildings in Marina Lagos and count occasionally over a week, how many ships are coming and leaving, and how loaded they are. You will likely notice that the number of ships coming to Nigeria have dropped, and most troubling, ships continue to depart Nigeria largely empty. I have friends in those buildings; I provided them with binoculars to assist.
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 19 (Feb 9 – May 2, 2026): big discounts for early bird.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and co-invest in great global startups.
Register for Tekedia AI Lab: From Technical Design to Deployment (next edition begins Jan 24 2026).
If supply chain is the engine of commerce, the implication is that if our supply chain is seeing a significant drop, it does mean that our economic activities have reduced. Again, this is not a scientific study, but this is one way I have been using for years to provide a quasi-independent evaluation of where things are.
Then this one: visit Shoprite on a typical Saturday, and compare how it used to be. This will help you understand the positioning of your potential middle class customers. My model remains that Nigeria has about 30 million salary earners (formal and informal). That means when it comes to PAYING for things, you have 30 million to target even though those 30M support about 230 million people. This number has not changed since I developed it
Now, what is the earning power of those 30m people? It used to be between $4 — $8 per day on average; now, it is about $2 – $4 per day. For Nigerian B2C startups, this is the income band that holds the highest concentration of discretionary spending power in the country and you must model your pricing around that. As I have taught, this pricing must align with PMVQ (product minimum viable quality) to unlock value. No excuses; you must unlock value because Nigeria’s 30m “earning” customers are still larger than the population of most African countries.
*video: picked on WhatsApp (Sat, April 5 2025)
---
Connect via my
LinkedIn |
Facebook |
X |
TikTok |
Instagram |
YouTube
I was at the Tropicana Mall in Uyo this Sunday, and the scant traffic will tell you all there’s about the state of the economy, a significant section of the mall has closed. It is the unscientific data that will give you the most accurate indication of where things are in the economy, they never fail.
Another effective way of knowing the economic status of a people in a given geographic space is the classification of luxury. If the luxury list is expanding with no introduction of new products on the market, just know that it’s part of what used to be essentials that have migrated to luxury. That is what poverty does, it makes you see ordinary as extraordinary. Everything seems great to a small minded people.
Why are the malls drying up? The explainers will tell you it’s because of ‘competition’ from smaller outlets. What is fueling such dramatic competition – price or quality of service? There you have your answer. Nigerians like luxuries, but when they start seeing luxuries as some discomfort and immorality, just know that something has happened to their pockets. We know the country and our people, so you do not need social scientists to educate you on the obvious.
Electricity, TV and data subscriptions are also luxuries…