Why Nigeria Loses International Business Opportunities Annually, By Aniagolu-Okoye

Despite Nigeria’s large market size and the huge prospects it possesses, the country has been on the short end of the stick in international trade due to the unwholesome practices by merchants in the country thereby making them lose trust of foreign business partners, Dr Chichi Aniagolu-Okoye, Ford Foundation Director for West Africa region has revealed.

Aniagolu-Okoye who oversees all activities of the foundation geared towards addressing humanitarian challenges in various communities across the West African region, said many business owners in Nigeria do not have good business ethics like honesty and integrity, which makes them offer substandard goods and engage in sharp practices to shortchange their business partners.

The development sociologist stated this during the fifth edition of Prime Business Africa Socio-Economic and Entrepreneurship Development Series (SEEDS) webinar.

Speaking on the theme of the webinar, “AfCFTA and Business Startups in Africa: The Risks, The Opportunities,” Aniagoluu-Okoye, said trust and honesty are essential attributes that individual businesses especially start-ups should imbibe to be able to meet and have business deals with potential merchants and investors across the world as African leaders move ahead with implementation of the AfCFTA agreement.

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Aniagolu-Okoye said Nigeria is a big market in Africa but acts of dishonesty by unscrupulous business owners discourage foreign business partners, adding that many products exported from the country are returned because of being fake or substandard in quality.

The Ford Foundation director in West Africa further stated that such attitude has made many foreigners to instead choose other countries like Ghana for their business destination, whom they seem to trust more.

Aniagolu-Okoye observed that such disposition has been a major challenge affecting Nigeria’s ability to participate in international trade especially the private sector.

“The major challenge that is affecting our ability to participate effectively internationally is our business ethics.

“It’s purely about honesty and trust. We find that in Nigeria, doing business of course has many challenges. But if we are talking about startups; a startup’s biggest equity at starting up is trust and honesty, because if people don’t know you, you are just trying to get into the market, the only thing you really bring at that stage is honesty. Unfortunately, many have relegated this completely to the background,” she said.

“I think that this is at the heart of what is happening in our private sector that our startups really need to pay attention to. If we are really going to go into business in Africa under the AfCFTA, we really need to pay attention to the quality of goods that we bring and also to the quality of persons that we bring.

“Many of our exports are returned because they don’t meet international standards. They deliberately don’t meet international standards. You have people who would export beans and half of it will be sand. You will have cashew mixed with other sediments. We cannot continue like this.

“We are losing a huge market simply because we don’t have the integrity, trust, honesty that are required in businesses,” Aniagolu-Okoye stated.

She warned that for startups that want to engage in international business in order to benefit from the trade opportunities presented by the AfCFTA bilateral agreement, there is a need to imbibe the culture of honesty and integrity.

“For a startup to really excel both internally and across Africa and in the world, we really need to begin to prioritise honesty and integrity.”

Speaking further on the issue of trust and honesty in business, she equally remarked that it also affects individuals in raising equity for business, adding that there are business financing opportunities offered by different development finance institutions both locally and internationally which people and organisations can benefit from if there is a significant level of trust, integrity and transparency in their dealings.

She pointed out that the reason credit institutions subject individuals and organisations to stringent documentation processes in order to obtain loans for business is due to lack of trust.