It’s hard to see a silver lining in the awful economic cloud currently flogging Nigeria’s backside.
But as an unrepentant and obsessive optimist, I’m sure there would be something good to come of this. If history is anything to go by, quite a number people start their journeys to success when things go titsup.
Real Estate
Things are really cheap now, especially for my cousins abroad. In fact cost of houses are going down while dollars exchange rate is going in the other direction. So if you live outside Nigeria and you couldn’t afford to get your own place in Lagos or elsewhere previously, this is the time to do it.
Export
Some people have been doing export for a while but I think the time is ripe for Nigeria to go into export frenzy. We all know how to copy, let’s over copy and paste this!
Nigeria is full of abundance of everything except FX. For example, hide and skin from the north are processed for export to those making shoes and fancy bags. We have cashew, timber, shea butter, etc. It’s easy to get into the game.
Finding customers may be a bit tough so that’s a job you need to do. Quality is also an important factor, always supply what has been requested.
Software and FinTech
This is the big one. In the last 2 years, I have worked with incredibly smart people; some are colleagues while many are vendors. This bunch of smart guys are building fantastic software and services that can be used anywhere in the world.
While their Nigerian customers are finding it hard to pay because of the economy, they can easily sell their services to those outside the country. The quality of their web applications and mobile apps would compete favorably on the global scale considering that their cost would be lower.
In fact, if I ran a global organization I would have my software team in Lagos, as their cost would be lower while getting same or even better quality.
Buying companies for pennies
Investors know that cash flow, ROE and ROI are kings. The rest is semantics.
If you checked the NSE of recent you would have laughed your boxers off. Big names are trading for next to nothing. They don’t even qualify to be called penny stock anymore, we should call them free stock.
Now this appeals to long term or Nigerians in diaspora investors who would want to hang around for the long haul. Reality is that we would get out of this funk so the best time to position for the future is now.
While I’m very optimistic that Nigeria would get out of this funk, I also know that’s dependent on the country to think its way out of the mess. If it doesn’t start with Buhari and others, it could start with me and you.
Maybe I ain’t in the best position to say this; I took the easy way out.