Adedeji Olowe

How SMEs can use AI to build and grow their business

Small businesses no longer need deep pockets to compete. With AI, they can build websites, create content, manage customers, and keep proper financial records at a fraction of the old cost.

When I talk to small business owners in Nigeria and across Africa, I keep coming back to the same thought: this is one of the best times in history to start something useful, because tools that once felt out of reach are now affordable and effective. I said something similar when I spoke at FATE Foundation some weeks ago, a non-profit started by Fola Adeola in the early 2000s to support entrepreneurs, and I meant it. I have seen what determined founders can achieve with limited resources, and I have also seen how technology has lowered the cost and effort needed to get results.

For small and medium-sized businesses, AI is one of the clearest opportunities to compete, but only if you are willing to pick up the tools and use them with discipline. That discipline comes from building small habits. It starts with learning the basics of one or two AI platforms instead of trying to master everything at once. From there, the focus should be on applying AI to repetitive or time-consuming work where you can measure the benefit. If you can see the hours saved or the increase in leads, you know you are moving in the right direction..

When I share this with founders, I always stress that it is not a magic solution but a realistic approach that turns effort into results you can track. Let me walk you through the simple ways I encourage business owners to use AI and affordable software to raise their game. Everything comes from real conversations with entrepreneurs and from the experiments I run with teams to test what works.

Your web presence is non-negotiable and it does not need to be fancy

What did you do the last time you heard about a business you wanted to work with? You probably Googled them. That’s what people do with you too. When someone hears about your business, their first move is almost always an online search. If nothing comes up, many assume your business does not exist. I have met plenty of business owners who think a website is complicated, expensive, or only for big companies. That mindset holds them back because a simple website that explains who you are, what you do, and how to reach you is the minimum requirement, and setting one up today is easier and cheaper than most realise.

A basic WordPress installation or a simple Webflow site is enough to start. Buy a domain name, pay for hosting, pick a clean template, and within a few hours you can have a professional-looking page live. Hosting can cost as little as $5 a month on platforms like Bluehost, Hostinger, or Namecheap, which works out to about $60 a year. For what you gain in credibility and customer trust, that cost is small. Treat the site like a digital business card that people can always rely on when they need to verify you or learn more about your services.

The mistake I see often is businesses delaying because they cannot afford a glossy, custom-built site. That delay costs them opportunities. Customers rarely care about flashy animations or advanced features. What matters is that your site is clear, functional, and easy to use. If you are serious about growth, this is one of the simplest first steps. A clean, functional site signals that you are ready for business. It is an investment that pays for itself every time a potential customer looks you up and finds what they need.

Make your content pull customers to you, and let AI do the boring heavy lifting

Getting a website up is only the first step. What keeps it alive and valuable is the content that goes on it. This is where most business owners slow down or give up, because creating content is extremely difficult and mind numbing. It is one thing to build a site, but it is another thing entirely to keep it stocked with the type of material that brings people back or convinces them to reach out.

This is exactly where AI can become a practical tool. Tools like Jasper, Copy.ai, Rytr, Perplexity, Claude and Writesonic can help you create service pages, blog posts, and sales material that are clear, structured, and search-friendly. To get the best out of them, you still need to provide context. A few notes on your tone, facts about your business, and maybe a short customer story to give the tool enough material to produce something close to your voice. Once you have a draft, your job is to edit it, strip out anything unnecessary, and make sure it reflects your brand.

Once the heavy lifting is done by AI, your responsibility shifts to deciding which pages or materials will make the biggest difference. A polished “About Us” page, a clear set of FAQs, or one or two detailed case studies can go a long way in convincing potential buyers. When you take this approach, content becomes an asset. Instead of worrying about how to constantly create from scratch, you now have a reliable way to generate material, refine it, and publish it with confidence that it will actually move people closer to doing business with you.

Make your images and videos work for you without hiring a studio

For a long time, photography and video were stumbling blocks for small businesses. Getting professional visuals meant booking a photographer, paying for models, and renting a studio, which added up quickly. Many brands either settled for low-quality images or drained resources trying to keep up. Now, AI tools give you a plethora of options for free. You can generate or edit visuals that match your brand without needing a full creative team or expensive equipment.

Tools like Google’s image model (Nano Banana), Pictory, Runway and CapCut make this process straightforward. With them, you can create product shots in a variety of settings, show how an item might look in someone’s hand, or design a clean hero image that tells your story at a glance. You can also repurpose existing photos by editing the background, adjusting colors, or adding missing details so that everything looks consistent. If you are unsure how to guide these tools, there are plenty of free resources with prompt libraries and lessons from places like Google and ChatGPT that can help you get started.

Nevertheless, It is important to use visuals responsibly. If you are selling a product, the image or video should be an honest representation of what the buyer will actually receive. Customers can spot exaggeration, and misleading visuals usually create more problems than they solve. The real goal is to use these tools to highlight the best parts of what you already offer, so the right people are drawn in and feel confident about choosing you.

Keep customers with good support and simple CRM tools

The mistake many small businesses make is treating customer support as an afterthought. They rely on memory, scattered notes, or informal follow-ups, which usually leads to missed messages, slow responses, and customers quietly moving on to someone more reliable. A simple structure, even with basic tools, changes that outcome completely.

There are plenty of free or very affordable platforms that can make customer support feel intentional without overwhelming you. Freshdesk, for example, has a free plan that comes with ticketing, a basic knowledge base, and simple reporting. For most SMEs, that is more than enough to get started. Others like Zoho Desk and HubSpot Free CRM allows you to track conversations in one place instead of jumping between emails, calls, and social media DMs. If you add a few well-written response templates and a small FAQ section on your site, customers can get answers quickly, and your team spends less time repeating the same explanations over and over.

Live chat is another area where businesses often overestimate what is needed. Many assume they have to pay for enterprise software to add a chat feature, but that is not the case. Free options like tawk.to, Crisp, and HubSpot Chat give you a free chat widget that you can install on your site in minutes. It works well for capturing leads and answering questions in real time, and it also keeps a history of conversations so you can follow up properly.

Use accounting tools to understand your numbers

When you start to pursue bigger opportunities, whether with large clients, investors, or lenders, the first area that gets examined is your financial records. No matter how strong your product or service is, a messy set of books makes it difficult for anyone to take you seriously. Larger buyers want to know they are dealing with someone who has structure, and investors want to see that money is being managed responsibly. If you cannot produce clear invoices, expense records, and basic financial statements, you immediately weaken your chances of moving forward with them.

The good news is that you don’t need to wait until your business is established or hire a full-time accountant before putting some structure around your numbers. There are free or very affordable accounting tools built specifically for small businesses that help you stay organised. Zoho Books, for instance, has a forever free plan that allows you to send invoices, track expenses, reconcile bank transactions, and generate standard reports like profit and loss. Wave Accounting is another strong free option, while QuickBooks, Xero, and FreshBooks provide inexpensive upgrades as your needs grow. Even mobile-first apps like Bookkeeping.com, Kashoo, or Sage Business Cloud can keep you organized on the go.

Starting with a system like this from day one means you build the habit early, and you avoid the scramble of trying to clean up records later when an opportunity comes knocking. Even a simple set of financial records shows partners, lenders, and clients that you run your operations in a disciplined way. It communicates that you take the business seriously and that you can be trusted to deliver. Over time, that credibility opens doors that would otherwise remain closed, because opportunities often flow to businesses that appear prepared.

Document your processes and treat them like assets

A business that runs on memory quickly hits a ceiling. If every step sits in your head, growth depends on how much you can handle, which isn’t sustainable. To scale, you need written processes others can follow. Start with the essentials: onboarding checklists for staff, guidelines for customer complaints, instructions for packaging and shipping, and basic quality checks.

Writing standard operating procedures can feel tedious when you’re busy, but the payoff is real. Instead of starting from scratch, use AI tools like Notion AI, Scribe or Trainual to generate first drafts. Feed in details of how you work, get a structured outline, and refine it into a practical document. Once captured, that process becomes an asset saving time with every hire and preserving consistency so customers get the same experience no matter who handles the work.

Documentation also extends to contracts and paperwork. Tools like ChatGPT or Harvey AI can review agreements to flag unclear clauses and summarize the fine print. When it’s time to sign, free digital signature tools like DocuSign, HelloSign, or SignWell make the process easy. For editing or adjusting PDFs, platforms like PDF24, Smallpdf, or ILovePDF let you merge, split, or update documents without expensive software.

It’s also worth investing in a searchable knowledge base. Options range from Google Drive and Dropbox Paper to more structured platforms like Confluence or NotebookLM. With these, your team always has a single source of truth. When new hires can quickly find answers, they make fewer mistakes, waste less time, and keep operations running smoothly as you grow.

Don’t underestimate presentation polish

The way you package your message matters more than most people admit. Good presentation signals that you take the person on the other end seriously. When you walk into a meeting with a buyer, investor, or partner, they are paying attention to both what you are saying and how it is delivered. A pitch deck does not have to look like it came from a global consulting firm, but it should be easy to read, well structured, and consistent with your brand identity.

Today, there are tools that make it almost effortless to add that polish. Canva, for example, has templates that take care of layout, typography, and branding. Free options like Google Slides, Gamma, and Pitch also help you create slides that feel professional without hiring a designer. It costs very little, but the impact on how you are perceived is significant.

Polish extends beyond slides too. Simple details like using your brand fonts consistently, ensuring charts are readable, and avoiding walls of text go a long way in helping the other person engage with your pitch. When the substance of your pitch is strong and the presentation matches that level, you give yourself the best chance of being remembered and taken seriously.

Featured read: The myth of African market expansion

Why I care, and what I tell every founder I meet

Speaking at FATE Foundation was an honour because organisations like that have been doing the heavy lifting for entrepreneurs long before it became fashionable to talk about startups. For more than two decades, they have been providing the training, mentorship, and community that turn ideas into operational businesses. That work matters deeply to me because it aligns with what I try to do every day at Lendsqr.

At the event, I met founders who were sharp, creative, and determined, but who often lacked the resources that would allow them to fully realise their potential. This is where technology and process make a difference. With the right tools and some structure in place, a small business can start to look and behave like a much larger one. When you combine those practices with even modest capital, the odds of surviving the early years and eventually growing into something meaningful increase significantly.

I care about this because I believe in the possibility of Nigerian and African businesses to not only serve local markets but to expand across borders and compete on a larger stage. And my role, as I see it, is to keep finding ways to make the practical side easier for founders.

Sometimes that is through Lendsqr, by giving lenders the infrastructure to operate and grow. Other times it is through direct mentorship, sharing insights here and on Linkedin, or simply pointing people to tools they can adopt quickly. These small interventions over time add up to stronger businesses and a healthier ecosystem.

The myth of African market expansion

Founders love to talk about planting flags across the continent, yet for every headline success, there are dozens of quiet failures nobody writes about. Regulation, cost, culture, and talent make the road far rougher than most anticipate. From my experience at Lendsqr and in banking, succeeding across borders requires more than ambition.

Africa is a 1.4billion-person market, 20x the size of the UK and 4x the size of the US. You would be a stupid founder to sit in your corner of Africa and not explore.

So, everybody wants to go pan-African until reality smacks them. Market expansion often sounds sexy on paper. It is the kind of announcement that founders like to make with chest-thumping pride, almost the same way politicians love to declare “we are diversifying the economy.” It feels good to say, signals growth and it gets investors nodding and clapping. You can bet the press picks it up, and suddenly you are in the headlines as the next big continental play.

The moment a startup in Lagos, Nairobi, or Cape Town grows to a certain size, the itch begins. There’s this unspoken belief that to be truly successful, you must spread your wings beyond your home country. Suddenly, we all want to plant flags across the continent, to prove we are bigger than just one market.

And to be fair, some companies have actually managed to make it work. Flutterwave is everywhere and has built a name that is recognized across multiple African countries. Paystack has pulled it off as well and has done it with enough discipline that people now point to them as a benchmark. My own company, Lendsqr, has spread beyond Nigeria, working with customers in several countries. Even Chowdeck, which is much newer in the scene, just marched into Ghana and is already crushing numbers like they have been there for years. These stories are inspiring and keep the dream alive for a lot of founders who are planning their own moves.

The truth, however, is that these few success stories sit on top of a mountain of attempts that didn’t end the same way. The continent is littered with stories that don’t sound as rosy. I’ve personally watched Nigerian startups head into other countries with all the confidence in the world, only to retreat quietly when reality hit them. Some leave with public statements about “restructuring strategy” or “shifting focus,” but many just fade out and go silent, nursing their wounds in private. I’ve also seen the reverse. Companies from other African countries have tried to break into Nigeria, hoping to tap into the massive market, and they’ve ended up crashing just as badly.

One example that comes to mind is the Sendy, the Kenyan logistics company that tried their luck in Nigeria. They came in with energy and ambition, but it didn’t last. It was over before most people even noticed they had arrived. Wave, which is doing incredibly well in francophone Africa, hasn’t dared enter Nigeria, and maybe that decision is more out of wisdom than fear. Nigeria is not for children. It eats up outsiders who underestimate it, just as easily as other countries chew up Nigerian startups that come in thinking size and ambition are enough.

So when I talk about the myth of African expansion, this is what I mean. On the surface, it looks like the natural next step in a startup’s growth story. It feels like something you are supposed to do once you are stable at home. But when you look at the outcomes of many who have gone before you, what you find is that expanding across Africa is less of a walk in the park than they let on.

And before anyone runs off with the wrong idea. This is not a dig at any individual founder or business. It is my own reflection from years of watching, living, and sometimes participating in these moves. It is based on the scars I have seen others carry and the ones I have earned myself.

Why do we even want to expand in the first place?

The motivation is never the same for every company, and each founder has their own story to tell about why they chose to leave the comfort of their home market. For me, speaking from my Lendsqr journey, the decision was almost hardwired from the beginning. We never set out to build something that was only relevant to Nigeria. The company’s DNA was global from the very start.

Lending has never been a uniquely Nigerian issue, it’s always been a challenge faced in every economy where people need access to credit to move forward. Whether it’s a street vendor in Lagos, an Uber driver in Dubai, or a small migrant-owned business in Toronto, the need for fair, reliable, and efficient access to credit is the same. That understanding shaped how we built Lendsqr and made expansion feel like a natural progression rather than an afterthought.

As things stand today, we already serve customers in countries far beyond Nigeria. We have businesses using Lendsqr in Canada, the United States, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, and we are in meaningful conversations with potential clients in several other places as well. That was always the plan. It was never about simply conquering Lagos or focusing on a handful of Nigerian states. The mission was always to solve lending problems wherever they existed, and the more we engaged with different markets, the clearer it became that our solution could travel.

Another major driver is the need to spread risk. Putting all your eggs in one basket is never a smart move, and in a market like Nigeria, it is downright dangerous. If your entire livelihood as a business is tied to the whims of one regulator or one government agency, you are gambling with your future. I have seen this play out in real time. The FCCPC made one sweeping decision recently that threw the entire lending ecosystem in Nigeria into confusion. If Nigeria was our only market, that single move could have ended us. Unfortunately, that’s the reality of building in volatile environments. By expanding to multiple countries, we reduced that risk. It meant that if one market decided to play rough, the entire company would not go under.

There is also the financial angle, which cannot be ignored. Revenue from multiple streams is healthier than relying on a single source, and international expansion makes that possible. If there are markets willing to pay for a product you have already built and tested, it only makes sense to step into them. For us, it was about increasing top-line numbers and also about strengthening the platform itself. Working with a wide variety of customers across different geographies exposes you to different lending cultures, regulatory requirements, and customer expectations. Every time we enter a new market, the product gets better. The feedback loop becomes richer, the technology more resilient, and the overall offering sharper because it has to meet higher levels of diversity.

So when I think about why we wanted to expand, it was never a vanity project or a way to entice investors. Rather, it was rooted in the nature of the problem we were solving, the need to protect the business from unnecessary risks, the opportunity to make more money, and the understanding that the more we stretched ourselves across borders, the stronger Lendsqr would become.

Market expansion is hellishly hard

The biggest reality check for any expansion dream is often regulation. For Lendsqr, we’ve been lucky because we operate strictly as software. We don’t move money ourselves, which means we are not directly under the kind of licensing and compliance requirements that payments companies face. That has spared us many sleepless nights.

But for any company whose business model involves actually handling money, the reality is brutal. You will find yourself sitting in front of regulators who can stall you for months, sometimes even years, before you get the green light. The rules are not always clear, and just when you think you’ve ticked every box, another requirement appears. It is never a one-time battle either, be prepared for a constant tug-of-war that drains time, energy, and cash.

From my days in banking with UBA, Access, and Atlas Mara, I saw how different the game is when you are a large institution with the muscle to play. These banks had entire departments dedicated to market entry. The teams were filled with people who spent their entire careers learning how to navigate regulators across different countries. They knew the contacts to call, the processes to follow, and even the cultural nuances that mattered when walking into a government office. That kind of machinery is what gave them an edge. Startups, on the other hand, rarely have that. They move into new markets armed with gist, hearsay and a lot of optimism. And optimism is not a strategy when regulators are standing in your way.

The second wall you crash into is the cost. Expanding into another country is not just expensive; it can bleed you dry if you don’t have the right financial foundation. Banks, again, can afford to raise capital specifically for expansion. They walk into new markets with war chests and stay long enough to weather the storm until their operations stabilize. Startups don’t have that luxury. Many of them try to squeeze international expansion out of funds that were barely enough for their home market. What happens is that the burn rate goes up, revenue lags behind, and very quickly the whole project becomes unsustainable. I have seen promising companies sink this way because they underestimated how much money it would take to break into another market.

And then comes the most unpredictable challenge of all: people. Regulations and money can be calculated, at least to some degree, but people are the wildcards that make or break everything. The hires you make in a new country determine whether your business will take root or wither. Too often, founders underestimate this. They go into a new market, bring in locals, and then realize the work culture and sense of urgency are completely different. Nigerians, for instance, are known for a kind of productive madness (a fancy way of saying we dey craze). We thrive under pressure, we improvise when the ground shifts, and we move with speed even when the environment is chaotic. That edge is what helps us survive. But when you enter a market where the pace is slower, or people prefer caution and safety, and you build your team around that, the disconnect becomes dangerous. You may find that no matter how hard you push, things move at a crawl, and eventually, you drown in that sluggishness.

I witnessed this dynamic back in my UBA days. We were fortunate in countries like Ghana, Cameroon, and Uganda, where we found incredible people to build with. These were competent hires that were relentless, sharp, and willing to fight for results. They would have excelled anywhere in the world, and UBA was lucky to have them. That kind of talent is rare, though. Most startups expanding across borders do not always strike gold when hiring, and without that quality of people on the ground, even the best product and the best intentions collapse under the weight of local realities.

Why banks sometimes win where startups fail

Banks, despite all their layers of bureaucracy and the sluggish pace they’re often accused of, have one advantage that tilts the game in their favor. They don’t always walk into a new country blind or start laying bricks from the ground up. More often than not, they take the shortcut of buying into an existing business that’s already running in that market. It could be a small local bank or a mid-tier institution, but the point is that they inherit something that is already moving.

Even if the integration process is messy, full of cultural clashes, and expensive in ways that only bankers can stomach, there is already money flowing in. That immediate revenue, no matter how modest, acts like a shock absorber. It cushions the blows that come with learning a new market and keeps the business afloat long enough for them to figure out their rhythm.

Startups almost never have this kind of luxury. The reality is that we are too strapped for cash to go around acquiring companies, so the default mode is to build from zero and hope it sticks. A handful of acquisitions do happen in the startup world, but those are exceptions and not the rule. Without that initial cushion of ready-made revenue, every mistake cuts deeper and every delay is costlier. Bloodbath is exactly what happens when the burn rate collides with the slow grind of market entry. For startups, survival often comes down to how long you can keep going without oxygen, and in new markets, that is rarely long enough.

What it really takes to succeed across Africa

If anyone is serious about expanding across the continent, here’s what I’ve learned over the years, both from my banking days and now at Lendsqr.

The first thing is to know the market inside out. And I don’t mean a few reports or the stories you hear at conferences. I’m talking about the messy, often uncomfortable details that don’t make it into slide decks. You need to understand how politics shapes business in that country, what regulators actually like to deal with, the unwritten rules that determine who gets ahead, and the local players who quietly control the ecosystem. These are things you only uncover if you’re willing to dig, listen, and sometimes learn the hard way. Expansion is not a place for too much guesswork or improvisation.

Second, you need to bring in people who live and breathe regulation. If your business touches money in any way, you cannot afford to wing it. Regulators have no sympathy for startup ambition, and they will not bend the rules because you have a great pitch deck or you’re coming to solve a “problem”. This means hiring the right experts, even when they don’t come cheap. The truth is that these are the people who can keep your business alive when a new law drops or when the regulator decides to make an example of someone. Paying for that knowledge upfront is a lot better than paying in lost revenue and endless delays later.

Third, you have to be ruthless about the people you hire. Expansion is not the time to surround yourself with people who just like the idea of working with the next “big startup”. You need people who are hungry, who can operate in chaos, and who have the stamina to build something from scratch without constant handholding. These are the kinds of hires who will stay focused when things get ugly and who won’t buckle under the pressure of setbacks. Without them, the whole thing collapses before it even takes root.

Finally, you need to send in people who already understand your culture at the core. Back in banking, the playbook was clear: the first person deployed into a new country was almost always Nigerian. The reason was simple. They carried the DNA of the parent company. They understood how decisions were made at headquarters, they could replicate that culture in a new environment, and they acted as a bridge between home and the new market. If you parachute in someone who has no sense of your company’s way of working, no matter how competent they look on paper, you’ll struggle to translate your mission into reality. Culture is fragile, and expansion has a way of breaking it if you don’t guard it carefully.

Featured read: Consumer protection should not be weaponized

So, is African expansion really a myth?

Looking at the stories around us, the evidence leans heavily in that direction. For every Flutterwave, Paystack, or Cellulant that manages to pull off multi-country expansion and make it look effortless, there are dozens of startups that attempted the same thing and quietly disappeared after burning money and energy. The failures don’t get panel discussions or press releases, but if you’ve been in the ecosystem long enough, you’ve seen them. Some shut down entire operations, others limp back to their home markets, and a few keep hanging on in silence, never quite breaking through.

The dream of spreading across Africa carries a certain romantic appeal. It feels like destiny to be the company that unites fragmented markets under one product, to prove that borders don’t matter, and to boast about operations in half a dozen countries. But the ground you’re walking on is unpredictable and often hostile. It takes deep capital, endless resilience, and a team that can withstand constant turmoil. Without those, expansion is less of a growth story and more of a slow-motion collapse.

It can be done, but the bar is much higher than founders like to admit. The continent doesn’t reward undercapitalized businesses that expand just because. If you’re not ready to spend heavily on regulation, local talent, infrastructure, and the inevitable mistakes that come with learning new markets, you’ll be finished before you even make it to stability. The idea that “Africa is one big market” sounds nice in pitch decks, but in practice it’s an illusion. Every border comes with its own politics, rules, and players, and pretending otherwise is the fastest way to ruin.

Consumer protection should not be weaponized

Borrowers need protection, but rules shouldn’t be a free pass to dodge responsibility. Digital lenders stepped in where banks wouldn’t, and if protections only favor borrowers without accountability, the people who actually rely on credit end up losing out.

I have no problem with consumer protection. In fact, it’s something I’ve been waiting to see for years in Nigeria and across other African countries. For the longest time, the lending industry here has been like the Wild West, with very little in the way of rules or safeguards for ordinary people. Kenya was one of the first to put clear regulations in place for digital lending, introducing the Digital Credit Providers Regulations in 2022, which set standards for licensing, fees, and borrower rights. So when Nigeria’s FCCPC rolled out its new law on lending practices, I genuinely felt some relief. It finally looked like someone was stepping in to bring order to the chaos and give borrowers the confidence that they weren’t completely on their own. And if you know anything about how Nigeria works, you’ll understand why this feels like such a big deal. We’re used to institutions looking the other way when it comes to the struggles of everyday people, so seeing a regulator actively plant itself in the corner of borrowers deserves some credit. The FCCPC earned its applause on that one.

But once the excitement settled, I had to pause and really think about what this all means in practice. I’ve spent enough time in this space to know that even the best-intentioned laws can take on a life of their own. Protecting borrowers makes sense, and there’s no debate about whether it is necessary, but the way people actually use those protections is where things start to get murky. What I’ve started to notice is a creeping attitude among some borrowers that these rules are now a shield to hide behind, almost like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Instead of seeing consumer protection as a safety net against abuse, some are treating it as a licence to misbehave. And to be clear, I’m not speculating here, I’ve seen it happening already.

This is the part that worries me, because once people realise that the system tilts heavily in their favour, the temptation to game it becomes too strong. Borrowers start defaulting with a straight face, brushing off their obligations as if the law has given them cover. They conveniently forget that every unpaid loan doesn’t just hurt a lender; it also makes credit harder and more expensive for everyone else who might genuinely need it. That’s the danger of a one-sided protection model. It begins with noble intentions, but if left unchecked, it ends with a broken system that serves no one well.

Africa is catching up on consumer protection finally

Nigeria is not the only country waking up to this conversation. Across the continent, regulators are starting to take a harder look at how lending works and what protections borrowers deserve. In Kenya, for example, the Central Bank of Kenya amended its regulations in 2021 to bring digital lenders under direct supervision, requiring them to disclose all fees upfront and banning the practice of debt shaming. South Africa has had its National Credit Act since 2005, which created the National Credit Regulator and set rules around affordability checks, fair interest rates, and even the right for borrowers to challenge unfair credit agreements. Ghana recently passed the Borrowers and Lenders Act in 2020, which established a legal framework for credit agreements and gave the Bank of Ghana authority to license and monitor lenders. Even in Tanzania and Uganda, where digital credit is newer, you now see requirements for lenders to register with central banks and follow rules on interest disclosures. For a region that has historically left borrowers at the mercy of whoever had the cash, this growing wave of credit-specific protections is a real shift, and it is encouraging to see it spreading.

Where the challenge begins, however, is in how these protections are interpreted once they leave the pages of regulation and meet real people on the ground. On paper, the goal is simple: defend borrowers from exploitation. Regulators are standing up and saying, “You will not be cheated, harassed, or bullied when you borrow money.” That is a noble and necessary message. But human behaviour is never that straightforward. Once borrowers realise that there is now a safety net that can shield them, some start to test the limits. I have personally seen situations where people take loans with no serious plan to repay, and when the lender comes knocking, the borrower boldly leans on the regulator’s rules as cover. Loan obligations suddenly become optional, something to get around if possible, since the law is assumed to be firmly on their side.

This is where I start to get uneasy, because protections that were designed to restore fairness can easily turn into weapons for irresponsibility. When borrowers begin to act like regulators are there to punish lenders on their behalf, the balance of the system gets lost. The slope is gradual but very real: a few defaults ignored here, some abuse of the rules there, and before long, borrowing culture itself becomes toxic. If this trend continues, it will not just be lenders who suffer. The very people these laws are meant to protect will find that credit dries up, because no one is willing to take the risk anymore.

Borrowers aren’t always the saints in this story

The uncomfortable truth is that many of the ugly practices we see in lending did not just appear out of thin air. When a lender blasts someone’s contact list or sends threatening messages to their relatives, as crude and damaging as those actions are, they usually stem from a borrower who has refused to repay what they owe. I am not excusing those tactics in any way, because they harm the industry, destroy trust, and ultimately push regulators to come down harder on everyone. But if we are going to have a serious conversation about consumer protection, we cannot skip over the fact that a huge number of these conflicts begin with a loan that was never repaid.

Yes, there are absolutely lenders who operate in bad faith. Some deliberately sneak in hidden fees, inflate interest rates, or design repayment schedules that they know will trip up the borrower. Those businesses are exploitative, and they deserve the scrutiny regulators throw at them. But focusing only on bad lenders tells only half the story. There is another reality, one that regulators rarely talk about: borrowers who collect loans with no genuine plan to pay back. Over the years and even more recently than you’d think, i’ve come across borrowers who take out multiple loans from different digital platforms in the same week, juggling them as if it were free cash. Some default the moment the funds hit their account, knowing that recovery is messy and regulators will step in if the lender pushes too hard. These are not isolated cases, they are patterns that chips away at the very foundation of credit.

If consumer protection is to be credible, it cannot just draw lines around lenders while leaving borrowers free of responsibility. A system where only one side is accountable is already broken. Borrowers need to understand that protections are meant to shield them from abuse, not from responsibility. If you take out a loan in good faith but run into genuine hardship, then yes, you deserve protection, mediation, and even restructuring options. But if you deliberately game the system, hiding behind regulations while treating repayment as optional, you poison the pool for everyone else. What eventually happens is that lenders start pulling back, tightening requirements, or leaving the market entirely, and the very people who lose out are the honest borrowers who suddenly have fewer or no options left.

This is why I believe consumer protection has to be framed as a two-way street. Borrowers cannot keep expecting regulators to fight their battles while ignoring their own obligations. If regulators really want to build a healthy credit culture, they need to make it clear that protection is earned through good faith. Those who exploit the system should face consequences, just as much as predatory lenders do. Otherwise, we are left with a system that rewards irresponsibility and punishes those who are actually trying to do the right thing.

Why digital lenders exist in the first place

The rise of digital lenders in Africa did not come out of nowhere. It was born out of a frustrating reality that traditional banks created and then ignored. Walk into a commercial bank in Senegal and try asking for a personal loan, and you’ll quickly discover that the system was never built with ordinary people in mind. First, you face a mountain of paperwork. Then, there’s the demand for collateral that you don’t have. After that comes the long back and forth that can drag on for weeks, with no guarantee that you’ll ever get the money. And most times, after all that trouble, the final answer is still no.

This story repeats itself across the continent. In Kenya, if you need cash urgently on a Saturday evening to rush someone to the hospital, you already know the bank will not even pick up your call. In Zambia, if a medical emergency strikes on a Friday night, you’re fucked. In Senegal, when school fees are due at the end of the month, banks are not lining up to help parents meet that deadline. For small businesses, it is even worse. An SME founder trying to raise quick capital to keep operations afloat in Nigeria is simply on their own.

The only people answering in those moments were digital lenders. They built a system that actually shows up when people need money the most, whether it’s for survival, school, or business. And that is why borrowers turned to them in their millions. Using mobile phones and tech, they made credit accessible to people who had never had the chance before. SMEs could buy inventory without waiting for a loan committee. Parents could pay fees at the very last moment. Families dealing with health emergencies could find help, even at night.

And this is why the conversation around consumer protection matters so much. When regulations lean too heavily toward shielding borrowers without balancing accountability, digital lenders start asking themselves whether the risk is even worth it. Running a lending business is not charity, and when repayment becomes uncertain while rules make recovery nearly impossible, many lenders eventually leave. Regulators may celebrate wins on paper, but the people who end up stranded are the same borrowers they wanted to protect. The parent looking for school fees will have no options. The small business needing working capital will be left to plead with banks that never wanted them in the first place. That is the irony: in trying to protect borrowers, we risk cutting them off from the only credit they have ever had access to.

If I were in charge

The harsh truth we must all come to terms with is how consumer protection should never be one-sided. It cannot work if it’s built on the assumption that lenders are always the predators and borrowers are always the prey. The reality is much more complicated. Borrowers absolutely need safeguards against lenders who charge outrageous fees, hide terms, or harass people during collections.

Those practices wear down trust and make credit dangerous instead of useful. But protection also comes with responsibility. If someone takes a loan, there has to be a clear understanding that repayment is not optional. You can put all the protective barriers in place for fairness, yet the foundation of credit still rests on the borrower keeping their word and paying back what they owe.

I would even go as far as saying regulators should create a mechanism for lenders to flag habitual defaulters. If lenders can be blacklisted for bad practices, why can’t serial defaulters face the same thing? Accountability should cut both ways. Otherwise, we are just encouraging a culture of irresponsibility that eventually destroys the credit system.

Now, don’t get me wrong. If I were running the FCCPC in Nigeria, or the equivalent bodies in Kenya, Ghana, or South Africa, I’d still enforce every single protection against abuse. Nobody deserves to be bullied, humiliated, or trapped in unfair loan terms. But alongside that, I’d add a firm and practical layer of borrower accountability. That means making sure consumer protection cannot be twisted into a free pass for irresponsibility. If lenders are expected to meet clear rules and standards, borrowers should too.

Because at the end of the day, the role of a regulator is to keep the system fair for both borrowers and lenders, not to tilt everything in favor of one side. Lenders will only continue to lend when there is confidence that what goes out will come back. And that requires telling borrowers, in no uncertain terms, that protection is available, but it comes with responsibility. If you take a loan, you must be ready to pay back.

A case for virtual phone numbers

Handing out your main phone number is like giving strangers a key to your front door. A virtual number fixes that; keeping you reachable without putting your primary line on the chopping block. This is my pitch to telcos to make it happen.

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I’ve noticed that the moment someone asks for my phone number, I begin to calculate the cost of giving it out. And, no I am not referring to financial cost, but rather the mental and emotional burden that can follow. I have to consider whether sharing it will expose me to calls that arrive when I am in the middle of important work or during moments when I simply cannot be interrupted. I also have to weigh the possibility that it could mark the beginning of another round of those familiar “We’re calling from your bank” scams. This is not a matter of paranoia; I have seen how quickly a single phone number, once it reaches the wrong people, can turn into a constant stream of unsolicited calls and messages, with no easy way to stop them.

That is not to say I am overly protective about my number to the point where I never share it. My phone can handle two SIM cards, and it even supports eSIMs. The problem is that adding more lines inevitably increases the complexity of managing them. Keeping track of which SIM is for work, which is for family, and which is for online transactions is like carrying several keys that all look similar but open different doors. Over time, this becomes difficult to manage consistently, and from the conversations I have had with friends and colleagues, it is clear that I am not the only one who feels this way.

What makes this more frustrating is that the problem is not a new one. In the banking sector, a similar issue has already been addressed with the introduction of virtual accounts. The concept has been tested, proven, and widely adopted in many markets. Customers can now receive payments without exposing their primary account numbers, simply by using virtual accounts that can be created and deactivated at will. There is no reason why the same idea could not be applied in telecommunications. If telcos could move away from the narrow view that their role is limited to selling airtime and data, they could open the door to an entirely new way of managing personal and professional contact points. The opportunity to rethink how people manage their numbers has been there for years, and yet it remains untouched.

The lesson telcos could learn from virtual bank accounts

Let’s take a moment to really look at how virtual accounts function in banking. If you have a bank account, you have probably been told more than once to be careful about where and how you share your account number. The reasoning behind this is straightforward: once that number is widely circulated, you lose control over who has it and what they might attempt to do with it. Despite the need for caution, there will always be situations where you have to provide an account number so that someone can transfer money to you. This is the gap that virtual accounts were created to fill, offering a safe, alternative channel for receiving funds without directly exposing the number of your actual account.

When a bank sets up a virtual account for you, it assigns you a secondary account number that is linked to your main account. Any payment sent to this virtual account is deposited into your real account, but the sender never sees the actual number behind it. The advantage is that you can generate multiple virtual accounts and dedicate each one to a particular purpose. You might have one that you use exclusively for business transactions, another for family and personal matters, one for online purchases, and perhaps another for a side project that you want to keep separate from everything else. If at any point one of these numbers is compromised or begins attracting unwanted activity, you can deactivate it without affecting the integrity or operation of your main account.

This arrangement is both practical and effective because it allows the account holder to maintain control over how their details are distributed and who has access to them. It is for this reason that I find it surprising that telecommunications companies have not adapted the same idea for phone numbers. The principle is almost identical: one primary number that stays private, supported by multiple virtual numbers that you can hand out for specific purposes. If banks have been able to make this work for money, it is hard to see why telcos cannot make it work for calls and messages.

What a virtual phone number could look like in real life

Imagine walking into a telco office and going through the same verification process they use for regular lines. You would present your NIN in Nigeria, National ID in Kenya, DNI in Argentina and the list goes on. You could also be asked to present your passport, or whatever other forms of identification required, and in some places like Dubai, the process would be far more extensive and thorough. The difference is that instead of leaving with a physical SIM card or activating an eSIM, you would be assigned a phone number that exists entirely in the cloud.

This virtual number would not take up a SIM slot on your phone or require you to manage an eSIM profile. It would function purely as a forwarding number, routing calls and text messages directly to your main line. For example, I could obtain an Airtel virtual number, link it to my existing MTN line, and then decide that only a specific group of people would have access to that number. This setup would allow me to keep my primary number private while still being reachable on a dedicated line for certain contacts.

I could choose to have one virtual number strictly for family and close friends, another for professional use, and a third that I give out when registering on questionable e-commerce websites that advertise unrealistic discounts but rarely deliver on their promises. By assigning each virtual number to a specific purpose, I would always know where it was shared and who might be responsible if it was ever misused. If unwanted calls started coming through on one of those numbers, there would be no need for guesswork, no endless speculation, and no playing detective trying to figure out who leaked my number. The source would be clear, and I could simply deactivate that virtual number while keeping my main line unaffected.

Why this could be a win-win for everyone

The most immediate benefit would be for individuals like me who are tired of juggling multiple devices or SIM cards just to manage different aspects of our lives. A virtual phone number would make it possible to keep personal and work communications completely separate without physically carrying two phones or constantly swapping SIM cards. Travelling abroad would also be much easier, since I could keep my local virtual number active and simply have it forward calls to my foreign line. This means staying reachable to people at home without the inconvenience and expense of roaming or the hassle of maintaining multiple physical SIMs.

From the perspective of the telcos, the revenue potential is hard to ignore. Every forwarded call or text message generates activity on the network that can be billed. This allows telcos to earn money even when they are not the primary service provider for a customer’s main line. Just as banks make money from operating multiple virtual accounts without having to build more branches or expand their physical infrastructure, telcos could grow their earnings from virtual numbers without the cost of installing new towers or expanding coverage areas. The business model is straightforward, and the financial upside is clear.

Friends and family would also benefit from this arrangement. They would have the assurance that when they call the virtual number assigned to them, they are contacting a line dedicated to their relationship with you. They would not have to worry about their calls competing with unsolicited marketing calls or random strangers who somehow managed to get hold of your number. This creates a more direct and reliable communication channel, which works well for everyone involved.

The identity and security side of it

Some people will immediately raise concerns about fraud, as if fraudulent activity is exclusive to virtual numbers and not already a challenge with regular numbers. The reality is that the level of identity risk would be no greater than what exists today with standard SIM cards. Minimum KYC requirements would still be in place, and the same checks you already perform for traditional lines would apply to virtual numbers. Whether it is verifying a National Identification Number (NIN) in Nigeria, a Rwandan National ID, or a Colombian Cédula, the process for confirming identity would not change. In countries where passports or residency permits are the primary verification documents, those same procedures would continue to apply for virtual numbers. There would be no lowering of the bar for security or verification.

The real difference lies in the nature of the number itself. A virtual number is not tied to your entire communication ecosystem in the same rigid way a permanent line is. It is designed to be functionally disposable, which means that if it is ever compromised or begins to attract unwanted calls and messages, you can deactivate it without creating a chain reaction of disruption in your life. You can set up a new one quickly, update only the relevant parties, and move on. This is significantly easier than replacing your primary line, which often comes with the risk of losing access to two-factor authentication codes, interrupting business communication channels, missing important calls, or forcing you to notify a long list of personal and professional contacts.

And let’s not forget the diaspora

For people living abroad who still want to maintain a phone number back home, this option could be financially practical and far more convenient. Instead of paying the often high costs of roaming or struggling to keep a local SIM card active from thousands of miles away, you could simply retain a virtual number linked to your home country. All calls and messages to that number would be forwarded directly to your current foreign line, removing the need for multiple devices or complicated SIM card swaps.

Allowing your local caller to pay local rates ensures that people back home can reach you without worrying about expensive international tariffs. At the same time, telecommunication companies would still generate revenue from the international forwarding charges, while you maintain consistent accessibility to friends, family, and business contacts at home. This setup also avoids the awkward “this number is not reachable” message for callers in your home country, which can create the impression that you’ve disconnected or become difficult to reach. In this way, both sides benefit: the telcos keep a steady revenue stream, and you remain reliably connected.

So, telcos, what’s the hold-up?

The infrastructure for this kind of service already exists, and the demand for it is undeniable. Customers are constantly looking for ways to share contact details without exposing themselves to unnecessary risks, and the potential for revenue is clear to anyone paying attention. Yet, in 2025, we are still in a situation where people have to give their primary numbers to almost anyone who asks, from the mechanic fixing their car to strangers selling products online.

If banks could figure out virtual accounts years ago, telcos have no excuse. The banking industry has already shown that it is possible to roll out such a system in a way that balances customer convenience with strong fraud controls. Banking regulators require that virtual accounts be linked to a primary account, and they enforce KYC rules to verify identity, monitor suspicious transactions, and block bad actors. These measures have kept the system from becoming a free-for-all while allowing millions of customers to enjoy the flexibility of using dedicated account numbers for different purposes without risking their main account.

Telecom regulators could take a page from that playbook. They could require that every virtual phone number be tied to a verified SIM registration, with similar monitoring for misuse. Just as banks flag suspicious transfers, telcos could flag patterns of spam or fraudulent calls and shut them down quickly. The technology to monitor call patterns and message volumes already exists, and so does the regulatory framework to make it work without stifling innovation.

If the existing players are unwilling or unable to make this a reality, then perhaps the market is ready for a new entrant that is willing to act. Customers will naturally gravitate towards providers who understand their needs and are prepared to innovate in ways that make communication safer and more convenient.

Until that happens, I will keep hoping for the day I can share my phone number without also compromising my peace of mind.

The rest of Africa is not slow, Nigerians are just mad

I’ve heard it more times than I can count. Nigerians, especially those from Lagos, complaining about how slow other Africans are. It usually comes with that familiar tone: a mix of irritation and disbelief, and underneath it, this subtle sense of “we know how to move, these ones don’t.” We say it in meetings, at airports, at conferences, sometimes even to their faces.

The moment you land in Dakar or Kigali or somewhere that isn’t Nigeria, it starts. You get to the airport and the immigration officer is taking their time. The driver comes ten minutes late but isn’t even apologetic. You go to the hotel restaurant and the food takes 30 minutes. And somehow, in your head, everything starts to feel wrong. “Why are they walking so slowly? Why is nobody in a rush? Why do they close shop at 5pm?” You start itching to take control. And before long, you arrive at the usual conclusion that these people must be slow.

But that’s the thing I’ve had to rethink over time. Are they actually slow, or are we just… mad?

Because when I really sit with it, when I look back at all the years I’ve spent working across different African countries meeting regulators, building teams, chasing timelines, trying to get products into new markets, what I see is not slowness but rather a different rhythm, shaped by people who have not made constant urgency a central part of their daily lives.

The truth is, what we Nigerians call “slow” is often just how the rest of the world moves. We’ve gotten so used to chaos and pressure that anything short of that feels like a problem. But it’s not. It’s just… normal. We’re the ones who have been conditioned to treat every task like a fire drill. And when you’re wired like that, calm can start to feel like incompetence even when it’s not.

The numbers tell a story too. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with over 230 million people. Lagos alone has more people than the entire nation of Botswana. In 2023, Lagos recorded an average daily traffic time of over 75 minutes, one of the highest in Africa. This statistic is more than just transportation delays; it represents hours of accumulated stress, pressure, and mental exhaustion. Add to that the persistent power supply challenges, with the country generating less than 4,000 megawatts for the whole country on most days, alongside deteriorating infrastructure, a rapidly growing youth population competing for limited opportunities, and one of the continent’s highest unemployment rates. When you put all these factors together, it becomes clearer why the feeling of urgency has become as essential to Nigerians as breathing. You begin to understand why Nigerians have to hustle for everything. Nigerians wake up and their day already feels like war. So they push themselves to move fast. Not because it’s more efficient, but because the system is broken and moving slow could mean missing out on many opportunities, however small it may be.

Most of this madness we carry around has its roots in Lagos

The way we work and push ourselves, and the way we react to stress and pressure almost without thinking, all come from the kind of conditioning that living in Lagos forces on you. There is something about the city that doesn’t just ask you to move quickly, it demands it. You cannot live in Lagos and stay soft. The city will stretch you, squeeze every ounce of patience out of you, and still expect you to show up the next morning and perform at full capacity. Else, it ejects you for non-performance.

People talk about Nigerian energy, but even within that, Lagos has its own kind. It is louder, moves faster, feels more aggressive, and carries a level of chaos that stands apart. In all honesty, this goes beyond the pace of work or the level of ambition. Even though the environment itself is designed in a way that keeps you on edge from the moment you wake up.

You open your eyes and the problems are already waiting for you; The electricity is out, the generator won’t start because the fuel you bought last night was diluted, the roads are heavily flooded, and the candidate you are supposed to onboard for a project is stranded somewhere in traffic that has barely moved for hours.

At the same time, a dissatisfied customer has taken to Twitter to publicly call out your business, demanding an immediate solution and you are expected to fix the issue immediately and respond with perfect grammar. This is not a rare day, it’s a typical Tuesday in Lagos. And somehow, you get through it. Then you wake up and do it all over again. Eventually, you stop seeing it as chaos. It becomes your new normal.

So when you take that Lagos kind of energy and try to apply it in a city like Gaborone or Lusaka, where people are not constantly running from one fire to another, the contrast is hard to ignore. You move with the same sense of urgency, and everyone around you looks like they are on vacation. You send five follow-up emails in one afternoon and think you are being thorough. Meanwhile, your colleagues are wondering why you are so intense. The problem is not that they are slow, you are simply running on survival instinct and expecting everyone else to match you.

This is where a lot of us get it wrong because we assume Lagos is the benchmark for productivity, yet the reality is far from that. Lagos is not a model anyone should try to replicate; it is a pressure cooker that forces you to build a kind of stamina you should never have needed to build in the first place.

The systems do not work, so you become the system. The urgency you carry around is not always driven by excellence. A lot of the time, it is driven by dysfunction. When you have spent years operating inside a storm, you start to see peace and stability as laziness. You think if someone is not stressed or constantly multitasking, they must not be serious. But that is not true. That is just what Lagos (in extension, Nigeria) has taught us to believe.

The real reason Nigerians seem to “shine” abroad

People like to say it is because we are naturally hardworking. That Nigerians are just born with this extra capacity for hustle. It has almost become folklore; this belief that we have something in our DNA that makes us succeed wherever we go. But the truth, at least from what I have seen and lived, is far less romantic. Nigerians who manage to leave the country are not just regular citizens. They are people who have already survived a brutal filtering process before ever stepping on a plane. The average Nigerian abroad is not there because of luck or chance. They are there because they fought their way out.

If you have ever tried to leave Nigeria, you know what that path looks like. You first have to survive the education system, with all its dysfunction. You have to deal with university strikes, missing transcripts, lecturers who ghost you for months, and final year projects that stall for no reason. After that, you enter the endless web of applying for visas, getting bank statements that look strong enough, and trying to convince a foreign embassy that you are not a flight risk. All of this while earning in naira but paying in dollars or pounds or euros. Then there is the task of translating your Nigerian qualifications and experience into something that makes sense in another country. You have to explain your second class upper in a way that does not make you sound unserious. You have to repackage your NYSC year so it sounds like real work experience. By the time you finally board that plane to Toronto or Berlin or anywhere else, you are not just leaving the country. You are carrying the residue of everything you had to overcome to get that far.

This is why we tend to show up differently abroad. We are used to pushing. We are used to things not working and having to find a way regardless. It is not magic, it is survival instinct. And that instinct is usually very strong in the kind of Nigerians who manage to leave. So yes, we often come across as driven, as resourceful, as intense. But we need to be careful not to mistake that for being better than anyone else. What we are is a product of pressure. Nigeria squeezes you, and the ones who do not break end up looking like outliers.

The other side of it, though, is that when you are used to dysfunction, you carry that energy everywhere. You get into systems that are stable, and you start overreacting to things that are perfectly normal. You do not know how to take your foot off the gas. You keep scanning for problems, even when there are none. And that kind of energy, while useful in high-stakes environments, can become a liability when calmness and collaboration are what is actually needed. So yes, we shine abroad, but we also need to admit that we shine with a kind of restlessness that did not come from excellence alone. It came from a system that forced us to always be on edge.

Other Africans are not slow

What they have, more often than not, is a clear sense of boundaries. And to be honest, I find myself admiring that more than I like to admit. I envy the people who can shut their laptops at 5pm without feeling like they are committing a crime. I envy the ones who do not feel the need to be permanently available, constantly stressed, or always a few steps ahead of a problem that does not yet exist. I envy the managers who can get work done without turning every task into a dramatic performance. I envy the teams that can walk into a 10am meeting without carrying the emotional weight of ten unfinished items from the night before.

What we often label as slowness is really just balance. People in other African countries seem to have held on to something we have lost, which is the idea that work is important, but it is not everything.

They value rest and maintain clear working hours, and when a task shifts by a day, they do not respond with panic but instead adjust without seeing it as a failure or a sign of poor performance. In many of the countries I have had the pleasure of interacting with, you can feel the difference. People still take lunch breaks without shame. They do not brag about working on weekends, or try to impress anyone with how tired they are. And that, in its own way, is a kind of confidence we don’t talk about enough.

For Nigerians, this is difficult to understand. Our default mindset is that if something is not urgent, it is not important. We have built entire work cultures around pressure and last-minute delivery. If you are not panicking, people assume you are unserious. If you are not calling people after hours, they think you do not care about the outcome. We wear exhaustion like a badge. And we expect others to do the same. So when we meet people who are firm about their time, who are not constantly available, who prioritize recovery and mental space, it annoys us. We think they are dragging their feet. But they are not. They are just refusing to live in crisis mode.

This is not to say there are no hard workers outside Nigeria. That would be unfair and untrue. People everywhere work hard. But in some places, they have figured out how to do that without losing their minds. They have systems that support them, and they have made peace with the idea that work will always be there, but they do not have to be consumed by it. So when Nigerians step into those environments, we often mistake that peace for inefficiency. What we call slow is actually just people refusing to burn out. And maybe we should be learning from that instead of judging it.

But let’s not pretend all Nigerians are high-speed machines

It would be misleading to suggest that every Nigerian operates at the same level of urgency or intensity. I know I’ve painted a picture of Nigerians as relentless go-getters, constantly moving, always chasing the next big thing, but that is only one part of the story. Nigeria has plenty of people whose pace is much slower, and sometimes painfully so. If you have ever tried to renew a passport or register a business, you already know what I mean. Walk into any government office and you will be met with a kind of slowness that feels almost deliberate. People stroll into work late, take long breaks, and act like every simple task is a complicated favour. In those spaces, urgency is treated like a nuisance rather than a standard.

It is not just in the public sector. The armed forces is another place where things move with a kind of bureaucratic drag. Even outside formal institutions, there is a whole segment of Nigerians, often from the older generation, who still approach work and time the way it was done decades ago. Meetings that could have been emails still happen. Technology is avoided where possible. The pace is slower, expectations are lower, and sense of urgency we see in younger, urban Nigerians is largely absent.

All of this is to say that Nigerians are not a single type of person. We are not all hyper-driven or obsessed with results. What has happened, though, is that the Nigerians who get the most visibility tend to be the ones who are operating at that extreme level. The startup founders, the scholarship winners, the tech bros, the creatives making waves in London or New York; these are the people who get noticed. Their stories are amplified, and they become the poster children for what it means to be Nigerian. And while their hustle is real and impressive, it is not the full picture.

There are millions of Nigerians who are not pushing themselves to the limit. They are not building anything groundbreaking, and they are not breaking into global spaces. They are just doing what they need to do to get by. And that is perfectly fine. Unfortunately, we tend to overlook this group whenever conversations about Nigerian energy take place, focusing instead on the more visible and intense examples that dominate the narrative.

We pretend the exceptions are the rule, and we let the loudest voices define the entire identity. But if we are going to be honest about who we are, we have to admit that the full spectrum includes all kinds of people; from those who move quickly to those who take their time, from those who push relentlessly to those who are satisfied with less, and from those who speak loudly to those who operate more quietly.

So what’s the takeaway?

Every country builds its own way of working. Each one develops its own rhythm over time, shaped by history, systems, values, and the day-to-day realities of life in that place. What feels urgent in one country may feel unnecessary in another. What looks like calm in one place might look like delay to someone else. Nigeria’s rhythm, especially the version that comes out of Lagos, has become fast, intense, and often chaotic. It works well when you need to move quickly, solve problems on the fly, or adapt to constant disruption. But it also burns people out. It creates stress that is so common we do not even notice it anymore. It makes it hard to slow down, even when slowing down would lead to better outcomes.

This kind of energy does not always translate well when Nigerians interact with other African countries. When we enter spaces where things move more steadily, we often become frustrated. We assume that if something is not happening fast, then something must be wrong. We try to push others to adopt our tempo without first understanding theirs. We judge rather than observe. And in doing so, we fail to see that our way is just one of many. It is not always better, just louder.

It might be time we stopped seeing ourselves as the standard that others need to meet. Nigerians are not superior because we move quickly, and other Africans are not inferior because they choose to move differently. What we call madness in ourselves is often a response to chaos. What we call slowness in others is often just the presence of structure. The truth probably lives somewhere in the middle.

I think we could all gain something by recognising that. Nigerians could learn to slow down just enough to breathe, to think more clearly, and to stop assuming everything must happen immediately. Other Africans might benefit from picking up a bit more urgency when it matters, not because they are wrong, but because there are moments when speed is necessary. Neither side has the complete answer. But between the intensity of the Nigerian hustle and the steadiness of other African work cultures, there is a space where things can actually work better for everyone.

At the end of the day, most people are doing the best they can in the environment that has shaped them, and while some of us were taught to sprint, others learned to move with more deliberate steps, which does not necessarily make one approach better than the other but simply shows that they are different, and if we stop trying to fix one another and instead take the time to listen, we might find there is something useful to learn.