Diaspora as Drivers of Service Export

Recently I discovered a young man, in his early twenties, based in Owerri, Southeast Nigeria. A graphics designer  by passion and later by training, he is the reason I and my Associates no longer use suppliers of  graphics that we have retained here in Europe for many years. You’d think that my European suppliers will be mad at me for the decision. No, they are not. As a matter of fact, the Owerri young man has equally become a subcontractor to them. When they have excess assignment or when express delivery is required, they either call Owerri or  my other supplier that I call my Igbuzo Homeboy. This examplifies the saying in circular economic theory that Businesses can Collaborate rather than Compete. This way, every player becomes a winner.

Welcome to the beauty and strength of the new economy, the service economy. More than anything else in all the conversations around diversification of the Nigerian economy away from oil dependency,  Service Export is a low hanging fruit. Not commodities, not solid minerals, not agricultural products. It is about the sale and delivery of intangible products, from the remotest enclave in Nigeria to just about any metropolis in the world. All transacted via WhatsApp, not some other sophisticated gadgets requiring huge startup capital, dependent on an elusive and declining energy supply and other bottlenecks.

The further good news is that the playing field is broad enough to accommodate both the big and the small. Here a brief paintbrush for lack of space. Companies like Globacom, MTN Nigeria, and Airtel provide international telecommunications services, including voice and data transmission, to a global client base. My former employer, UBA and probably every other bank in Nigeria – GTBank, Zenith – offer international banking services, including remittances and cross-border transactions. Nigerian tech companies provide software development, IT support, and other tech services to clients globally. An indigenous company, Andela, trains software developers and connects them with global tech conglomerates. Nollywood, through NETFLIX and the likes, exports films and entertainment content to a global audience, generating revenue from international viewership and distribution deals.

In April during a Lagos and Abuja flag offs of a Business Forum, it was a privilege to interact with many Nigerian consulting firms offering professional advice in oil and gas, agriculture, finance, and management, to international clients. They are joining us in Brussels, Belgium in September at the Nigeria Belgium Luxembourg Business Forum 2024, to expand their frontiers. So too are law firms in Nigeria providing legal services to international clients, particularly in areas related to oil and gas, intellectual property, corporate governance, and commercial law. The list is long and so too are the potentials to grow individuals in Nigeria and in Diaspora and inevitably grow Nigeria’s economy.

The big question is, how do you organise the table? The answer to this could be found in the 2024 Nigeria’s 4D Renewed Foreign Policy Doctrine.  The four Ds, which are Democracy, Development, Demography and Diaspora, are conceived to be quadrilateral pillars of a new foreign policy the details of which are yet to be exhaustively articulated and  made crystal clear. That one of the capital Ds is Diaspora appears to be an intentional invitation to the Diaspora to give it expression. If it wasn’t, well, the Diaspora should seize the moment to audaciously make it so. The Diaspora needs permission from nobody to organise the table around service export. The opportunities there for individuals, businesses, and organisations are limitless. NIDO as umbrella of Nigerian Diaspora has an opportunity here to lead.

By whatever means possible, the Embassies through the Minister of Foreign Affairs should be gotten to reassert the authorities of Diaspora Desk Officers at the Embassies. Every continental arm of NIDO should appoint a point person on Service Exports culminating in a Global Service Export Working Team to provide strategic direction. If at this point Diaspora Consult, a commercial arm of NIDO is birthed, it just might be that imperative of our time that Nigeria needs in harnessing its Diaspora added value.

Collins Nweke | Chairman Emeritus NIDO Europe