A business owner could win an order and still be unable to fulfil it. The road to the buyer may be impassable after heavy rain. Energy costs may have wiped out any possible margins or make the agreed price unworkable. Payment for the last service delivery may still be outstanding and at least 90 days past its due date. Indeed, the demand for the business service or product is real, but the conditions and enablers to turn such opportunities into growth are not making it “math up”.
That is a useful starting point of reflection for Nigeria’s next phase of economic expansion. Growth must become achievable for viable enterprises wherever they operate. When location determines whether a business can reach customers, access finance or deliver profitably, the country leaves productive capacity idle and jobs uncreated.
As the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit approaches, its Scale Nigeria sub-theme will seek to tackle this directly: how to spread growth across states, sectors and communities. The harder question will also be “how to make that ambition show up in the everyday decisions of lenders, large companies and state governments”.
No doubt, Nigeria’s commercial hubs will remain indispensable. Their concentration of capital, skills and customers supports businesses far beyond their boundaries. The task at hand will be to strengthen their links with the enterprises that supply them so that a food processor in a smaller town from Oyo, for example, can build a dependable relationship with a buyer in a major city without transport costs and financing gaps consuming the margin.
The consequences of uneven opportunity are already evident. The National Bureau of Statistics’ 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index reported that 72 percent of rural residents experienced multidimensional poverty, compared with 42 percent of urban residents. These are historical figures, not a current poverty estimate. They nevertheless show how sharply access to essentials differs across communities, affecting people’s ability to participate in economic activity.
Closing such gaps requires us to take local enterprise seriously as a source of production and employment. Lending support would help such businesses become reliable suppliers and competitive employers, with a clear route to customers who will pay for what they produce.
However, large companies have a direct role here. Procurement decisions can open markets for smaller firms, but access to a tender is only the beginning. A prospective supplier needs to understand the quality standards, volumes and delivery schedules expected of it. And where capability falls short, practical support with production processes, including record-keeping, can help the business qualify and remain competitive.
Payment terms deserve equal attention. A small supplier who waits months for payment is effectively financing its much larger customer. It may have won the contract, yet lack the cash to buy materials for the next order. Prompt payment and clear procedures for resolving invoice disputes should therefore be part of supplier development. Dependable commercial relationships benefit both sides: smaller firms can plan, while buyers gain a more reliable supply base.
Finance should follow the pathway the enterprise operates. Working capital for a business with regular orders serves a different purpose from a loan to purchase equipment. The repayment schedule needs to reflect the recognition of how and when the business earns money. A product that disregards this only creates further pressure even where the underlying enterprise is viable.
In my experience as a founder in the marketing and communications consultancy sector, the explanation of a product matters alongside its design. As business owners and service providers, we need to understand what our businesses qualify for, what it costs and what repayment requires. Information should be expressed in terms that relate to their operations. A financial product has limited value if it does not serve the purpose of the intended customer or work for the business.
Infrastructure remains fundamental to these relationships. In December 2024, the World Bank approved $500 million for Nigeria’s Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project Scale-Up. The project seeks to rehabilitate, upgrade and maintain 6,500 kilometres of rural roads, benefiting around four million rural residents. Those are project targets, rather than evidence of completed delivery. Their commercial importance is clear: a dependable route to market can change what a producer is able to sell, determine how or when and even the cost of doing so.
Road investment must also come with maintenance arrangements. Businesses need confidence that access will endure through successive rainy seasons. Sub-national governments should assess infrastructure priorities against the production areas and markets they connect and make responsibility for upkeep explicit.
We cannot underestimate the value of technology and digital services in the scheme of things, as they can widen those connections, helping enterprises receive payments, find buyers and track transaction records. However, I often argue their relative usefulness depends on affordable connectivity, reliability of service and support when things go south. Businesses also need workable alternatives when a network fails. Putting a service online should make participation easier for the people expected to use it.
State investment strategies should also reflect attention to peculiar local conditions by identifying prospects of expansion for existing enterprises, possible constraints and plans for addressing them. Where suppliers, processors and buyers operate across state boundaries, neighbouring governments should coordinate infrastructure and reduce avoidable administrative friction and bottlenecks.
NES32 offers an opportunity to turn these responsibilities into commitments that can be followed after the summit. The Scale Nigeria discussions should identify specific market connections to strengthen the institutions responsible and timelines for delivery. Large buyers could commit to supplier programmes with published payment terms. Lenders and business associations could agree on practical routes to finance. States could prioritise roads serving productive clusters, with funded maintenance plans.
As such, Nigeria’s next phase of growth must reach more people and places. For the business owner with an order to fulfil, that ambition becomes real when the road is usable, the finance fits and payment arrives on time. That is the practical standard against which Scale Nigeria should be judged.
Mojisola SAKA is the Chief Engagement & Experience Officer at Boucles Africa. She is also the Private Sector Co-Chair of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group’s (NESG) media and publicity sub-committee for the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#32).
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