23/04/2025
Professor Ndubuisi writes;
Let me expand the conversation by noting that Africa does have investors. My original comment: “I think there are African investors. The real challenge is not the startups but the currency. If you invested in Nigeria, for example, before 2015, when Naira was about N200/$, there is no way you would be fine now that the currency is N1600/$. We should understand that investors do not run charities. I wrote here how I put 15% of my gross wages as an entry banker and how worthless everything has become because of currency. Let us push for African leaders to find solutions to the currency mess and inflation. Africa has INVESTORS; the issue is that we do not have stable currencies for long term investments.”
I will add that even if you want to remove the impact of exchange rate, as an investor, you MUST still model the time value of money. Yes, you do not do investments to pack digits in your bank accounts. You do investments to create value on your assets so that you can have more spending power after you have grown your asset value. So, the real issue is not the absolute amount but the purchasing power, post the investment.
Looking at that, if you invested N2 million in 2015 in Nigeria and that money has “grown” to N2.2 million in 2025, even though you have “grown” the absolute value of that asset, you have lost on the purchasing or spending power associated with that asset. In other words, that investment is not a good one. Inflation and currency loss have destroyed value there!
So, the loss of spending power as a result of currency deterioration does not shield local investors. Simply, even if you are investing and getting returns in Naira, you are going to lose value when it comes to using that fund due to inflation and the loss of the value of the money in an import-dependent economy. And that takes me to the summary: until we can stabilize our currencies in Africa, few investors will do long-term deals.
Source:
Give them a reason to invest! 1. African nations have a bad reputation for holding OPM - Other Peoples Money. There are multiple money transaction systems around, and most that were great in one nation, but needed to achieve regional presence, failed to do so, such as Mpesa. It's a saturated mar...