When Senator Shehu Sani asked why Nigerians run abroad while foreigners run toward Nigeria, it sounded like a simple question. It wasn’t. It was a trap disguised as wisdom.
On the surface, Nigeria looks like a marketplace buzzing with promise. Foreign shops open. Warehouses rise. Balance sheets smile. From a distance, it looks like faith. Up close, it’s something else entirely.
Foreign success in a weak system does not mean the system works.
Nigeria is not a goldmine discovered overnight. It’s a risky terrain where rules bend easily, enforcement is selective, and survival favors those who arrive prepared. The foreigners who come are not gamblers walking in empty-handed. They arrive with cash already stacked, networks already wired, credit already approved, and supply chains already moving. They don’t start the race at the whistle. They’re already halfway down the track.
And there’s the money. Hard money. Dollars. Yuan. Euros. When you bring strong currency into a weak one, the math works in your favor before the first deal is signed. Nigerians earn in naira, save in naira, borrow in naira — and watch it shrink. That’s not competition. That’s gravity.
The same system that opens doors for foreign capital slams them on citizens. Nigerian entrepreneurs meet multiple taxes, endless inspections, sudden policy shifts, broken roads, unreliable power, and loans priced like punishment. Hard work is not missing. Protection is.
So when a foreign business thrives here, it isn’t proof of a healthy country. It’s evidence of a system loose enough to exploit. Profits leave. Inputs are imported. Locals are hired cheaply. The lights stay on for the business, but the street outside remains dark.
This is the part often skipped.
Foreign capital comes to extract value from weak systems. Citizens leave to escape them.
Nigerians don’t leave because they can’t see opportunity. They leave because they see it too clearly — and know the cost of chasing it inside a system that doesn’t protect effort, dignity, or time.
If Nigeria worked for its people the way it works for foreign capital and connected elites, airports would be quieter. Borders would matter less. Hope would stay home.
Foreign success should not be sold as proof that all is well. It is a warning sign — a reminder of what happens when a system serves access over fairness, leverage over labor, and outsiders better than its own.
That’s not vision.
That’s dysfunction making money.
Best regards,
Linus Anagboso
(D-BIGPEN).
National Coordinator, SERA PROJECT
