Adapted from Chapter 11 of my book Chasing Black Unicorns. I wrote it around 2018, so the figures are from that time.

I recently watched a French feature report on TV about Nigeria. It was sad and moving. It ended with the thesis that we Europeans, a “real civilization”, must do even more to help these poor, malnourished people, whom nobody invests in.

People driven by ideology fail to notice how they contradict themselves. On one hand, “Africa is wonderful and doesn’t need the white man”. A second later: “Let’s collect money for Africa, they need our help”. Africa has become more a subject of academic debate than of practical solutions. Everyone wants to talk about it, and most people don’t have much to say.

The Botswana myth

One of the most popular media myths is that a ban on receiving international aid, written into the constitution of Botswana, is why one of the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa became one of the richest.

I have read the constitution of Botswana from cover to cover. There is not a single word in it about any ban on taking money from anyone. It is available online; go and check.

In reality, Botswana has received among the highest international aid per capita of any African country. Britain financed its first years of independence, and later big money came from the USA, Germany and Scandinavia. So why did Botswana go from one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richer ones in its region within sixty years? In my opinion, mainly because it had the good fortune to have honest presidents. Though honesty is less often a result of happiness and more often one of culture.

There are two similarities between Botswana and Nigeria. Both were ravaged by the British. And in the middle of the last century both were found to have enormous natural resources: oil in Nigeria, diamonds in Botswana. Botswana’s president Seretse Khama ruled for fourteen years and used the wealth to reform the country. Over the same period Nigeria had five presidents, who mainly concentrated on reforming the contents of their own pockets and those of their supporters.

Money that wants to be seen

In Abuja and Lagos, poverty reigns by day and the “charmed life” appears at night. Very few of the wealthy come from old money. Most fortunes date from the mid-20th century, when oil was struck and the rich Western world arrived shouting “shut up and take my money”. Now the second and third generations are on the stage: Daddy’s boys and Daddy’s girls.

The oil business is the easiest money in the world, because all you need are political contacts. Nigeria produced about 2.5 million barrels a day. At around $50 a barrel, that is $125 million daily, or about $45 billion a year, to be shared out.

The problem begins when you spend money only to show that you have it. The most important thing you can achieve in Nigeria, and in many other African countries, is social advancement. So it matters more that everyone sees you have money than that you use it for anything.

I saw this with my own neighbors. I lived in one of the better districts of Lagos, but it is barely the equivalent of Brooklyn: a grey apartment block, a neglected stairwell, unpredictable elevators. And in the car park, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, several Porsches (considered a poor man’s car there), two Bentleys, an Aston Martin and at least six G-class Mercedes. My Toyota Sequoia looked like a taxi next to them.

The richest live in colossal villas, stuffed with a thousand-inch TV, marble columns and a gigantic Louis-something chandelier. There are no gardens in Lagos, because land is insanely expensive and you don’t pay for it to grow weeds. I once met an airline catering magnate who had built his house on only half his plot and turned the rest into a garden with one large tree in the middle.

“Great, isn’t it?” he asked. “We live in Africa, so you’d think we have trees up to here. Nobody sells anything like this. I had this one brought from Jamaica.”

“What do you mean, brought?”

“As normal. In a container.”

On the road you can tell four kinds of wealthy people apart. The first buy police lights with no siren and flash them, and nobody takes much notice. The second add a siren, which is irritating enough that you let them through just to get some peace. The third bring a private policeman who gets out in a traffic jam and politely asks other drivers to move. The fourth have neither lights nor policeman, but a pickup full of armed commandos in front or behind. Traffic parts like the Red Sea.

Why a rich continent stays poor

When you see all this, the question is why Africa is still so poor when such rich people live there. Well, often they don’t live there. While building Jovago I had many meetings with hotel owners, and frequently I had to wait months because “the master lives abroad”. They make big money in Africa, build houses and pay their taxes elsewhere. We all know what that means for the economy.

It is said that every wealthy African, besides a Nigerian, Kenyan or South African passport, holds another one, from St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica or Vanuatu, which opens most of the world without a visa. I had always assumed that second citizenship was shady and cost millions. I was wrong. Governments have started treating citizenship as a commodity: St. Kitts and Nevis was first, in 1984, and today over a dozen countries offer it, including five Caribbean island states and, within the EU, Austria, Cyprus and Malta. Vanuatu starts from $70,000.

Which country wouldn’t want more doctors, engineers, lawyers and entrepreneurs who invest and pay taxes there? There is a vetting process to keep out criminals, with financial checks and a health check. I went through a licensed advisory firm and chose a Caribbean country, mainly for its zero income and inheritance tax and because it allows dual citizenship. Two weeks to gather documents, three months to get a blue passport that opens more than 120 countries visa-free. A plan B for safety, peace of mind and, honestly, a cool thing to show off.

I wouldn’t be myself if I hadn’t asked how to build a business around it. The citizenship-by-investment market is estimated at $20 billion a year, twice the size of the private yacht market, and it operates more like a law firm than a technology company. That was my aha moment. I invested in the firm that helped me, Migronis Citizenship, and am now a partner there. Full disclosure, then. It’s also a way to democratize the world a little, because it’s not your fault where you were born.

The real gap: money for the people who have none

A far more serious problem is access to capital for people who have none. A bank is someone who gives you an umbrella when it’s sunny and takes it away when it rains.

Once I had a drink with a Western European who had opened a start-up fund for small African entrepreneurs. He had set up a foundation, paid for PR, and received not one application in six months. Two bottles of wine later, the cause was clear. He wanted to be sure the money went to someone who would know what to do with it, so his criteria were a forty-something with corporate experience, preferably international. The people who meet those criteria are the children of the rich. They don’t need $25,000, because they have it already or will get it from Dad.

If you want to help, you have to go deeper and earlier. Fund the people without the degree, and expect to lose many times before you win.

What I’d say to the French TV report

If you want to share the luck you had by being born in a home with running water, electricity and parents who sent you to school, don’t wire money to people who run tear-jerking ads. Go to Africa and spend your tourist dollars at a local business. Or come and start a small company, employ an African and invest in them. And above all, don’t believe the stereotypes.

This is from Chapter 11, “Jaguars and Leopards”, of Chasing Black Unicorns. In the book you also meet the man with the Jaguar collection, and the leopard in his garden. All of my income from the book goes to the MaYa Foundation.

Listen to this chapter: Polish audiobook on YouTube (English version coming soon) · Spotify