DAVOS 2026: WHY GLOBAL CAPITAL IS RETHINKING NIGERIA

The Nigeria House is open for partnership, industrialisation, and mutual respect, reckons ESEBAMEN CLEMENT

The mood in the hallways of Davos this year was distinct. Under the polite banner of “A Spirit of Dialogue,” the subtext was undeniable: we have entered an age of fierce geoeconomic competition. The WEF Global Risks Report confirmed what every CEO whispered over coffee—fragmentation is here, supply chains are vulnerable, and the search for a “neutral growth engine” is on. For decades, the global investment community viewed Nigeria through a single, simplistic lens: a massive consumer market. The pitch was always “demographics”—200 million people waiting to buy toothpaste and fintech apps. But at Davos 2026, the narrative have shifted. The launch of the “Nigeria House”—a unified sovereign platform—signaled that Africa’s largest economy is no longer pitching itself merely as a market for finished goods. We are positioning ourselves as the critical “hedge” in a fractured global economy: a manufacturing hub, an energy guarantor, and a supply chain partner for the

Global North.

The first signal from Davos was the death of energy idealism. The conversation has moved

from a binary “oil vs. renewables” debate to a pragmatic focus on energy security. The world

needs gas as a transition fuel, and Europe, specifically, needs non-Russian options. This validates Nigeria’s long-held strategy. We are not just an oil producer; we are a gas

province with some oil. But the opportunity is no longer just extraction; it is industrialization. The message we delivered to partners was clear: Don’t just come for the LNG; come for the petrochemicals. Come for the gas-to-power infrastructure that stabilizes the region. In a world short on secure energy, Nigeria offers the reserves—if partners bring the capital to unlock them.

Secondly, the global tech sector has woken up to a hard reality: the AI revolution is physical. You cannot have data centers without stable power, and you cannot have chips without rare earth

minerals. This puts Nigeria at the center of the next industrial revolution. Our solid minerals sector—rich in lithium and other critical inputs—is no longer a mining play; it is a national security asset for the

global tech stack. The era of exporting raw dirt is over. Nigeria is pivoting toward local

processing. For the smart investor, the value is not in the pit, but in the battery factory built next to it. We are offering the world a chance to diversify the tech supply chain away from monolithic dependencies in Asia. Fixing the “Soft Infrastructure”. Of course, the skeptical investor asks: “What about the risk? What about the governance?” This is where the internal work begins. As a governance strategist who has advised European

governments on policy architecture, I know that hard infrastructure fails without “soft

infrastructure”—the rule of law, policy consistency, and national cohesion. The current administration’s push to raise the tax-to-GDP ratio to 18% and the aggressive focus

on fiscal discipline are signals of a state cleaning its house. We are moving from debt-reliance to revenue-reliance. But we also need to keep strengthening the civic fabric of the nation, building the non-partisan stability that long-term capital demands. We need jobs fast to aid all these ambitions and we must focus on creating them.

The investors who win in the next decade will be those who look past the headlines and see the structural shift. The “China Hedge” isn’t in Vietnam or Mexico alone; it is in a revitalized, industrialized West Africa. Nigeria has moved from a “Spirit of Dialogue” to a “Spirit of Delivery.” We are ready to be the

engine room, not just the marketplace. The door at Nigeria House is open, but the entry price is no longer just aid or loans—it is partnership, industrialization, and mutual respect.

Clement, a Governance Strategist and Systems Architect was Ex Special Adviser to the Irish Government and Global Consulting General Principal at Accenture UKI