Putting The Shine on Africa’s Rise

Magnus Onyibe pays tribute to Jim Ovia, ‘grand master’ of banking in Nigeria Bearing in mind that the African continent was a little over a decade ago associated only with famine, disease and hunger, the change of the narrative on Africa from negative to

When Emmanuel Macron, President of France, Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Angela Merkel, President of Germany recently embarked on state visits to major African countries back-to-back, it was a clear testament to the fact that Africa is rising and shining. This is so because, the frenzied visits by the European leaders and their businessmen/women to Africa in recent times and the convocation of a conference of African heads of government in Beijing, China focused on economic partnerships are positive steps that would further enable the continent take its pride of place in the comity of trading nations.

For instance, the exit of Britain from the European Union trade arrangement, BREXIT compels the UK to seek new markets outside the EU and that puts Africa in its gaze.

At the same time, France, Germany and China are also seeking new partnerships in Africa owing to the USA president, Donald Trump’s trade war with the rest of the world which has upended world trade order.

A combination of all these game changing events are further catalyzing the scramble for Africa’s business, symbolizing a renewed struggle by Western and Asian countries to gain footholds in Africa so as to benefit from its combined population of about one billion spread across some 54 countries.

With Africa’s enormous and untapped natural resources making the continent the world’s no one unexploited land and it’s growing middle class and burgeoning millennia population constituting a major consumer market for the world, the continent has become not only a destination for sourcing raw materials, but also a target market for Chinese and Western goods and services.

When considered against the backdrop of President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent visit to the USA where he was hosted by President Donald Trump, who was reportedly nudging him to commence importation of American agricultural products into Nigeria, (to compliment the presence of GE and Caterpillar that have already birthed here), it is clear that the sun is now shining on Africa hitherto dubbed a dark continent.

In the light of the foregoing and by all the intents and purposes catalogued above, once again, Africa can be said to be the bride of the world, which is the reason the scramble for a piece of ‘African action’ is currently afoot.

But unlike the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884/5 during which the continent of Africa was partitioned by European governments without the consent of Africans, this time, African entrepreneurs are literally sitting at the table with the bridegrooms as they have been welcoming foreign investors and stand ready and able to accommodate more as partners and not exploiters.

And clearly, Jim Ovia, Founder/Chairman of Zenith Bank, who in less than a space of 20 years, grew the assets of his bank from $4m (shareholders fund) to $16 billion is one of such entrepreneurs.

Obviously, being the driving force behind the Zenith Bank phenomenon, Jim Ovia did not want the import of the opportunities in Africa to remain untapped, hence he decided to document the abundant opportunities in Africa in his book with a striking title “Africa Rise And Shine: How A Nigerian Entrepreneur From Humble Beginning Grew A Company To $16b”.

Until Nigerian economy got sucked into the vortex of recession in 2016/17, it was growing at an average rate of 5% which was quite impressive.

But unfortunately and thankfully, the economy returned to a growth path towards the end of 2017, as evidenced by the data from Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which stated that “As at the end of 2017, total capital imported into Nigeria was $12.2 billion, an increase of $7.1billion or 138.7 per cent from the figure recorded in 2016.

According to the NBS report, the growth in capital importation in 2017 was mainly driven by increase in portfolio investment, which went up by $5.5 billion from the previous year to reach $7.3 billion in 2017, and accounting for 60 per cent of capital imported."

What’s true of Nigerian economy is also applicable to Rwanda, Botswana, Angola, Kenya, Mauritius and indeed most African countries.

Apart from the USA whose economic growth is currently a princely 5%, the phenomenal economic growth rates in Africa is third only to that of China and India whose pace of development was at one point in double digits.

Bearing in mind that the African continent was a little over a decade ago associated only with famine, disease and hunger, the change of the narrative on Africa from negative to being a destination highly sought by many investors from all over the world is nothing short of a revolution and therefore cheering news.

That’s perhaps why Zenith Bank Plc which literally started like a little acorn seed has now metamorphosed into an oak tree, with a balance sheet of a whopping $16b over a period of less about two decades.

It is also clearly the reason the bank is being used as a poster child for Africa’s phenomenal progress, and its chairman, Jim Ovia is also projected as a metaphor for Africa’s rise and shine.

A bit more of history about the personal experience of Jim Ovia and Zenith bank in the course of their meteoric rise would be useful at this point.

So allow me crave your indulgence to present in Ovia’s own riveting narrative as contained in his epoch making book, the factors that propelled him and Zenith bank to success.

It goes thus: “In the course of Zenith bank’s own journey to “rise and shine,” the business began as a single branch in Lagos on the ground floor of an impoverished resident duplex that we shared with a private tenant and his wife. At the time, there were no high-rise office structures in the area, and we were not able to afford a stand-alone building of our own, so we created an impromptu commercial space where we could carry out the banking business. We put up our signage and logo, but truly it did not resemble an office or a bank at all.

That unassuming duplex was the starting point for a business that became a London Stock Exchange-listed company with operations in the UK, China, UAE, Ghana, Gambia, Sierra Leone, with more than 400 branches and business offices in Nigeria.”

Going by Ovia’s account, like every object of inestimable value, Zenith bank was forged in a furnace. And as the saying goes, there is no pawn without pain.

Based on the character testimonies from both friends and competitors of the Golden Boy of African Capitalism also affectionately referred to as The godfather of banking in Africa, Ovia has a fetish for details and insatiable appetite for knowledge.

That’s evidenced by the fact that innocuous things such as finding an appropriate name, designing the logo and choosing the colour of the bank, engaged the attention of Zenith bank founder as much as the name and personality of the fellow to officiate in his now famous ‘CEO’s Award’.