Envoy urges Zambians to emulate Nigerians’ business attitude

Envoy urges Zambians to emulate Nigerians’ business attitude
By Mutale Kapekele
Fri 19 Feb. 2010, 04:00 CAT

NIGERIAN High Commissioner to Zambia Marcus Folake-Bello has said Zambians should emulate Nigerians’ aggressive business nature for the country to grow its Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) into big corporations.

In an interview on Tuesday night, High Commissioner Folake-Bello said Nigerian businessmen were also learning from Zambia’s organised way of doing business.

“As a country Nigeria, we have learnt a lot from you Zambia because the government has managed to organise the way business is conducted, that is a big plus,” High Commissioner Folake-Bello said.

“Zambia can also learn from our business aggressiveness. That is what has made small businesses in Nigeria become big corporations. That is why there is a saying that if you get into a country and there is no Nigerian, leave!”

She said it was time for African countries to lean on each other and develop the continent further.

“There is this negative perception about Nigerians because where you see one Nigerian, you will think there are four because of the larger than life appeal that we have,” she said.

“We hope that negative perceptions about our country will end because now is the time that all Africans should lean on each other to grow and develop our continent economically.”

High Commissioner Folake-Bello said she was glad that Nigerian companies, like Access Bank that invested in Zambia were expanding and recording huge profits.

“I am so proud that Access Bank has grown because there was lots of speculation about the bank before it came,” she said.

“Nigerian banks are setting up new pace in the banking sector in Africa. And it’s not just them, Nigerians that have invested here are doing fine. And don’t think it’s easy to do that. It’s not easy to get here, there are a lot of immigration issues and many other things that have to happen before you set up a business.”

She said Nigerians were attracted to Zambia by the peace that country was enjoying.

“Zambia has an attraction of peace,” said High Commissioner Folake-Bello. “It is actually unfair that some people think this country has weak investment laws. We respect this country and there is nothing weak about Zambia.”