Nigeria has finally decided that if the world insists on pricing it, the least it can do is host the valuation in style. Thus, Nigeria House Davos is born: a tasteful, well-furnished pop-up republic on the Promenade, where the nation will briefly exist as a premium investment prospect rather than a lived reality. This is not diplomacy as we knew it; it is real estate – except the property being shown around is a country.
Let it be said immediately that this is not mortgaging. Mortgages are vulgar things, full of paperwork, repayment schedules and the embarrassing admission that tomorrow has already been spent today. What Nigeria is doing is far more refined. This is a branding exercise. For five immaculate days in January, Nigeria will be reborn as a place where inflation is “moderating,” unemployment is “being addressed,” and electricity is “a sector of opportunity.” In Davos, problems do not exist; they merely present upside.
The house itself is described as sovereign, though its keys are being tastefully held by a consortium of private firms. This is efficiency, we are told. After all, sovereignty is heavy and best carried by consultants with international exposure. Ministries will be present, of course, to provide flags, seals and reassuring photographs, while execution is left to professionals fluent in the language of pipeline, convergence and de-risking. Nothing says national confidence like outsourcing your national voice.
Inside Nigeria House Davos, the menu will be extensive. Solid minerals will be served rare, energy assets well done, agriculture farm-to-table, and the creative economy as a cultural amuse-bouche. Digital trade will float in the air like Wi-Fi, while climate finance will be presented as both an emergency and an opportunity, depending on who is asking. Finance, legislation and investor security will run quietly in the background, ensuring that nothing as awkward as democratic inconvenience interrupts the flow of interest.
We are reminded, solemnly, that other serious nations do this too. This is true, though many of those nations arrived with factories, stable currencies and the unglamorous ability to say no. Nigeria arrives with optimism, a reform narrative, and a Renewed Hope Agenda that renews itself faster than budget assumptions collapse. Hope, it turns out, is Nigeria’s most sustainable export.
The Presidency has encouraged “strategic participation,” which is diplomatic code for come and see what is available. Nigeria House Davos is not a sales outlet; it is an open house. No one is under pressure to buy anything. Visitors are merely invited to walk through the rooms, admire the resources, inspect the policy environment, and imagine how lovely the place could look after a little restructuring. The current occupants will, of course, adjust.
And so we are reassured that nothing is being sold -certainly not sovereignty, and definitely not the future. This is merely Nigeria “telling its story from its own perspective,” translated into a dialect that global capital understands fluently. The locks are still on the doors, we are told. The keys are simply being passed around so everyone can feel their weight.
Nigeria is not being mortgaged in Davos. That would be crude and old-fashioned. This is something much more contemporary and sophisticated: a guided tour for potential stakeholders. And as experience has taught us, once the tour is over and the valuation agreed, the paperwork tends to take care of itself.