The trillion-dollar map: How to win in Nigeria’s unseen economy

Nigeria is worth about USD 291 billion and about USD 2.3 trillion at the same time. Both are World Bank figures for 2025.

The first converts the economy into dollars at the exchange rate. The second measures it by what money can actually buy at home. For anyone who invests, builds or lends in Nigeria, the gap between the two, close to two trillion dollars, is the most important number on the page. It is a map of the market you cannot see yet.

That gap is filled by the informal economy: the roadside trader, the tailor, the small farmer, the neighbourhood mechanic workshop. Estimates run from about 41 percent of the economy, by the National Bureau of Statistics, to as much as 65 percent, by the International Monetary Fund, and perhaps more. For a business, these are not statistics. They are customers, suppliers and borrowers who are simply not yet visible in formal records.

The usual prescription is to formalise this economy: register it and tax it. On its own, that rarely works. You cannot tax a business into the light when, for that business, being formal costs more than it pays. It steps forward only when formality becomes the better deal, offering something it genuinely wants, such as credit, larger customers, or protection. Nigeria has already seen how this works. Millions of Nigerians moved onto digital payment platforms in recent years, not for compliance’s sake, but because it was useful. In doing so, once invisible cash activity became recorded, traceable and bankable. For investors, that pattern is the whole point, because it shows where the value is.

First, the addressable market is larger than the headline dollar figure suggests. Measured by what people can actually buy, Nigerians spend into a market worth about USD 2.3tn. That is how large consumer businesses, from telecommunications to cement to packaged foods, build real scale here even when the exchange rate figure looks modest. Size the opportunity on the market rate number alone, and you will underestimate it.

Second, the biggest structural opportunity is building the bridges into formality. The businesses that win will be those that make being counted worth it: digital payments, embedded credit, simple tools that turn a trader’s record of payments into a credit history, and distribution that reaches newly visible customers. Every Nigerian who moves from cash into a recorded, bankable footprint becomes a customer that lenders, insurers and brands can finally serve.

Third, the value is latent, and the enablers unlock it. Many Nigerian businesses have already built the hard things: factories, nationwide distribution and trusted brands. What holds returns back is mostly the shared foundations, such as unreliable power, difficult logistics, high inflation and high borrowing costs. As those improve, hidden value converts into real revenue.

This is the opportunity behind the trillion-dollar goal. Nigeria does not need to invent a new economy. It needs to bring the one it already has into the light, and the surest way to do that is to make formality pay. For businesses and investors, that is where the next decade of growth is hiding. The demand is already there. The winners will be those who make it easier, and more rewarding, to be counted.

This is part of a series exploring whether, and how, Nigeria can become a one trillion-dollar economy. Next in the series: what would it actually take to grow that fast?

Frank Nnamka is a private equity and impact investor. He writes here in a personal capacity, and the views expressed are his own and do not reflect the position of his employer or any organisation he is affiliated with.