Nigerian shoppers are reported to be the fourth biggest
foreign spenders in the United Kingdom. A report by the UK’s Guardian has
revealed.
According to the report “Visitors from the west African
nation are the UK’s fourth biggest foreign spenders, ringing up an average £500
in each shop where they make purchases – four times what the average UK shopper
spends.”
One of the Nigerians interviewed in the report, Victoria
Appiah disclosed that she stocks up on
everything she needs for the next six months in Nigeria whenever she visits the
United Kingdom.
“I basically only do food shopping back home. It’s not that
you can’t get these things in Lagos, but everything here is much more
reasonably priced. If you want cheap products, Chinese-made have taken over in
Nigeria, and you can’t always vouch for quality” she said.
Holidaying or visiting relatives abroad is increasingly open
to millions of middle class Nigerians, with the number of visitors to the UK
increasing by more than 50% to 142,000 a year in the decade ending 2011,
according to the Office for National Statistics.
In a country projected to become Africa’s biggest economy
next year, and the world’s fifth most populous by 2050, businesses at home and
abroad are cashing in.
In Debenhams’ Oxford Street branch, signs in Hausa-one of
the official Nigerian languages in the country’s largely impoverished
north-direct shoppers to items on sale.
This year, the shop said that Nigerian customers were its
biggest overseas spenders.
Daily flights plying the lucrative route between Nigeria and
the UK have ballooned in the last decade. British Airways permits almost double
the normal baggage allowance for the six-hour haul.
In some cases, Nigerians are literally using their deeper
pockets on sprees.
Shola Obadeyu wore a heavy duffel coat while queuing in
Heathrow for a flight back to her sweltering home city of Abuja.
“I can save [airline] baggage space by putting small things
like vest tops and underwear in the pockets,” she said as she queued with other
passengers, almost all struggling with bulging suitcases.
Back in Abuja, Obadeyu sells wares bought in London “at
prices that don’t kill you”.
Others are tapping the market. A mushrooming middle class
snapped up 10m microwaves last year. Big name brands from Apple to Zara have
sprung up to feed those aspirations.
The African-based discount supermarket giant Shoprite is
pouring $205million into its current three outlets in Nigeria, while the US
hypermarket Walmart sees scope for 50 outlets in the country.
On a recent trip back from Europe, Marie Claire Lienou
lugged 50kg of frozen meat in a freezer bag back to Nigeria. “You can’t compare
[Shoprite's] prices here with their prices in Europe. For 10 steaks there I can
buy two here. You just pay what you have to for the convenience and
guarantees,” she said, pushing a trolley laden with relative luxuries such as
bagged salads.
“Nigeria is very crowded, traffic is terrible, fakes [wares]
are everywhere. The only thing I’ll buy from the market is fresh bulk vegetables,
because there are no fake tomatoes,” she added.
Being middle class in Nigeria isn’t cheap. In a brightly lit
KFC across the shopping centre, Taiwo Edun, an engineer, treated his girlfriend
to crispy chicken and chips, a luxury beyond the reach of many at $20 (£13) a
pop.”I don’t consider myself in the super-rich class, I’m not chartering
flights for my friends to go on holiday like some Nigerians can. But I can come
here maybe once a month,” he said.
The widespread corruption and infrastructure woes that
plague Nigeria – including daily power blackouts that are smoothed over by
millions of generators–push up the costs of running businesses here, keeping
most dependent on informal, market-style retail.
Abrupt plans to introduce a new N5,000 (£20) note worth five
times the current highest bill have caused an outcry, with market sellers
saying it would drive up prices.
On the back of one of the notes will be Funmilayo
Ransome-Kuti, mother of the Afrobeat singer Fela Kuti.
Ransome-Kuti made her name as an activist with a mass
protest against policies that increased prices for market women.
Meanwhile, those who can afford it continue to see a better
deal abroad. The country’s central bank throws billions of dollars into
propping up the Naira at artificially high rates, hurting millions of local
exporters and encouraging Nigeria’s shopping exodus.
Indicating her clutch of M&S carrier bags, Appiah said
it was her five-year-old grandson’s favourite shop. “As long as the weather is
not too cold, Nigerians will be shopping in London,” she said.
Culled from TheGuardian
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