Thread by @OlufemiAwoyemi

Another Insightful Extract:

"Ahmed Ibrahim, a tall, dark-skinned man, moved gracefully through the cardboard box factory. As he showed me around, it was immediately clear that he knew everything about making cardboard. He knew the pulp suppliers, he knew how to unload the

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materials, he knew every piece of machinery, he knew the latest customer orders, he knew how to fix a print run that had an offset, and he knew all the workers. His boss, the owner of the factory, is Chinese, but everyone knows that it’s Ahmed who really runs things.

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Ahmed started at the bottom. He is from Sokoto, one of the poorest states in Nigeria. After secondary school, like many Nigerian young men, he was underemployed and surviving by working odd jobs. Because he had grown up near the border with Niger, he spoke French, and he

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found a niche buying cars from the French-speaking Lebanese car dealers in Benin on behalf of Nigerians who wanted to take advantage of Benin’s much lower import duties. It was unsteady work, but it was something.

In 2009, Ahmed got a call from a Chinese man he had once

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met on the street. This man had a buddy, Mr. Wang, who was fresh from China and hoped to start a business in Nigeria. Ahmed agreed to work for Mr. Wang, first as a driver, then quickly morphing into a sort of all-purpose local fixer.

The key moment in Ahmed’s career came

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when Mr. Wang wanted to buy a car for his fledgling company the way local Nigerians did, bypassing Nigeria’s high import tariffs via Benin.

Ahmed would have to do it—Mr. Wang certainly did not know French, which was needed to negotiate with the Lebanese car dealers.

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But could Ahmed be trusted with so much money? Mr. Wang’s Chinese managers fretted. Finally, in a split-second decision, Mr. Wang locked eyes with Ahmed and handed over the full amount for a brand-new vehicle, in cash. As Ahmed left for Benin, all Mr. Wang’s Chinese

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employees shook their heads in disbelief, convinced they had seen the last of Ahmed and the cash.

To their surprise, Ahmed came back a couple of weeks later with the car—and change. He was full of apologies, however, because he had spotted—in his own words—a pair of

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“beautiful shoes that could not be resisted,” so he had used some of the change to buy them.

While the Chinese employees were still in complete shock that Ahmed had come back at all, Ahmed went on and on about how bad he felt that he had used his boss’s money for a pair of

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shoes without permission. He insisted that this amount be docked from his next paycheck.

Needless to say, Mr. Wang was not upset in the least about the shoes, and from that day on, Ahmed was his right-hand man."

Culled by Tosin Adeoti from Irene Sun's book 👇🏿

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Irene Sun's "The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment is Reshaping Africa"

Best wishes to attendees of the #NES25 "2-day talk-shop" by @officialNESG
- will catch up commentary from @Ottoabasig of @WebTVng
@proshare

For the book, 👇🏿 ... check @Rovingheights

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