Legions of young Nigerians, educated at English public school and U.S Ivy
league universities, are leaving highly-paid careers with Wall Street and City
of London to return to the Lagos hustle.

LAGOS, NIGERIA REUTERS -
 Lagos, Nigeria -- urban sprawl of 14 million people, the chaotic hub
of Africa's most populous nation, may epitomise what many foreigners fear most
about megacities in the developing world: violent crime, corrupt police and
crumbling infrastructure. 
    Yet legions of young Nigerians, educated at English public schools and
U.S. Ivy League universities, are leaving highly-paid careers with Wall Street
banks and City of London to return to the Lagos hustle. 
    But what is the draw? Not just a pay package that approaches or matches
what is on offer in the U.S. or Europe, but a dash of patriotism -- a chance
to help fulfil an ambition of building world-class Nigerian businesses as an
example to the rest of Africa. 
     "In the States,you have the likes of... it is really an
established economy. You can't create another Apple, you can't create another
Microsoft, you can't really create another Disney. So, in Africa  a lot of
sectors are really, very, very highly underdeveloped and even for the most
part non-existent. So if you really coming to an emerging market like Africa,
no to speak of...you know.. if you think of after Asia, Africa is the second
most populous continent in the world, so, the numbers are. If you have an idea
this is really the place where you have the backing,"
said Michael Akindele, who left U.S. consultancy firm Accenture to set up
his own business investing in Nigerian media and entertainment.    
    Many wealthy Nigerians of Akindele's generation were sent to boarding
schools in England or the United States in the late 1980s and 1990s, when
Nigeria was a military dictatorship with little foreign investment and a
disintegrating education system.   
    They watched with cautious optimism as it returned to democracy in 1999
with the election of Olusegun Obasanjo after three decades of military rule,
and welcomed the reforms he started to push through after winning a second
term in 2003.
    "I am stepping away from that salary, that confident, comfortable,
stable, you have power all the time, you have water all the time, you walk
around and you can drive to a mall less than five minutes, I left that alone.
But really, if you really think about it, I have the opportunity to able to
create the kind of lifestyle I want here," added Akindele.
    When Nigeria used 12 billion US dollars of oil savings to pay back
debts owed to the Paris Club of rich creditor nations in 2005, and won the
write-off of a further 18 billion US dollars in return, foreign investors and
diaspora Nigerians sat up and took note. 
    28-year-old, Kayode Akindele who returned to work for United Bank for
Africa's (UBA) investment banking arm, UBA Global Markets, was among those who
watched events unfold from their London offices.
    Akindele, an Oxford graduate who lived in Britain for more than 16
years, was working on structured derivatives for Lloyds in London when he was
introduced to the chief executive of UBA, two years ago. UBA was looking to
build a world-class investment bank in Nigeria and Akindele's skills were
exactly what was needed. 
    "For me Nigeria is home, so I always knew I would come back. So, I
was going to come, when I was going to come back was, that was what, was what
was important. So, I always see myself as a Nigerian, and thought look, there
is no point always being abroad and always complaining that Nigeria is not
improving if you are not part of it. If you came back and try and be part of
that improvement then you can talk," said Akindele, now a vice president
at UBA Global Markets. 
    Financial sector reforms in 2005 forced Nigeria's banks to consolidate,
creating multi-billion dollar institutions with the capacity to branch out
into sophisticated new markets and pay salaries on a par with some of their
Western peers. 
    Diaspora Nigerians -- with experience in banking but also the cultural
knowledge to navigate the complexities of doing business in Nigeria -- have
been in high demand ever since.  
    "I think there is a window that may be there for may be another 18
months, to two years. People who have been educated and worked locally, will
inevitably learn stuff that the experts are bringing. So there will be
interest in structured products that will come into the market here that the
local will pick up and come to understand without needing to get it from
Merrill Lynch or Goldman Sachs. So, the view, at the moment, of the people
moving back, is that they understand the exotic products, exotic structured
ways of solving problems. But it will percolate to the local sector and people
will learn these things. There won't be any need to drag investment bankers
from New York or London," said Chuka Mordi, head of business development
at First City Monument Bank.
    The world of vanilla interest rate swaps may seem a million miles from
the realities of life on the streets of Lagos, where hawkers selling
everything from phone charge cards to electric irons ply their trade among
belching minibuses and moped taxis. 
    But bankers hope that building strong financial institutions will help
open credit lines to millions of would-be entrepreneurs, allowing them to
develop small businesses and lift themselves out of the informal sector. 
    The idea of making money as a businessman in Nigeria -- long spurned by
some of the elite as inferior to a high-powered job in the public sector -- is
catching the popular imagination, demonstrating to an ambitious young
generation that one don't have to be in the pay of government to get rich.

    "The guys that did commercial trading were looked down up 25 years
ago, nobody is looking down upon them now, because they got the cash,"
said Obi Asika, an Eton-educated entrepreneur whose own record label sells
albums through market traders and street sellers.
    The government is still the largest official single employer in
Nigeria, and the vast majority of people still live on less than 2 U.S.
dollars a day, but the new private sector elite hope that if they avoid the
mistakes of their predecessors, Nigeria may haul itself out of poverty and
corruption. 
    "There are issues, this is not Valhalla, we are not in Milton's
paradise yet, but I am one of the people that believe in Nigeria. I am
positive about this country," said Asika.
    Nigeria's 95 billion U.S. dollar stock market was one of the best
performing emerging markets in the world last year, attracting private equity
and hedge fund investors from Europe, Asia and the United States.