Onome Amuge
Nigeria, once tipped as a cornerstone of Africa’s private wealth boom, has seen its millionaire population nearly halved over the past decade, underscoring the country’s faltering growth, dependence on oil, and persistent currency volatility.
According to the Africa Wealth Report 2025, published by Henley & Partners and New World Wealth, Nigeria’s number of high-net-worth individuals has dropped by 47 per cent to just 7,200. This is a contrast with the broader continental trend, where millionaire populations are projected to expand by 65 per cent over the next ten years.
The divergence reflects Nigeria’s deep structural weaknesses. The country, Africa’s most populous and its largest oil producer, has struggled to translate natural resource wealth into sustained prosperity. Dollar shortages, multiple exchange rate regimes and recurring devaluations of the naira have eroded domestic wealth, while insecurity and policy uncertainty have weighed on investment.
“Currency instability has been devastating for private wealth creation in Nigeria. Unlike South Africa or Mauritius, where diversified economies and stable governance support millionaire growth, Nigeria’s narrow base leaves it heavily exposed to shocks,” said Andrew Amoils, head of research at New World Wealth.
The country’s millionaire exodus comes as Africa’s overall wealth map is being redrawn. South Africa remains the continent’s largest wealth market with 41,100 millionaires, while Mauritius, Morocco and Rwanda have all posted double-digit gains in recent years thanks to political stability, fiscal incentives, and growth in industries such as finance, tourism and technology.
By contrast, Nigeria’s decline weighs heavily on West Africa’s prospects, given its role as the region’s main investment hub. The contraction is considered to have implications for Africa’s capital formation. This is as fewer wealthy Nigerians mean less domestic private capital available to finance infrastructure, tech ventures and job-creating enterprises.
The report projects sub-Saharan Africa will grow by 3.7 per cent in 2025, outpacing Europe and the US. But Nigeria’s underperformance raises concerns about the sustainability of that growth without the continent’s biggest economy keeping pace.
Justice Malala, a political analyst cited in the report, described Africa as a continent of dualities, a situation in which resilience and promise is tempered by governance setbacks. Nigeria, renowned as a nation with vast resources and demographic heft has been conditioned to an economy whose elite wealth base is shrinking at a time when the rest of Africa is minting new millionaires.
The Nigerian situation is in contrast to that of Mauritius, where the millionaire population has grown by 63 per cent over the past decade, helped by investment migration and financial services. Cape Town, meanwhile, is on track to overtake Johannesburg as Africa’s wealthiest city by 2030, supported by real estate and lifestyle investment inflows.
Analysts noted that Nigeria’s malaise is both a warning and a missed opportunity. It is asserted that if the continent’s largest market continues to shed wealthy individuals, regional capital pools will shrink, slowing the pace at which African wealth can be recycled into domestic growth.
“The test for Africa is whether it can turn private wealth expansion into broad-based prosperity,” said Jean Paul Fabri, chief economist at Henley & Partners. “Nigeria’s decline shows how quickly progress can unravel when economies fail to diversify and currencies fail to stabilise,” he added.
