Nigeria pulled in roughly $21 billion in foreign capital during the first 10 months of 2025, according to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs. Jumoke Oduwole.
The figure represents a 75 per cent jump from the $12 billion recorded across the whole of 2024, and a staggering 425 per cent climb from the under $4 billion posted in 2023.
The minister disclosed this during her ministry’s budget defence session before the House Committee on Commerce, attributing the surge to a sustained push in investment diplomacy.
Diplomatic Push Bearing Fruit
Mrs. Oduwole told lawmakers that her ministry conducted over 100 bilateral investment engagements in 2025, both domestically and overseas.
These interactions, according to her, deepened ties with emerging partners including the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and Japan, while consolidating existing relationships with the United States and the United Kingdom.
UK-based investors alone accounted for roughly 65 per cent of Nigeria’s total foreign capital inflows during the period, a figure that underscores the outsized role of Nigeria’s diaspora community in Britain in channelling investment back home.
Capital importation, which covers foreign direct investment, portfolio flows, and other investment categories, is widely regarded as a measure of international confidence in an economy.
Trade Surplus and Record Exports
The investment gains have arrived alongside a broader improvement in trade performance as Nigeria recorded a trade surplus in 2025, with total trade in the first three quarters reaching approximately N113 trillion.
Exports grew 11 per cent year-on-year to $6.1 billion, which the minister described as the highest level ever recorded in both value and volume. The figures reflect a gradual diversification away from oil dependency, showing that a long-standing policy objective for the Federal Government is beginning to materialise.
Diaspora as a Driving Force
Analysts and policymakers have increasingly pointed to Nigeria’s diaspora as more than just a source of remittances. Nigerians abroad are playing a growing role in technology ventures, structured investment vehicles, and cross-border business partnerships.
With the UK contributing the largest share of capital inflows, the professional and entrepreneurial Nigerian community in Britain appears to be acting as a key bridge between global capital markets and domestic opportunities.
The investment momentum fits within a wider narrative of economic recovery. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Mrs. Oduwole said Nigeria’s GDP growth had exceeded four per cent — which she described as the highest in over a decade — and that inflation had roughly halved between 2024 and 2025.
She also pointed to ongoing modernisation of trade infrastructure, including a single window project for port operations that was set to go live in the first quarter of the year.
“The decisions that investors are taking are based on the fact that they can do business with Nigerians,” she said.
