Nigeria

After nearly a decade of false starts in the sale of its state telecommunications company, Nigeria recently announced it had found a buyer. However, the privatisation appears to have hit a rocky patch, with a member of the winning consortium denying that its involvement had been finalised.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) wide-reaching reform campaign, which rocked the banking sector in 2009, is not done yet. After removing the executive management of a number of unhealthy banks and injecting additional liquidity into the system, authorities have set their sights on further improving corporate governance by setting a tenure limit for CEOs.

The Nigerian real estate market was characterised by a focus on high-end projects until the third quarter of 2008, when lending dried up and demand plummeted. The subsequent credit crisis hit the industry hard, but it also encouraged investors to enter the neglected affordable housing segment, with the private sector working alongside the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) to combat a nationwide housing deficit.

Hard-hit but unbowed by the global economic crisis, Nigeria has turned some of its attention to economic diversification and much-needed infrastructure construction. The tides look to be in the country's favour as peace at home brings back foreign direct investment.

Nigeria's telecommunications infrastructure has received a boost from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which granted local group Helios Towers $250m in mezzanine financing to expand its mobile telephone tower network. Shared infrastructure will enable Nigerian wireless operators to expand nationwide without increasing their costs.