When he is not overseeing the affairs of Nigeria’s largest and most profitable commercial bank, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, chairman of Access Holdings, spends most of his time shaping Nigeria’s economic diplomacy abroad.
The veteran banker often accompanies President Bola Tinubu on important trips to foreign capitals to advance Nigeria’s economic interests. At the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, where Tinubu and other African leaders met with France’s Emmanuel Macron, he was once again by the president’s side.
With bilateral trade climbing to $4.7bn in 2025, Nigeria has solidified its status as France’s leading trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also the region’s top destination for French investment.
Efforts paying off
“France is a really strategic partner to Nigeria,” Aig-Imoukhuede tells African Business on the sidelines of the summit.
“I applaud the commitment and leadership that President Macron has shown towards fostering very deep and impactful relationships between France and Africa, particularly in Nigeria,” Aig-Imoukhuede says.
Aig-Imoukhuede notes that what distinguishes Nigeria’s economic relationship with France – at least when compared with most African nations – is that capital flows in both directions. He notes that Nigerian businesses, including its largest banks, are now investing more aggressively in French markets.
He sees this as evidence that Macron’s renewed push to strengthen economic ties with Africa is bearing fruit – and benefiting both sides.
“He has been very instrumental in bringing our business leaders together. His efforts have paid off. During his time in office, the number of Nigerian banks with a presence in Paris have reached three,” he says.
First Bank of Nigeria, which began operations in Paris in 2008, was for a long time the only Nigerian lender with a presence in France. Access Bank, through its UK subsidiary, opened a branch in Paris in 2023. Zenith Bank followed suit in 2024.
“More Nigerian banks are seeking to join [the French market],” Aig‑Imoukhuede notes.
A fundamental global reset
Aig‑Imoukhuede believes the world is undergoing a profound reset that will create new opportunities and risks for Africa. He points to inflection points in technology, supply chains, and geopolitical alliances that will inevitably produce winners and losers.
“If Africa is a winner, it will be an opportunity for us to leapfrog over some of the problems we’ve long considered intractable.”
At a time when global powers are courting Africa, he cautions that leaders need to be decisive. Too much summitry without tangible outcomes or action plans must be avoided, he warns.
“I think talk precedes action but let’s keep the talk as limited as possible and focus on action steps. I hope that we trust ourselves enough to move from talk to action.”
He argues that working with partners like France can help Africa unlock much needed investments – as well as guarantee access to advanced technologies and new markets.
Indeed, Macron unveiled €23bn ($27bn) in investment commitments at the summit. French investors have expressed interest in projects spanning infrastructure, the energy transition, agriculture, artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare and the cultural and creative industries. The real test, however, lies in how swiftly these pledges can translate into disbursements.
Aig‑Imoukhuede argues that this will partly depend on how effectively African countries compete for global capital, which he says is getting scarcer.
“Capital is something that is fought for all over the world, and the battle for capital is getting even more fierce…The growth of capital exportation has flattened. That means that a lot of countries are actually looking more inwards, domestically [to meet their needs first]” he adds, citing the massive artificial‑intelligence (AI) buildout in advanced economies like the US which has drained liquidity from global markets.
Attracting long-term capital
With less capital moving across borders, global investors have naturally gotten more selective about where they deploy funds. To stand out in this environment, Aig‑Imoukhuede argues that African countries should take cues from regions that excel in attracting international investors.
“There are some universal characteristics of locations that have done well. One of the first and most important things is the rule of law. Investors want to be clear that their investments will be protected and that the legal system works in a transparent and fair manner. I think that’s one fundamental thing that nobody is ready to compromise,” he says.
Macroeconomic stability and investor‑friendly fiscal and monetary policy frameworks are equally vital, he notes, stressing the importance of reliable access to foreign exchange, efficient company registration systems, and the removal of barriers to capital and profit repatriation.
Beyond getting the fundamentals right, he argues that governments must strive to give all residents within their borders a high quality of life. The broader social and political environment – issues like security, access to talent, governance, and livability – can prove as decisive as financial returns in attracting long-term investors. Businesses want to operate in places where people would enjoy living and working, Aig-Imoukhuede explains.
“In this world today, one of the things that investors are looking at – and the Gulf states have done this very well – is if there is an environment where you feel safe, there’s entertainment, art, culture.
This is why I speak about cultural and knowledge capital being as important as financial capital,” he says.
“If you rely on just money [the promise of financial return], you will find that, in this competitive environment, those who have a more balanced offering to investors will do better than those who don’t.
“Obviously Africa when it comes to cultural capital we are a powerhouse and we need to leverage it,” he adds.
The youth, he argues, are custodians of cultural capital and one of Africa’s greatest economic assets. “They are tech savvy and very global in their orientation… We have an extremely enterprising demographic that we can count on. We should unleash it and empower it. That is what is going to drive our continent forward.”
Commercial banks warm up to SMEs
Turning to his core field of banking – and in particular how commercial banks are driving Africa’s economic transformation – Aig‑Imoukhuede notes that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have become key growth drivers for lenders across Africa.
SMEs account for a growing share of African banks’ loanbooks, he points out. In the past, the sector was largely avoided by most banks in part due to high perceived risks. However, now it has gotten too big and important to be ignored.
“Commercial banks are doing a much better job than they used to in terms of lending to SMEs, and I think that is in their enlightened interest,” he says.
“The SME sector is growing faster than the corporate sector. The corporates themselves are looking for alternative sources of capital and turning to the capital markets for their borrowings. So if banks want to make out loans, as they must, they are going to have to learn to lend to SMEs and the young people – and they are learning,” he adds.
He contends that African banks must apply the same deliberate approach to financing small businesses and young entrepreneurs that transformed women’s banking across the continent.
“At Access Bank we came up with a number of initiatives that have put our women customers firmly at the center of our success. That kind of thing must be done for SMEs and for the young,” he notes.
“We have to learn the needs of SMEs and young entrepreneurs. We have to understand what makes them tick, and rethink how we design our banking products and services to make a meaningful impact on them,” he adds.