This is the article I’m referencing here.
I read a post on LinkedIn the other day from my friend Eche that made my heart beat a little faster. It painted a vivid picture of the Nigerian diaspora wiring $20 billion home, with a staggering $19.5 billion going to consumption…”parties, not products.” It contrasted the empty mansions we build with the fledgling startups our cousins are trying to launch. The argument was sharp, aspirational, and deeply resonant: Why are we choosing dead assets over living companies?
It’s a beautiful, seductive idea. It speaks to our desire to be nation-builders, not just distant relatives. It frames our remittances as a massive, misallocated venture fund waiting to be deployed. The diagnosis feels right…we should be building the future.
But the prescription feels incomplete. Because every week, my phone tells a different story.
It’s the WhatsApp message from an auntie, not asking for party money, but for help with Mama’s malaria medication. It’s the call from my younger cousin, his voice a mix of pride and anxiety, as he tells me he got into university and just needs help covering the first semester’s fees. It’s the picture of a nephew in a new school uniform, paid for by a slice of a paycheck earned in Houston or London.
This isn’t just “consumption.” This is the essential, unglamorous work of holding things together. This is the diaspora acting as a decentralized, hyper-efficient social safety net where the state’s is frayed or non-existent. That $19.5 billion isn’t being frittered away; it’s being invested in the most critical asset of all: our people. It’s a portfolio of thousands of tiny, crucial investments in human capital, in health that keeps a family from financial ruin, and in education that creates a chance at a different future.
The post sets up a false choice between a $500,000 apartment in Lagos and a $50,000 stake in a health-tech startup. For the diaspora doctor who earned that money, this isn’t an ideological choice; it’s a deeply rational one. The apartment is tangible. She can see the bricks. She understands its value as a hedge against inflation, a potential home, a source of rental income. It represents a hard-won security.
The startup, however brilliant, is an abstraction. How does she vet it from thousands of miles away? Who does she trust for due diligence? What accessible, transparent platform exists for her to deploy that $50,000 with any degree of confidence? To criticize her choice is to measure a deeply personal decision about risk and security with the detached ruler of Silicon Valley, a place with financial infrastructure and legal protections that are still nascent back home.
But the deepest irony is that the two sides of this equation are not in opposition; they are intrinsically linked. The “consumption” funded by the diaspora is the very engine that creates the market for the unicorns.
The billions of dollars we send home are what get loaded onto a Moniepoint or Palmpay wallet to pay for groceries. The family that can now afford a data plan is the one that becomes a customer for an e-commerce platform. A large, thriving consumption class isn’t the enemy of a sustainable economy; it is the absolute prerequisite. We are not choosing between watering a seed (the startup) and building a wall (the house). We are using the remittances to create the fertile garden where those seeds can even hope to grow.
The vision of a diaspora-funded innovation boom is the right one. The frustration with another empty mansion in the village is real. But shaming the rational choices of individuals isn’t the path forward.
The real, billion-dollar opportunity isn’t just in the startups themselves, but in building the bridge. We need trusted, diaspora-focused angel syndicates. We need transparent micro-VC funds that allow a software engineer in Atlanta to invest $5,000 with confidence. We need to build the financial pipes that make investing in a portfolio of Nigerian ventures as easy and understandable as buying a plot of land. To build upon this – we need additional technologies to open up the investment opportunities as well. Investing in a sustainable market is not just a risk capital conversation. We need a diverse and democratic approach to provide people with opportunities to invest across different asset classes. This will drive additional value for all. Looking at risk capital as the sole driver is not the way.
Awka doesn’t need another empty mansion. But my family, and millions of others, first need the security of knowing the basics are covered. The challenge isn’t to redirect the money for school fees and medicine. It’s to build a system where the families we support become so secure that they, too, can become the investors of tomorrow as well.