We spent seven years being the people foreign organisations called when they needed something done in northern Nigeria.
Now we do the same work for capital.
The work was always the same. Only the client has changed.
Arewaworld began in 2018 as a media and production operation in Kaduna. Over the following years international broadcasters and firms — TRT World, CNBC, Affex Istanbul, Window of Turkey — engaged us to operate on the ground in a part of Nigeria that most outsiders find difficult to work in.
That work was never really about cameras. It was about finding places, confirming they were what they claimed to be, securing access, dealing with officials, and delivering on a schedule to people who were thousands of kilometres away and had to trust our word. International organisations do not hand that work to people they cannot rely on.
Foreign investors kept asking us for the same thing in a different form. Does this company exist. Is this factory real. Is this person who they say they are. Would you put your own money into this. We answered those questions informally for years before recognising that it was the more valuable business.
Today Arewaworld verifies partners, sites and counterparties for foreign capital entering Nigeria and West Africa, introduces investors to counterparties that have been checked, and recruits senior people whose credentials we confirm at source. We are paid a fee for the work. We take no commission on transactions and hold no interest in whether a deal proceeds — which is the only structure under which an adverse finding is worth anything to you.
Staff in four Nigerian cities, and a principal in your time zone.
Our operational base is in the north, where we have worked longest and where far fewer advisers can actually go. Abuja handles regulatory and registry work; Lagos covers commercial and port matters. The client desk sits in Istanbul.
The people who do the work.
Four commitments we will hold to in writing.
We are paid for the work, not the outcome
Fixed fees, agreed before we start. No commission, no percentage, no equity in the transactions we assess.
We report what we could not confirm
Every report has a gaps section. In this market the unverifiable is usually more important than the verified.
We go in person
If a report says a facility was inspected, one of our staff stood in it on a stated date and photographed it.
We decline work we cannot do well
Sectors and regions where we have no real capability get referred elsewhere or turned down on the first call.