Nigeria’s economic hub, Lagos has been named the fourth wealthiest city on the African continent with a total private wealth of $97 billion. 

This was contained in the Africa Wealth Report 2022, released by Henley & Partners, in partnership with New World Wealth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

According to the report, Lagos came fourth behind Johannesburg in first position, Cape Town in second position, and Cairo in third position. Notably, the two wealthiest cities on the continent are in South Africa just as four South African cities make the top ten (Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, and Pretoria). 

Lagos is the most populated city in Africa and a major contributor to the Nigerian economy, with international seaports and airports.

In the same vein, Nigeria despite being the largest economy in Africa ranks third behind South Africa and Egypt with a total private wealth of $228 billion, and 10,000 millionaires. 

Meanwhile, on a per capita basis, Nigeria ranked 11th on the list with $1,100, while Mauritius was top on the list with $34,500.

However, Africa’s total private wealth as of December 2021 stood at $2.1 trillion, with an estimate of 136,000 millionaires living in Africa, each with net assets of $1 million or more.

Total private wealth in Africa increased by 5% compared to $2 trillion recorded in the previous year. Although, apart from the year 2020 which was marred by the covid-19 pandemic, 2021 has been the lowest since 2015.

Approximately, there are 6,700 multi-millionaires living on the continent, each with net assets of $10 million or more in 2021.

Also, the report noted that there were 305 individuals on the continent with net assets of $100 million or more, while the number of billionaires stood at 21.

In 2021, Nigeria ranked as the largest economy in Africa with a total GDP of $440.78 billion, followed by South Africa and Egypt with GDP estimates of $419.9 billion and $404.1 billion respectively. 

However, despite being the largest African economy and with a huge population size of over 200 million, Nigeria ranked 17th in terms of per capita.

According to the report, it relied on wealth as a measure of financial health ahead of GDP because, in many developing countries, a large portion of the GDP flows to the government, hence having little impact on private wealth creation.