TATL E R ( U K ) M A G A Z I N E - D E C . 2 0 1 3

T h e N i g e r i a n s h a v e a r r i v e d . . . a n d L o n d o n i s p a y i n g a t t e n t i o n . B y D a v i d J e n k i n s Richa rd Vedelago is 29 yea rs old and worth more mi l l ions than he's p repared to tel l . 'Money talks, but wealth whispers,' he says with a smi le, s i t t ing back in the ba r at Cla r idge's - his idea - and lazi ly s ipping an elderf lower ju ice. That whispering is not, the oi l , gas, p roperty, te lecoms and menswear tycoon goes on, typical of a Nigerian mindset: 'Very loud, quite brash, la rger than l i fe -even i f you're just hav ing a fami ly meal, everything's over the top al l the t ime. So i t 's quite fun.' Real fun, he should have said. Nigerians al l say they work ha rd and party ha rd, bel ieve that they're bette r at anything than anyone else, col lect PhDs l ike confett i and a re intensely ent rep reneu rial . 'When mankind f inal ly gets to Mars,' chort les Ateh Jewel, who has both a f i lm p roduct ion company and a beauty business, ' they' l l f inda Nigerian al ready there, cutt ing a deal. '

You don't have to go to Mars, or Lagos, to see the fruits of that in act ion. Misan Har r iman - whose father, Chief Hope Har r iman, was one of the founding fathers of modern Nigeria - 'p ract ical ly l ives on Mount St reet' , eat ing in Scott's, going to George al l the t ime and making his way down to 5 Hertford St reet with his business pa rtner, Boris Becker (' I 'm l ike the other woman in his mar r iage'). You' l l f ind 44-year-old Kola Ka rim, the boss of Shorel ine Energy Inte rnat ional, playing polo with the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Har ry at Lord Lloyd-Webber's p r ivate estate; see old Wykehamist Anthony Adebo, who sp rinted and fenced for England, hav ing breakfast at Colbert and late nights at Bouj is; hea r Kessiana ('Kessie') Edewor-Thorley roa ring with laughter over dr inks at Bluebird as she mockingly says that for moneyed young Nigerians in London, i t 's Cirque du Soir on a Monday, ' that awful place Dukebox' on a Tuesday and Loulou's on a Thu rsday. Meanwhi le, F lorence ('Cuppy') Otedola, the 20-year-old ex-King's School Canterbu ry daughter of Femi Otedola, one of Nigeria's r ichest men, studies business and French at King's Col lege London, whi le DJ ing at Privé, Ja louse, Dist r ict , Funky Buddha and D'Den, a t ruly Nigerian club in Finchley Road.

Meantime, Kessie, her twin siste r Eku Edewor (Nigerians pop out more twins than anyone else) and their old chum Adora Mba recal l the golden days of Kabaret, 10 yea rs back, when they were st i l l naughty teenagers at la rge in London. The scene's moved on, but £10,000 nights a re spoken of, though not admitted to, by al l the beauti fu l ly spoken and exquisi te ly mannered people I speak to. And one young man, the budding oi l and p roperty mogul Rotimi Alaki ja - whose mother, Folorunsho Alaki ja, is the r ichest black woman in the world (oi l) and dropped £100m on fou r f lats in One Hyde Park ('She didn't mess a round,' says Vedelago, who helped sel l them to her) - tel ls me a Nigerian champagne war in an American club ended with the winner spending £1.1m, though Rotimi certainly wasn't there: 'That's just s i l ly . I t 's not pa rt of who I am.' Mind you, on one night at Cirque du Soir , the ha rd-toi l ing Rotimi and his fr iends sent a pal at another table a bott le of champagne, and 'he sent back 20!' But then, 'we're a very celebratory cultu re,' says Kessie (ex-Benenden, inte rnat ional sales manager for Lazul resort wear and a freelance styl ist), 'so every day's a champagne day. I t 's not, " I t 's you r birthday!" I t 's "You got back from work day! Let's pa rty!"'

Nigerians a re this count ry's s ixth-highest foreign spenders, racking up an average £628 in each shop, fou r t imes what the average Brit ish shopper coughs up. Sel fr idges is a favou rite, as is Har rods, which has been looking for Yoruba-speaking sta f f - the research unit at the shopping company Premier Tax Free reports that, for Knightsbridge, 'Nigerian spend so fa r this year has increased by 52 per cent' . Premier Tax Free also says that Nigerians account for 46.3 per cent of total Afr ican sales in London, and that the fastest-growing region for inte rnat ional sales in the UK this yea r has been Afr ica, whose spend has r isen by 45 per cent yea r on yea r. No wonder the managing director of Har rods and the chief execut ive of Gieves & Hawkes inveigh against the government's p roposed pol icy of demanding a £3,000 cash bond for a v isa from v is i tors from Nigeria, Ghana and fou r Asian count r ies. More than 140,000 Nigerians come here annual ly - why make Paris a more welcoming option? Meanwhi le, according to Vedelago, Nigerians a re invest ing £250m in Brit ish p roperty every yea r and, says one Afr ican expert, ' they're buying up swathes of north-west London' to add to the ea rl ie r generat ions' happy hunt ing grounds in Belgrav ia, St John's Wood and Chelsea. (Vedelago also says they're buying up student accommodation in Liverpool, Birmingham, Shef f ie ld and Leeds.) And Nigerians spend £300m annual ly at Brit ish universit ies and schools - King's School Canterbu ry, Wycombe Abbey, Cheltenham Ladies' Col lege, Eton, Har row and Bradf ie ld among them. I t 's the Afr ican centu ry, and

here in London the Nigerians a re the standard-bearers, jost l ing the Arabs and the Russians out of the pictu re. Not that Nigerian old money is ent irely happy with what i t sees as gross ostentat ion: i t is, says another founding father's daughter, 'vulga r' . But, for Nigerians, home is a p ressu re cooker and London is where they relax. And shop.

Al l of which might seem ja r r ing from a count ry of 170 mi l l ion people, 70 per cent of whom l ive on under £1.25 a day. (Sixty-two per cent of them a re under 25.) Even on Victor ia Is land - ' the Is land,' as the locals cal l the smartest pa rt of Lagos - the roads a re potholed and the elect r ic i ty inte rmittent at best. But, says one Engl ish Afr icanist , 'Nigerians respect

power, and they respect money.' People bel ieve 'my t ime wi l l come', says Fola r in Gbadebo-Smith, director of the Cent re for Publ ic Pol icy Alte rnat ives in Lagos. 'Whereas there's that sense in many other places that where you f ind you rsel f in society could be permanent, here everybody is r ich- in-wait ing.'

And money certainly s loshes a round Lagos today, the p roduct not just of the black gold that oi l br ings and has brought s ince oi l p roduct ion sta rted in 1958, but of the p roperty boom (land on Lagos's Banana

Is land is as expensive as any on ea rth), the banking boom, the telecoms boom, the high-l i fe boom. ' I t 's gl i tzy and glamorous,' says Vedelago. 'People dr ink champagne l ike water. ' He's r ight: Nigeria's the second fastest-growing champagne market a fte r France. Total consumption reached 752,879 bott les in 2011 and the count ry is spending a round 41.41bn naira (£159m) on the dr ink annual ly. Moët Rosé is a favou rite - Nigerians have a sweet tooth - though the count ry's in the top 10 for Hennessy cognac and is gett ing more and more pa rt ia l to wine. St i l l , champagne's the thing: even in fast-food joints l ike Southern Fr ied Chicken in Abuja, the capital , there a re bott les of Moët in the fr idge

And it 's not just alcohol: annual GDP growth has been a round seven per cent du ring the past few yea rs, and there's an emerging middle c lass to jo in the r ich el i te. And though Nigerians pou r abroad to buy-buy-buy, Western retai le rs a re moving in: Zegna has opened in Lagos, as have Boss, MAC and L'Oréal. Mal ls a re opening, and retai l 's the next big thing. 'You could make a ki l l ing,' says Cuppy Otedola, who loves Topshop - perhaps Sir Phi l ip Green should take note. 'As much as there's cor rupt ion and things don't work here,' says one Lagotian businessman, 'r ight now, Lagos is very cosmopol i tan, because this is where the money is, and there's a lot of money pushing a round.' I t reminds one Engl ish expat r iate of Moscow in the Ninet ies, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin has descr ibed Russia as 'Nigeria, with snow'. Perhaps that's why Nigeria has gone from being dubbed the happiest society in the world in 2003 by New Scient ist to being cal led the most st ressed-out society on ea rth by Bloomberg ea rl ie r this yea r.

Certainly, says Eku Edewor, 'Lagos is the ha rdest place in the world to make money and the easiest to spend i t in. ' By 'ha rd' she means tough, on the nerves. When Vedelago retu rned to Nigeria - l ike many in this story, he went to p rep and boarding school in England (King Edward's School, in Su r rey, in his case) - a fr iend told him, 'You've got to lea rn to swim with the sharks.' Eku (who went to Benenden) has done that, but others f ind the cut-throat hust l ing, the hassle, the cor rupt ion, the sheer in-you r-faceness too much to handle. So how did Eku manage? Once on Brita in's Next Top Model, she's the face of Mart ini in Afr ica, a face of BlackBer ry in Nigeria and was a co-p resenter of Big Brother Afr ica. ' I 'm a TV p resenter. When I went back, there was an open audit ion to be the new face of a channel, and I got i t . ' She's been with her show for f ive seasons and she's now the only p resenter - ' I t 's a bit l ike E! News'; she's also just f in ished her f i rst drama series. She's evangel ical about Lagos and deris ive about I JGBs (' I Just Got Backs'), as many retu rnees a re known. 'They're talk ing about l i fe with a dr iver putt ing fuel in you r ca r! I f you go to Lagos thinking that's what you deserve, then i t 's going to be very ha rd for you - you've got to adapt. I f you give you rsel f a yea r and a hal f to sett le in. . . But i t was tough for me. I hadn't seen that s ide of Lagos.'

Though oi l and gas is st i l l the usual ca reer path for the ambit ious and connected, i t 's notable that several of the younger generat ion a re t ry ing to make i t in the entertainment business. Chin Okeke - whose father is a p rominent lawyer who's been honora ry legal counsel to the Brit ish High Commissioner since 1989, and whose pa rtner was once Nigeria's foreign ministe r - manages both Eku and 'music supersta r' Lynxxx and is sett ing up an innovat ive branding/music enterp rise. He's also got a beach fest ival in the works. And Cuppy, who tou red Nigeria with her f i rst s ingle, ' I Love My Count ry' , this summer (which led to onl ine abuse, saying,

ef fect ively, 'Of cou rse she does, she's a bi l l ionaire's daughter'), is going to do a master's in music business in New York. 'There's a lot of money to be made; you don't have to be the one on TV, the one in the forefront. So I might DJ for a whi le, then maybe step behind the scenes, open up my own record company - but do the oi l thing on the side.'

On the side? Wel l , Nigerian women a re powerful , and p ragmatic. 'They're into things l ike dredging,' says Ateh Jewel. ' I 've got an aunt who runs a port authority. ' As Cuppy says: 'We've got a cabinet with f ive or s ix female members, which is p retty much unheard of. Ou r ministe r for pet roleum is female, and ou r ministe r for f inance, and for av iat ion, and for women's a f fa irs, obv iously. But in the entertainment indust ry, no - i t 's just not spi l l ing over.' But soon, maybe.. .

Meanwhi le, they can have a good t ime. There's been an explosion of beach cultu re on the Is land - think Miami, a favou rite Nigerian haunt - and the young things go to c lubs l ike Likwid and Rhapsody's, dancing to the l ikes of Wizkid, a s inger who marked his 24th birthday in London with what was reported to be a £1.2m diamond-encrusted bott le of Taste of Diamonds champagne (created by ' luxu ry designer' Alexander Amosu) bought for him by Liam Payne of One Direct ion. I f they fancy ' local' , they' l l eat at Yel low Chi l l i or L'Afr ic - but sushi's on the r ise.

What's always been big is the wedding cultu re, enormous af fa irs with thousands of guests. Also big a re the Lagos Polo Club and the Lagos Motor Boat Club, where al l wel l-connected generat ions mix - and, no doubt, discuss the two almost ident ical , and la rge, yachts that s i t next to each other of f Victor ia Is land's Ca r r ington Crescent. One's owned by Cuppy's father, Femi Otedola -his net worth is an est imated £2.2bn - and the other belongs to Al iko Dangote, Afr ica's r ichest man, with a net worth of £10.1bn v ia a conglomerate ranging from cement to sugar ref in ing by way of oi l . He gave himsel f a £28m jet in Ap ri l 2010, as a 53rd birthday p resent.

Dangote recent ly p raised the government's pol ic ies, and he, Otedola and many others have had close t ies to Nigeria's pol i t ic ians - as has the 'stupendously r ich' Senator Andy Uba, who's mar r ied to Richa rd Vedelago's beauti ful s iste r, Faith, hersel f the founder of Faith Minist r ies, a popula r and successful chu rch. Richa rd has a 'ginormous' house next to hers in Abuja, which he descr ibes as a slower and calmer place than Lagos - l ike 'Washington to New York'. As wel l as that house, Richa rd has some dazzl ing ca rs in Abuja, including two Bentleys. There's a market for expensive ca rs, despite the potholed state of most Nigerian

roads, and Porsche has opened up there; i ts Cayenne 4x4s do wel l , as do Jeep Wrangle rs and the Mercedes G-Wagon. But one Niger ian told the Guardian that ' I have a Bentley, a Porsche and a Fer ra r i . But people don't t ravel by road any more. So the Fer ra r i in the ga rage hasn't done 500 mi les in three yea rs.' Vedelago had a Lamborghini in London, as wel l as a Bentley, but he drove i t so l i t t le that he ditched i t . He'd l ike to buy a Smart ca r to go to the gym, but fr iends jeer at the idea. 'So I 'm looking for a Porsche or an Aston Mart in. ' He laughs. 'Sounds bad, doesn't i t? A Porsche to go to the gym.'

Kola Ka rim does drive a very lovely, very yel low Fer ra r i I ta l ia 458 here in London, one of two he was given by 'generous fr iends - good fr iends'. He had i t pa rked recently in Chelsea, 'and this lady said her son wouldlove to have a pictu re with the ca r. I said, "Feel free." And then she said, "Who do you play for?" I said, "Play what?" "Footbal l ," she said. 'What team did I play for? Was she being racist? No. But that was her understanding.' The automatic assumption was that a p rosperous black man could only be a footbal le r or a rap sta r. But Ka rim, a very successful businessman who's taken his mother's t rading company into const ruct ion and oi l , does indeed encounter racism. 'Oh, yes. I t 's normal. There's a lot of ignorance a round.' Ignorance that ranges from stewardesses automatical ly shepherding you towards economy to pol icemen pul l ing you and you r Fer ra r i over. ' In the count ry recently, we went to lunch at a restau rant. We walked in, and the whole place stopped eat ing - i t was l ike we were going to pul l a gun and st ick everyone up.' Then some local g randees appeared and sat down with Ka rim - at which point other people from other tables fe lt i t was in their inte rests to meet this funny foreigner. I t 's happened as wel l to others in this a rt ic le, at nightclubs in London and Paris. As for Cuppy, she was in Switzer land, inte rning at an oi l- t rading company, when the story about Op rah Winfrey being mist reated in a shop in Zu rich was reported. ' I t was hi la r ious. [Store sta f f] were al l over us. I loved i t . I wish Op rah complained every t ime.' Mind you, says one man, ' I f ind green is accepted everywhere.' 'Yes,' says Ka rim, only hal f- laughing. 'When you're wealthy, you don't see i t . Ei ther the guy wants to col lect you r money, or not. '

But fa r more important for Ka rim is showing that there a re 'bette r and bette r p rospects' for his cont inent. 'Because Afr ica's l ike a pair of shoes. You wouldn't get good money for i t i f i t wasn't pol ished. I f i t 's dirty and i t looks worn out, no one wants to buy i t . We're t ry ing to show the world a s ide of Afr ica they don't see.' That's why Karim was more than happy to let Ralph Lau ren throw a pa rty for him and donate 15 per cent of the Bond St reet store's takings that day to a cha rity of his

choosing - one benef i t ing aut ist ic chi ldren. '396 people tu rned up. Very successful . ' (Misan Har r iman helped set i t up, and Ca rt ie r have been in touch with him about a s imi la r event; he sees great potent ia l in act ing as a conduit between Nigeria and the West.) Kessie Edewor-Thorley was there, and Nacho Figueras, and two of Ka rim's own polo ponies, outside the store - the other 10 were, as usual, at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club. Next yea r, Ka rim wi l l focus on buying a fa rm in England and keeping his équipe there. He's got another acquisi t ion in mind, too: a Premier League footbal l c lub.

' I f you imagine a cont inent of 900 mi l l ion people who a re footbal l c razy, imagine the fol lowership of an Afr ican businessman. Think about the market ing. I t 's awesome.' Even more so i f h is cu r rent ly 12-year-old son were playing - he's been scouted by Chelsea al ready. Meantime, the boy attends Bruern Abbey, whi le his older s iste r goes to Benenden and his younger one to 'Hol land Park Prep'. Ka rim's son plays polo too, as does his brother, though Karim's handicap's gone down from +2 to 0, 'with so much work going on. We're the second-la rgest independent oi l p roducer in Afr ica, by reserves [1.3bn ba r rels], and we're bui ld ing.' No wonder he has homes in Lagos, London, Marbel la and Miami.

Ka rim's f irm has a p r ivate jet , but he p refe rs to f ly commercia l - he's a people person and f ly ing alone bores him senseless. But his fe l low polo enthusiast Prince Albert Esir i , a 'wel l-known' bi l l ionaire - he's been playing for 33 yea rs, has a handicap of zero at Hamin this count ry, a st r ing of 133 ponies and Nigeria's 'p remier p r ivate polo faci l i ty' in Delta State - f lew into the 2012 UAE Nations Cup in Dubai in his personal Gul fst ream G2 jet. Others too a re keen on p rivate jets, not least because BA's London f l ights a re packed and expensive - Nigerian newspapers rage at the comparat ive cost of f i rst-c lass t ickets to London from Lagos and Accra, both being much the same distance and Accra hal f the cost. And f irst c lass i t just has to be. 'Yeah,' cackles Kessie, rel ishing the absu rdity, 'you hear people saying, "And they t ravel led p remium economy!"'

But for those who go p rivate. . . Wel l , Ansemu Fagonpa is a 36-year-old South Afr ican who manages 'the fami ly of f ice' of a very select g roup of fami l ies from 'very much the upper end of Nigerian society' ; a l l a re worth more than £100m and 10 per cent of that is in l iquid cash. 'So I do a lot of crazy things - wel l , things that money can al low you to do.' But i t 's not just hir ing sta r chefs for p r ivate dinners or deal ing with the logist ics for the way Nigerian fami l ies t ravel , with one nanny for each chi ld. I t 's ' i f someone wants basic food - mi lk, bread, cheese, yogu rt - I ' l l go somewhere l ike Whole Foods, and I ' l l p ick up the p r incipal [her employer] on the way to Fa rnborough and load i t on the plane and send i t of f . ' I t could be for a dinner or ' i t could be their everyday food. They don't necessa ri ly want to shop in Abuja, because they may think the qual i ty of the food is bette r here. So I have one fami ly who loves the sausages they get from Whole Foods. And the scones.' Pr ivate: i t 's the only way for scones to t ravel .

But that 'p remium economy' j ibe sums up a claust rophobic sense that al l social eyes a re upon you in Lagos, one that has cont r ibuted to Adora

Mba leav ing her oi l-world job in Lagos and moving into a job in market ing consultancy in Mayfair . She felt suf focated. She was, she says, born in Bri ta in and schooled here - Wycombe Abbey and Bristol . She spent only fou r of her very young yea rs in Nigeria. She became an I JGB and she found i t too much, for now. 'Who knows i f I ' l l go back? It 's a very excit ing place and i t 's coming up in the world. But my [dream] house - I know i t , I feel i t - is going to be in Prim rose Hi l l . ' Dream on, Adora: Lagotians a re invading London. ' I know people who've bought houses in Walton St reet, ' s ighs Kessie. ' I can't go out in my sweats any more; I 'm always seeing people I know.' People who'l l te l l her mother, a restau rateu r and decorator who's the daughter of the Obaris i and Olokun (which, Kessie helpful ly explains, mean 'King of Al l Kings' and 'King Maker') of the Urhobo Kingdom of Delta State; her maternal g randmother was a p r incess, educated at UCL and cal led to the ba r at Lincoln's Inn.

That sort of background isn't uncommon among Nigerians who've been educated here. Anthony Adebo's grandfather, Simeon Adebo, was an under-secreta ry general at the UN and Chancel lor of Lagos University; an Okanlomo (chief) of the Yoruba, he too read law at UCL and was cal led to the ba r. Lagun Akinloye's father, Adisa, was the Serik i of Ibadanland and read law at the LSE. A cabinet ministe r inthe Sixt ies, Adisa was forced to f lee the count ry in 1983; Margaret Thatcher helped him f ind a house in Eaton Ter race.

Akinloye went to Dav ies Laing & Dick, and then to Leeds. Although he knows - and put me in touch with - many in this a rt ic le, he's less on the scene, working as a jou rnal ist for the London-based Think Afr ica Press. The Nigerian now residing in London whom he'd real ly l ike to inte rv iew is James Ibori , a former governor of Delta State who's in ja i l for 13 years for money laundering and fraud. Ibori had plenty of i t : he paid £2.2m in cash for his house in Hampstead when his of f ic ia l sala ry was £3,700 a yea r. No wonder 94 per cent of Nigerians think their pol i t ic ians cor rupt - sca rcely su rp ris ing in a count ry where i t 's been authoritat ively est imated that £250bn of oi l revenues have been stolen or misspent s ince independence in 1960. Akinloye shrugs weari ly . 'People in Nigeria don't ask how you got i t , ' he says. St i l l , he thinks that in 2015 a new pol i t ical g rouping, the Al l Progressive Congress, may unseat the People's Democrat ic Pa rty, the conservat ive and economical ly neol iberal pa rty that has held power since 1999. 'But, ' he writes in a cogent piece, ' that of i tsel f does not guarantee ordina ry Nigerians wi l l benefi t . '

Meantime, Akinloye hangs out with a 'creat ive' Nigerian crowd in London, one that detests the moneyed scene. For them, ostentat ion is symptomatic of the dest ruct ion of moral values in Nigeria. 'But, ' says Akinloye, ' i f they had a cont ract [and the money that br ings], I bet they'd be singing a di f fe rent tune.' And wearing bette r c lothes, l ike Richa rd Vedelago, who, with s inger Robbie Wi l l iams, is the la rgest investor in Spencer Hart, the tai lor. His jacket tel ls an inte rest ing, post-colonial story: inside a re the lette rs 'HRH HART', a c lue to i ts or iginal commissioner, the Duke of Cambridge, who in the end found i ts (very acceptable) blue a l i t t le bold for him.

Perhaps Wi l l iam would be more in tune with Anthony Adebo. Beauti fu l ly tu rned out in a s i lve r ish-grey suit of his own design, a mi ldly hungover Adebo sits before me, picking at an omelette in a cent ral London restau rant. He's back in London afte r a spel l in Lagos, which he's f inding ' fascinat ing'. He's keen on Likwid, is toying with taking 5 Hertford St reet to Lagos, thinks I lashe Beach and Ta rqua Bay a re fabulous and is going to steer c lea r of pol i t ics - doing so was almost a fami ly edict a fte r his uncle, Funsho Wi l l iams, was mu rdered in 2006 whi le running for the governorship of Lagos State. St i l l , ' the general te rm is enjoyment - there's a lot of money coming through.' And though he's been working in PR in Lagos, he's also busy in Brita in, sett ing up a suit company cal led York & Windsor. 'York because that's where the t rade real ly sta rted in the UK - al l the mi l ls were up there. And Windsor because the Duke of Windsor is my favou rite best-dressed man of al l t ime.' He smi les. 'C losely fol lowed by Prince Charles, of cou rse.' Nigeria and the UK; a special relat ionship indeed.

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