Wealthy Africans are shopping for foreign passports

A NIGERIAN PASSPORTB, says Karo Agono, a Nigerian businessman, raises all sorts of “red flags”. For 15 years international deals made by his finance and property business were held up when people saw his green travel document and then asked for stacks of extra paperwork. Fed up, Mr Agono stumped up $150,000 for citizenship of a Caribbean country.More and more rich Africans are buying second passports or foreign residency rights. They do so because their own passports open few doors (see chart). Henley and Partners, which advises people on how to acquire a spare nationality, says inquiries from Africa are up by a third compared with last year. The firm is opening an office in Lagos, adding to those in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Habila Malgwi of Arton Capital, another adviser, says it has agents in 15 African countries and plans to open an office on the continent “very, very soon”. Covid-19 has led to soaring interest. People, he says, are looking for a Plan .