The sheer commercial value of Nigeria’s rapidly expanding healthcare expenditure is emerging as a powerful attraction for global investors, even as the country continues to experience significant investment flight across several sectors of the economy.

Nigerians are projected to spend about $34 billion on healthcare in 2026, nearly twice the amount spent five years ago, underscoring the scale of the market created by the country’s growing healthcare needs and the heavy reliance on private, largely unsubsidised services.

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A new report by the non-profit Health Federation of Nigeria projects that healthcare spending will rise further to $52 billion by 2030, pointing to the enormous pool of consumer spending available across the country’s healthcare value chain.

The expanding expenditure is increasingly attracting investors who see opportunities to convert Nigeria’s healthcare demand into commercially sustainable businesses, particularly in areas where public funding remains inadequate.

“We want to move healthcare from just a social need that needs to be funded by philanthropists and governments to a real asset class,” Dr Ola Brown, CEO of HealthCap, a venture capital firm that has backed a dozen African health and fintech companies, told Semafor.

The growing appetite for healthcare investments is also reflected in private equity activity across Africa. Pan-African private equity firm LeapFrog Investments last year sold its stake in East Africa’s largest pharmacy chain, Goodlife Pharmacy, in what was described as the largest private equity-led retail pharmacy exit in sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa.

Similarly, Investment Funds for Health in Africa, a Dutch private equity fund with nearly $200 million in assets, has recorded 10 investment exits, including two in Nigeria.

The investment activity highlights the contrast between Nigeria’s broader capital-flight challenges and the resilience of sectors capable of generating strong consumer demand and commercial returns.

Healthcare is particularly attractive because expenditure is driven less by discretionary consumption than by necessity. With Nigerians increasingly paying out of pocket for medical treatment, pharmaceuticals and other health services, the sector offers investors access to a large and relatively persistent pool of spending.

Yet the wider Nigerian investment environment continues to present formidable challenges, as illustrated by Uber’s decision to leave the country after 12 years of operations.

The US ride-hailing giant’s exit was driven partly by the economics of its operations, with a new analysis of more than 20,000 rides showing that Uber sometimes paid drivers more than it collected from passengers on short trips.

Obi, a price and trip data aggregator, found that Uber paid drivers as much as 23 per cent more than the passenger fare on some trips covering less than 12 miles, effectively subsidising rides that drivers might otherwise have declined.

“There was just no way for Uber to dig itself out of this pattern,” Obi CEO Ashwini Anburajan told Semafor.

The economics of the business were further undermined by weak consumer demand and Nigeria’s punishing macroeconomic conditions.

A typical Uber driver completed only about 130 rides during the first seven months of 2026, barely a tenth of the volume recorded by a South African driver. At the same time, fuel prices had risen more than fivefold, while the naira had lost more than 70 per cent of its value since 2023.

After 12 years of attempts to adapt its business model through fare increases, courier services and boat taxis, Uber exited Nigeria and Uganda on September 2.

The contrasting experiences of healthcare investors and Uber underscore a defining feature of Nigeria’s investment landscape: enormous consumer markets do not automatically translate into viable businesses.

While the rising healthcare bill represents a huge pool of potential revenue for investors, the experience of other sectors shows that profitability ultimately depends on the ability to withstand inflation, currency depreciation, weak purchasing power, high operating costs and other structural constraints.

For healthcare investors, however, the sheer scale and necessity of spending could provide the commercial foundation for a sector increasingly viewed not merely as a social obligation, but as an investable asset class.