How Sahara Group Used Foreign Identity to Break Into Nigeria’s Oil Sector, Tonye Cole Reveals.

Co founder of Sahara Group, Tonye Cole, has revealed how he and his partners created a foreign identity for the company in its early years to overcome what he described as the “colonial mentality” affecting young Nigerian entrepreneurs in the oil and gas industry.

According to Cole, who spoke during an interview on the Afropolitan podcast published on Wednesday, Sahara was registered in the Isle of Man and presented as a foreign owned company because potential clients often showed greater confidence in expatriate businesses than locally owned firms.

Cole said the strategy became necessary because he and his partners were young entrepreneurs in their late 20s, making it difficult for potential clients to believe they could own and successfully operate an energy company.

He explained that they observed that many of the companies succeeding in the industry were either foreign owned or had strong foreign connections, prompting them to create a UK linked entity for Sahara.

The businessman also revealed that they worked with a former teacher, whom they presented as an experienced foreign businessman identified as “Dr J”, to create the impression that the young entrepreneurs were working as representatives of an expatriate firm.

According to Cole, the approach helped the company gain access to clients and opportunities that might otherwise have been difficult to secure as a young Nigerian owned business.

He recalled that clients were often more sympathetic to them because they believed they were young Nigerians working for a foreign company, which gave Sahara an advantage in its early years.

However, the arrangement eventually raised questions after clients began wondering why they had never met the supposed foreign owner who regularly signed official letters.

Cole said the experience exposed the structural barriers and prejudices young Nigerian entrepreneurs faced at the time, particularly in sectors where foreign companies were widely perceived as more capable.

He also traced his entrepreneurial journey to his days as an architecture student at the University of Lagos, where he and his partners began producing architectural models for companies.

According to him, those early ventures taught him the importance of innovation, partnerships and the ability to adapt to difficult business environments.

Sahara Group has since grown from its early beginnings into a multinational energy conglomerate with operations across several countries.