Younger than Nigeria but beating the recession

As Africa's most-populous country turns 56, many Nigerians may not be in the mood for celebration - preoccupied as they are with the ongoing recession.

For Nigerian businesses, 2016 has indeed been a challenging year. The oil-dependent nation is presently in an economic downturn, largely because of the drop in oil prices.

As a consequence, the prices of goods and services have gone up and for many businesses profits are thin.

But some fresh, young entrepreneurs are bucking the trend.

"Whatever direction the economy goes, there are always opportunities," says Obinna Onunkwo, one of the Nigerians who is changing the face of the property scene.

                                                                         Mary land shopping mall

He and his business partner Laide Agboola - who are both under 40 - have just completed the development of a $25m (£19.2m), 7,700-sq-metre retail centre in Lagos.

Nigeria's retail sector has seen significant growth over the past five years and savvy investors like Mr Onunkwo tapped in early. They managed to convince investors that the Maryland Mall in Ikeja was a bankable project.

                  Laide Agboola (L) and Obinna Onunkwo (R) believe there are opportunities even in a downturn  

After five months of pitching to investors last year, they were able to raise funds.

Mr Onunkwo believes the key to their success was that they ensured any loans they took were in the local currency, the naira, and not dollar loans.

A good decision as the naira has weakened significantly over the past year.

'People need to rent even in a recession'

Sulaiman Balogun, co-founder of ToLet.com.ng - a Nigerian online property search portal, will remember 2016 as the year the cash came in.

He and his business partners - Fikayo Ogundipe, Dapo Eludire and Seyi Ayeni - have succeeded in raising $1.2m

                                     The ToLet.com.ng founders started their business with only $400

This is quite a feat as banks and financial institutions in Nigeria are not keen to lend to new businesses because of a lack of credit records and insufficient collateral.

Enterprising technology-driven businesses like ToLet have to prove themselves, sometimes with very little capital, in the hope that big time venture capital firms take notice.

After meeting at university, Mr Balogun and his partners started their business in June 2012, when they were in their twenties and at a time when online property search websites were not popular in Nigeria.

The partners raised $400 from their personal savings and with family support embarked on their business journey.

A year after launching their property platform they managed to raise $230,000 in seed capital from online business builder, Spark.ng, and this made a significant contribution to the growth of their business.

-bbc