The Ebuka Mama restaurant in Istanbul’s cosmopolitan neighborhood of Kumkapi has a Nigerian flag in its window and a smell of spiced roasted fish wafting through the open door. Its customers eat large plates of jollof rice as Afrobeat plays in the background. A man asks the waiter to play Congolese music and introduces himself to Al-Monitor as William, a businessman from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Like many entrepreneurial and middle-class Africans coming to Turkey, William is in Istanbul to buy wholesale textile and manufactured Turkish products. Cargo links between Turkey and many sub-Saharan African countries make the process easy and affordable for small business owners to keep their stores stocked from Istanbul. This is in part a consequence of the consumer explosion in many West and Central African countries as the increase in their disposable income feeds a taste for foreign-produced products. The total volume of trade between the African continent and Turkey reached $20.6 billion in 2017 — a rapid growth from the $3.68 billion in 2003, according to Turkey’s official Anatolia News Agency. 

Turkish Statistical Institute’s figures list 5,045 Nigerians, 1,357 Senegalese and 1,001 Ghanaians living with work and residence permits in Turkey. However, there are also tens of thousands of West and Central Africans living on long-term tourist visas not included in these state statistics. They are, however, making a life for themselves in Istanbul.  

The Nigerian employees of a nightclub, who asked for anonymity, said that they have come from Dubai to Turkey. “Turkey is a beautiful country. … It is more modern than Dubai … but there are no jobs here,” he told Al-Monitor.