You
recently embarked on a financial literacy campaign that focuses on
entrepreneurship. Could you explain what informed that decision?
Unemployment is one of the greatest problems facing Nigeria today and I believe the best solution is through entrepreneurship.
Nigeria needs
entrepreneurs to help tackle unemployment and its associated ills.
Employment by government agencies and multinationals cannot solve the
problem of unemployment in this country.
The truth is that
emergence of successful entrepreneurs is the best option for wealth
distribution, national development, security, and infrastructure
development in Nigeria.
I believe that it
is possible for every home to strive for and experience wealth. That is
why our vision in the ‘Financial IQ’ campaign is to trigger financial
and entrepreneurial intelligence in Nigeria through sharing of relevant
information and engagement.
Is the poor state of infrastructure in Nigeria not discouraging entrepreneurship?
Yes, it is. There
is absence of support mechanism for businesses. There are no business
incubation services and support mechanism for entrepreneurs, which
ought to be in place through economic development programmes and
support systems.
The hostile
business environment witnessed since the Nigerian economy decline
started in the 1980’s has created a harsh environment that is
unfavourable to entrepreneurial success.
For example,
regulatory and licencing procedures should be made easy and preferably
online. On average presently, it takes about three months to
incorporate a business; it takes about three months to carry out NAFDAC
registration, while it also takes about three months to carry out
trademark registration in Nigeria.
Also, there is the
high cost of doing business in Nigeria; such as the lack of adequate
electricity, security, cost of communication and transportation,
multiple taxes, high interest rate, and cultural barriers for female
entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Although there are a lot of barriers,
entrepreneurship in Nigeria is necessary for the country to become a
developed nation.
Government’s
failure in providing a conducive business environment should not be an
excuse for people to be idle. We have seen people face this challenge
and still do well in business. In Nigeria, our action towards
entrepreneurship contrasts our pronouncement; whereas the major source
of jobs creation all over the world is from small businesses, not large
businesses.
Even graduates are
more interested in working for established businesses and blue chips
companies, rather than starting their own businesses. Parents are also
interested in looking for jobs for their children rather than
supporting them to commence their personal businesses.
Are educational institutions doing enough to train students on entrepreneurship?
Our tertiary
institutions are not interested in offering entrepreneurship courses
and trainings, while those that are supposed to offer entrepreneurial
courses are offering vocational trainings. Institutions that offer
entrepreneurial trainings and support are negligible and often
expensive, which place such trainings out of the reach of an average
Nigerian student.
The society is not
committed to entrepreneurship, which means we may have to keep
experiencing high unemployment rate for a long time. We are waging a
silent war on entrepreneurism and at the same time, we expect miracle
jobs.
Entrepreneurship is
currently emerging from being one of the options open to Nigerian
graduates to becoming the only option. From my experience, by the time
students graduate from Nigerian tertiary institutions and receive their
certificates, those certificates would have become obsolete. The
acquired skills are not relevant to the present day workplace.
Searching for a job
can be frustrating to both the employee and the employer. The employer
is looking for employable hands while the would-be-employees are hoping
to be recruited. Smart ones and those that have the means commence
personal development courses and trainings to become employable through
enrolling in various Masters’ degree programmes and other training. But
this practice has led to a lot of over-qualified skills that still
depend on others to make headway.
The trend of affluent parents sending their graduate children abroad to become employable has evolved and is on the increase.
The disappointment
is that by the time these children return, there would be no jobs to
absorb them. We have a society made up of highly trained, but with
irrelevant skills.
So you believe entrepreneurship is the real solution to unemployment?
Yes.
Entrepreneurship will help tackle unemployment. And the new relevant
skills to be learnt by students are entrepreneurial skills.
Entrepreneurial skills and attitude should be introduced from early
elementary years to doctoral degrees in our educational system.
These are the set of skills that make someone to be imaginative and productive by creatively solving societal problems.
The bigger the
problem solved, the bigger the value created, and the bigger the
reward. These set of skills increase the ability of an individual to
observe a community and develop products and services applicable to
solving localised problems. This facilitates rapid development in their
communities, create a better environment, better world, and generate
wealth for themselves and others in the process.
The job market is
shrinking while those seeking for employment are on the increase. Many
graduates will not be able to get jobs after graduation due to the
shrinking job opportunities in the presence of increasing number of
graduates.
Majority of the
graduates are searching for ready-made jobs in industries such as oil
and gas, telecommunications, and banks, while minimal number of people
are willing to create jobs.
That is why I
embarked on making a wake-up call to the society on financial literacy
because whatever change we desire to witness in the future should be
initiated and introduced into our youths’ educational programmes.
Our society cannot be financially free until we shift the focus of the next generation from seeking jobs to creating jobs.
