Part 3: Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is a Scam and a Multiplier of Poverty.


In the second part of this article, I described the four types of entrepreneurship available, they are, traditional, conditional, capital and innovative entrepreneurships.

Link to part 1 and 2 (Part 1 has over 30,000 views and 250 comments already)

https://www.nairaland.com/3102449/part-2-entrepreneurship-scam-nigeria

It is important to note that nations that have developed over the years ensured massive emphasis on both capital and innovative entrepreneurship.

Unfortunately, the emphasis of entrepreneurship in Nigeria is on traditional and conditional entrepreneurships. I wonder how these kinds of entrepreneurships will solve socioeconomic problems in Nigeria.

Entrepreneurship in developed nations was used to provide infrastructures such as electricity, railways, airports, hospitals among others. Steel plants, petroleum refineries, automobiles, aircraft and hi-tech companies came to existence as a result of exploits in innovative and capital entrepreneurships.

Nigeria's kind of entrepreneurship being preached to our youth cannot be used to solve any kind of socio-economic problem such as lack of power supply, good roads, portable water, railway and so on. It is so obvious that the entrepreneurship we practice in Nigeria is absolutely handicapped. It lacks both solution and growth factor, however, it is a poverty multiplying one.

Nigeria's kind of entrepreneurship lacks the capability to provide substantial job opportunities needed by the youth. The traditional entrepreneurship we practice provide jobs in retailing, unskilled or semi-skilled jobs, exportation of raw materials and importation of finished goods. Developed nations have massive jobs in information technology, aerospace, space technology, healthcare power, sports, tourism, oil and gas, which are products of innovative and capital entrepreneurship. It is certain that the number of unemployed people in Nigeria will continue to increase if there is no change to our entrepreneurship approach.


Taking a look at the genesis of institutionalisation of entrepreneurship in Nigeria, which can be traced to 1986 when the Government established the National Directorate of employment, NDE, to provide skills for youth in order to make them employable. It was this same time that several industries began to fold up, banks began to liquidate, the quality of education began to experience sharp decline and government's investment in infrastructural development began to recede. It is so obvious that the government at that time lacked job creation skills.

Over thirty years down the lane, one should ask, how much jobs has NDE provided? Would we have the need of NDE if we had abundant industries and functional education that produces job creating graduates? What a pity to see that the major mantra of the government to the youth is traditional entrepreneurship. If Nigeria's kind of cake baking, hair dressing and dough-nut entrepreneurship had failed in the past, how would it help create factories and solve our unemployment problem? I see no reason why we should magnify the failures of entrepreneurship in the name of self employment.

Innovative entrepreneurship of Mr Innocent Chuckwuma of Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing and Mr Adetokunbo Ogundeyin of Proforce Limited -manufacturer of armoured vehicles- are undeniable examples. They built technological empires without government's help, yet, the sky is not even their limit, but their starting points. Imagine if we can replicate this achievements in electricity generation, petroleum refining, road/railway construction, metals and material production.

Nigeria is facing serious budget finance crisis because the revenue earned from petroleum is no longer sufficient to fund the budget. Massive funds is being ploughed into traditional entrepreneurship that provides very little tax, thereby plunging the nation massive borrowing. However, products and services of innovative ventures in developed nations have become huge sources of revenue to their respective nations. Therefore Nigeria should invest in entrepreneurship that will generate abundant revenue to fund subsequent budgets.

Nigeria has more than thirty percent of an estimated population of 200 million people involved in agriculture, yet malnutrition is ravaging our land. The major problem of insufficient food production is the primitive farming using cutlass and hoe -a form of traditional entrepreneurship. So unfortunate that insurgency in North-Eastern Nigeria and the nationwide herdsmen killings has highly contributed to reduced crop production.

On the other hand, some nations have lesser than two percent of their population in agriculture, yet they meet local demand and export. They make use of innovative entrepreneurship both on the farm and in the lab/workshops. They don't depend on normads to provide beef for them. Here in Nigeria, graduates of agriculture do not practice farming professionally, yet it is the unequipped graduates of other courses, that are persuaded into agriculture as a result of unemployment.

It is good to have several capital entrepreneurs like Aliko Dangote, who has built several industries in Nigeria and across Africa. His latest investment in the 650,000 bpd of crude oil refinery and petrochemical complex which is expected to help tackle the availability of petroleum products is highly laudable. However, he didn't become an overnight investor, his success story began in 1977 with the 500,000 naira loan -when $1 = 65k - given to him by his uncle, Alhaji Dantata. The major problem of capital entrepreneurship is how to get massive loans for industrial development.

Finally, a paradigm shift is still the solution our challenges.


CC: FOD, dominique, puskin, naijacutee

Part 1 has close to 30,000 views already.

Presently, part 2 has over 8,000 views