My spirit goes with this little article of mine. Go waken the slumbered, go strengthen the weak, encourage the disheartened, to the lone dreamer. Speak! Yes, kindle within him a mighty desire, with dauntless ambition. Set his spirit on fire!

The socio-economic imperatives of the Nigerian economy of today are systematically drifting in favor to the growth of small and medium scale business. Among the reasons for this trend is the sudden nose-diving of the economy. For a long time, government had taken centre stage hoping to carefully and centrally plan the economy. At the core of this approach is the presumption that it is better to centrally manage the scarce resources than to manage it in fragments. In so doing government hopes to redistribute income, reduce unemployment, provide infrastructure and facilitate the growth of Gross National Product (GNP). Unfortunately, after a period of four decades, they are several miles behind the initial expectations. At the last count, our public corporations have turned out to be a conduit pipe to entrench mediocrity, inefficiency and enrichment of few at the expense of the struggling masses. Riding on the strength of monopoly coupled with its legal immunity, they have given and continue to give sub-optimal and epileptic services at high rate. In some cases of petroleum products, the products are not even readily available. It is against this backdrop that successive governments have taken a major rethink to this public sector domination of the economy.


The key challenges facing potential entrepreneurs are the promotion of awareness of various career options and possibilities for business set-up. There are many idle people in Nigeria. People in this category largely require awareness and understanding of what enterprise is and what it takes to own and manage a business so that they can consider self-employment realistically as a career option.

If you look around properly you would observe that people have been forced to engage in vocations they wouldn’t have opted for normally. The condition in the country is a blessing for some people and a source of turmoil for others. Keke is a very lucrative business right now. Most people who saved money to get keke and have seen how good the business is cannot leave the business for a white collar job that can’t pay up to N100,000 monthly.

The Nigerian youth have always been told that going to school will definitely bring wealth and good life subsequently. That’s okay, but the trend has changed long ago. If you studied and don’t have a skill to back it up, you might end up searching for job the rest of your life.

Now let’s break it down. At six years old, the Nigerian child is already gearing to be in Primary School and at 12 he is in Secondary School to study, make good grade and have the dream of going to the University. The parents have no intention of introducing the child to skill acquisition. The societal trend has always been school, school, school. This child would round up with Secondary School at 18 years without a skill that he can fall back on. Remember at this age, he has got energy and this is the best time to harness his abilities and make him useful to the society. But, instead, most youths in this age in Nigeria are idle, depending on the parents for food, clothing and other needs. This is wrong. Assuming this child had learned a skill from the age 12 while going to school too, he would have been making money at least to cater for his own personal needs, and then aspiring for more.

If he is lucky to be in the University at age 19, he continues to depend on the parents until he is done with studies probably at age 24, still never got a skill. He continues to be a liability until he gets a job. It’s only a small fraction of Nigerians that get jobs after education. Majority roam the streets without skills and that is the reason vices are in the increase.

To parents, make sure your children acquire skills as they grow, so when they are adults they can convert those skills to money. They can go to school while getting a skill. That is the way to go this time if you want your child to be useful in time in the future. School alone is silently failing us and nobody is talking about it. Entrepreneur is the bedrock of every successful economy. Provide job for yourself and others. It’s painstaking, it’s worth it, it’s sexy, it’s the way forward.

http://businesshubnigeria..com.ng/2017/02/the-nigerian-youth-and-his-future.html