Coitus:
Entrepreneurship is good but Nigeria is not business friendly. I've witnessed a lot of people around me suffering because their business has crumpled, forget all this nonsense motivational speakers talk/write about entrepreneurship, in an actual practical sense using Nigeria as a case study, its very very hard. Learning a skill and leaving the shit hole of a country has become my only goal.

Coitus:
Entrepreneurship is good but Nigeria is not business friendly. I've witnessed a lot of people around me suffering because their business has crumpled, forget all this nonsense motivational speakers talk/write about entrepreneurship, in an actual practical sense using Nigeria as a case study, its very very hard. Learning a skill and leaving the shit hole of a country has become my only goal.

Coitus:
Entrepreneurship is good but Nigeria is not business friendly. I've witnessed a lot of people around me suffering because their business has crumpled, forget all this nonsense motivational speakers talk/write about entrepreneurship, in an actual practical sense using Nigeria as a case study, its very very hard. Learning a skill and leaving the shit hole of a country has become my only goal.

Coitus:
Entrepreneurship is good but Nigeria is not business friendly. I've witnessed a lot of people around me suffering because their business has crumpled, forget all this nonsense motivational speakers talk/write about entrepreneurship, in an actual practical sense using Nigeria as a case study, its very very hard. Learning a skill and leaving the shit hole of a country has become my only goal.

kelvinjeremiah:
entrepreneur


It's an exciting prospect starting a business, but it's not easy task. Saying it's very demanding is an understatement, and mind you, business does not necessarily means the selling of goods, but also services. What does owning a business (being an entrepreneur) requires? It requires discipline, motivation, patience, critical thinking and above all, capital. As a matter of fact, if you ain't disciplined, you can't be a successful entrepreneur.


Now, being an entrepreneur starts with critical thinking, environmental scanning and basic knowledge of what it entails. You just don't wake up one morning and say, "I wanna start a business," without proper plans. Before proceeding, I'd like to give an idea of what "Entrepreneurship" and "Business" means.

WHAT IS BUSINESS?


Business is a person's occupation, work or trade. It's also a commercial, industrial or professional activity.

WHAT IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP?


Entrepreneurship is the art or science of 'innovation' and 'risk-taking' for profit in business. You're not an entrepreneur until you start getting profits for your ideas and innovations. A person who 'innovates' and 'takes on risks' for profits in business is considered an 'entrepreneur'. He thrives for success and takes on risk by starting his own venture, service, trade, e.t.c. An entrepreneur is one who lauches and build a business.

Business involves exchange of values. Never cheat, forget about profit when starting out, build a VALUE-DRIVEN entreprise. Though business is a profit-oriented venture, don't expect much.

Have you had the thought of being an entrepreneur? Here are reasons WHY YOU MUST BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR AND OWN A BUSINESS. Mind you, no one is too young to be an entrepreneur. There are many reasons to be an entrepreneur, but I'll give you 16 reasons to be an entrepreneur:

1. Value Creation And Problem Solving: There are lot of persons out there looking for solution to certain problems. If you're capable of providing answers to those problems, why not create something that does it? If your idea and innovations can help others solve problems, start something... create something unique and value-driven.

2. Contribution To Community, Society And National Development: It'll make you an important person in the society. It's an avenue to help the less and non privileged to achieve greater things through scholarships, provision of social amenities to communities and through charity organisations. This is what the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet does.

3. Personal Ownership Of Business Concern Empowers You To Do More In Life: Truth is - the more success you get, the greater your cravings for more success. Being successful is a motivation to be more successful. Seeing the daily activities of your own successful business give you an opportunity for more successful businesses.

4. Instability In The Labour Market And Job Insecurity: With the high rise of unemployment rate in most countries, you wouldn't want to be in the labour market seeking for employment. And working as an employee does not necessarily guarantee you job security. Being an entrepreneur is a guarantee for job stability 'cause you're boss.

5. Meeting The Challenges Of Family And Personal Responsibility: "Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility... in the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people possess is the ability to take on responsibility" - Michael Korda.

Being an entrepreneur gives you the opportunity to be responsible and meet the challenges of family, whether financial responsibility or otherwise.

6. Securing Your Financial Future: Any value-driven and profit-oriented entreprise is a legacy. There'll be no chance of being broke (penniless). It'll give you this financial confidence.

7. Job Creation: There ain't much jobs in the labour market. An entrepreneur solves this problem. He creates job for job seekers. He has this mentality, "Why be an employee when you can be the employer?" It's a very important reason why you should be an entrepreneur.

8. Set Your Own Deadlines: Are you tired of being bossed around or inconvenienced ‘cause of deadlines? Become an entrepreneur. Your business, your deadlines - you're the boss.

9. Pursue Your Passion: Entrepreneurship offers you the opportunity build and invest on what you love most.

10. Get Recognised: Success attracts people. Owning your own business, having measurable finances gives you an opportunity to ccommunicate with the elites. You get to meet successful people and gain some recognitions.

11. Inspire Others: Inspiring others is not limited to giving amazing and thoughtful speeches; our activities does inspire others. You, starting a venture grants confidence for others to follow in your footsteps. That is inspiring.

12. Financial Independence: Being an entrepreneur gives you financial independence and flexibility.

13. Become An Expert: You know what they say, "practice makes you perfect." Something you do more often becomes part of you. It becomes easy and fun. Whatever area you might specialize in business, you have the opportunity to be an expert in that field.

14. Gain Entrepreneurial Experience: The failures and successes you have in entrepreneurship, the more experience you gain.

15. Get More Creative: Success makes you crave more of it. Since business requires critical thinking and developing of ideas, you need creativity. Being an entrepreneur makes more creative. You don't rest on your laurels, you just want to keep finding solutions to problems.

16. Learn New Skills: Entrepreneurship is an avenue to diversify your skills. It's an opportunity to develop more skills.




Entrepreneurship/owning a business is not for the faint of heart. You'll explore the limits of your abilities. Anyone can start a thing, but very few start something that matters. Ensure your trade is a value-driven entreprise. I'll leave you with a little motivation - if you harbour the thought of starting a business; take the step, don't think it anymore. If financing is the problem, you source for it through:

Personal Savings
Friends, Family
Co-operative Societies
Loan & Overdraft
Government Angencies
Partnership
Intermediate Marketing


While starting out, it wouldn't be rosy. There'll be decline and losses at some point, just don't loose your drive. See beyond 'now'. It ain't failure, but there are some businesses which fail though. Here are resons why businesses fail and you must avoid such mistakes:

Lack of training and proper preparation
Inadequate market research/poor environmntal scanning
Attempting to do too much with too little
Being careless in use of large capital
Inability to separate business from personality
Lack of delayed gratification
Sentiments (family and friends attachment)
Selling products and not solutions (inability to balance profit drive and value creation)
Unstable business environment
Inadequate capital and poor management
Internal fraudulent activities
Wrong location
Inability to move swiftly with trends and technology
Excessive investment in fixed assets
Over reliance on one customer
Inability to manage business realities


Avoid such mistakes and you just might be the name on everyone lips.

http://www.favshub.com/2018/02/16-reasons-becoming-entrepreneur.html

I'll feature small business ideas you could start for less than 100k on next post on nairaland

Coitus:
Entrepreneurship is good but Nigeria is not business friendly. I've witnessed a lot of people around me suffering because their business has crumpled, forget all this nonsense motivational speakers talk/write about entrepreneurship, in an actual practical sense using Nigeria as a case study, its very very hard. Learning a skill and leaving the shit hole of a country has become my only goal.

squarelead:



So so educative. I am happy I made the decision to be an entrepreneur some months after service year. I must say I am really enjoying it. Finished serving April 2017 and by God's grace my business is making progress. This is just the starting point tho. Aiming to create more branch soon. Square_Ventures.
Imported pop corn grains, Glass nylon and baking materials merchant. BODIJA IBADAN.

oneolajire:
https://www.nairaland.com/2983340/entrepreneurship-nigeria-scam-multiplier-poverty

This piece is flawed to an extent. My dad and his friends were producing furniture that could compete with imported ones in the 80's and 90's, and all he and his apprentices used were basic tools and machines. There are technical schools in Nigeria where youths can still gain knowledge and develop technical skills. I agree with some points the author raised but China did not develop Machinery and products of its own in the beginning. China copied the western countries and fabricated Chinese versions of European and American Machines and Products. In Eastern Nigeria, you can get machines replicated for you by Igbo Blacksmiths and Fabricators. The Government can not industrialize the country alone. Private Businessmen also contribute to the Industrialization of the countries they live in. The Industrial Revolution in America and Europe was not really financed by Government but by Private Investors and Wealthy men. Cheers.


ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN NIG IS A SCAM


Nigeria is a country where all big investors have no inventions (tangible or intangible) to their credit. Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Michael Dell, Thomas Edison and the likes all have products to patent, but most entrepreneurs we have in Nigeria have invented nothing and have made it through dubious means. 

Entrepreneurship/vocational education is government's way of telling the youth and graduates that she (the government) lacks industrialisation and job creation strategies while the youth have been left to fate.

Entrepreneurship/vocational education is government's way of making the youth/graduates look intellectually lazy and burdensome as well as telling them that they are have been abandoned in the valley of unemployment. Unemployment rate increased simply because government owned industries and companies get strangulated by the python of corruption as well as the refusal of the government to establish new ones.

Entrepreneurship in advanced countries is about innovations, inventions, improvements, expansions, people and institutional empowerment. Modern and sophisticated skills are being utilised to manufacture goods and services which culminates into abundant job creation.

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is of the graduate job seeker told to engage in bead making, soap making, hair dressing, laundry and so on. These businesses have neither inventions nor advancement to add to the business practice and the economy, as they also have little or no impact on the international market. 

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is also of the rich that colludes with the government to defraud the masses, destroy public corporations and infrastructures in order for them to import alternative goods. The rich set up few enterprises and often pay peanuts to their employees in order to increase their wealth; culminating into increase in poverty level and underemployment in the country.  

The government of advanced countries often invest billion of dollars on education and research, so they always have intellectuals who will offer innovative products and services to the world. These products and services are initially developed into small scale businesses as they many even grow into large enterprises. While Nigeria keeps wasting hard earned funds on Small and Medium Scale (SME) development, yet the businesses are nowhere to be found.

Only an insane person will keep doing the same thing the same way and expect a different result. Am yet to see a nation that got developed by investing so little on the education of her youth and students but spend so much on SME propaganda. Still searching for a nation that gave nothing more than mere, non-professional, common, stark and non-sophisticated skills/training to her youth and achieved rapid industrial development.

Why should we buy a trailer engine, fix it in a car and try to make it compete with an aircraft? Why should we make people earn mere skills and expect them to compete with foreign sophisticated technologies? We have to know that the issue of local production of goods and services is a serious competetion with the developed nations.

Some questions for the proponents of entrepreneurship/vocational education.
 When will out textile, fashion and leather industry be able to make products of international standard? When will a Nigerian mechanic be able to manufacture car engines and other motor parts? When will our furniture makers be able to make furniture that will compete with ones made overseas? When will a computer repairer be able to produce motherboards, memorycards, monitors, just to mention a few?

Did America achieved greatness by emphasising on vocational trainings on how to make shoe polish, bake cake, produce detergents, event decorations , frying akara and establishment of football viewing centres? Did Britain get it right by teaching her youth how to start a beer palour and salon businesses or by ensuring technological dynamism? I wondered if it is mere phone repair training was what brought China among world's  mobile phone producers. Over and over again, I see entrepreneurship and vocational education as a scam.

Take a look at the furniture industry in Nigeria, you'll discover it is almost dead because foreign furniture has flooded the Nigerian market. Foreign furniture makers have been able to introduce much variety of products with various designs, even at exorbitant prices, yet people still buy them. Imported furniture  attains this much because modern machines are regularly produced to make new designs of furniture, but here in Nigeria, we only buy simple tools, we don't engage in design and manufacture of  machines/tools to be used in the furniture industry, so we are perpetually making furniture that cannot compete with the foreign ones. It is only engineering that provides modern machines, stack entrepreneurship cannot.

Entrepreneurship and and vocational education has never helped Nigeria in the manufacture of modern machines for production of finished goods that can compete favourably with imported ones. The best entrepreneurship has offered us is to use social media means to engage in selling of imported products as well as setting up of few businesses with the use of foreign machines. It is appaling for government to still keep preaching the sermon that can never bring solutions to us.

Every sector of the Nigerian economy has been badly affected by the erroneous policy of entrepreneurship and vocational education. From the agricultural sector to the transportation sector, from manufacturing to education, from construction to entertainment, name it, we have rendered our nation incapacitated when it comes to production of goods and services. There can never be abundant job opportunities as long as we keep executing this lame practice. 

I wonder why we have not given so much vocational training to professional operating as doctors, nurses and pharmacist in the medical field. We give this set of people trainings that can make them compete favourably with their foreign counterpart. I believe it should appear proper to the government to substitute entrepreneurship and vocational education with the training they receive in the teaching hospitals.  The government (after emptying the laboratories and workshops of polytechniques and universities) substituted requisite training for our engineers and scientist with entrepreneurship and vocational training, so they are rendered handicapped when it comes to provision of modern goods and services as well as job creation.

It is high time we changed our job creation policy of entrepreneurship and vocational studies to provision of qualitative education at all levels, especially science and technology education so that Nigerian graduates would possess requisite modern and sophisticated skills for our nation and the world market at large. It is only qualitative education and intensive research that can initiate intellectual thinking for creation of innovative goods and services.
 
Entrepreneurship and vocational studies have been found to have contributed immensely only to economy of nations with massive investments in education and research. Singapore and South Korea are the examples of nations that have eradicated illiteracy and have invested huge funds into science and technology education, so entrepreneurship thrives there.

Let the laboratories and workshops of our secondary schools and higher institutions be adequately equipped with modern and facilities so as to provide avenues for learning practicals. We need to replicate the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who utilised the qualitative education they obtained in the tetiary institutions to create worldwide business ventures in their fields.

Real entrepreneurship is when Nigerian graduates of electrical engineers can produce transformers, power generation turbines, alternators, televisions from local technologies. Metallurgical engineers must be able to produce steel for oil and gas pipelines as well as in train and car manufacturing. Combustion engines, pumps, hydraulic and pneumatic parts must be what our mechanical engineers must be able to manufacture from their companies. Businesses of agricultural science graduates should able to feed the nation cos they should empowered to do so. This is what is called real entrepreneurship.

Businesses that leads to industrialisation are offshoots of science and technological discoveries and investments. The kind of entrepreneurship Nigeria needs is one in which Nigerian chemical engineers can set up refineries and petrochemical companies with the aid local resources. I would also love to see mobile phones, computers and other information technology gadgets developed and commercialised by Nigerian graduates of computer science. 

The entrepreneurship that Nigeria needs is one in which local engineering enterprises will be able to metamorphous  into multinationals like General Electric, Ford Motors, Chevron, Microsoft Corporations,Tata Steel and the likes. This is how we can solve the problem of unemployment as well as put an end to the massive importation of good in Nigeria. However, with this, Nigeria will become industrialised and be listed among the developed nations of the world.

oneolajire2000@yahoo.co.uk

oneolajire:
https://www.nairaland.com/2983340/entrepreneurship-nigeria-scam-multiplier-poverty


ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN NIG IS A SCAM


Nigeria is a country where all big investors have no inventions (tangible or intangible) to their credit. Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Michael Dell, Thomas Edison and the likes all have products to patent, but most entrepreneurs we have in Nigeria have invented nothing and have made it through dubious means. 

Entrepreneurship/vocational education is government's way of telling the youth and graduates that she (the government) lacks industrialisation and job creation strategies while the youth have been left to fate.

Entrepreneurship/vocational education is government's way of making the youth/graduates look intellectually lazy and burdensome as well as telling them that they are have been abandoned in the valley of unemployment. Unemployment rate increased simply because government owned industries and companies get strangulated by the python of corruption as well as the refusal of the government to establish new ones.

Entrepreneurship in advanced countries is about innovations, inventions, improvements, expansions, people and institutional empowerment. Modern and sophisticated skills are being utilised to manufacture goods and services which culminates into abundant job creation.

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is of the graduate job seeker told to engage in bead making, soap making, hair dressing, laundry and so on. These businesses have neither inventions nor advancement to add to the business practice and the economy, as they also have little or no impact on the international market. 

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is also of the rich that colludes with the government to defraud the masses, destroy public corporations and infrastructures in order for them to import alternative goods. The rich set up few enterprises and often pay peanuts to their employees in order to increase their wealth; culminating into increase in poverty level and underemployment in the country.  

The government of advanced countries often invest billion of dollars on education and research, so they always have intellectuals who will offer innovative products and services to the world. These products and services are initially developed into small scale businesses as they many even grow into large enterprises. While Nigeria keeps wasting hard earned funds on Small and Medium Scale (SME) development, yet the businesses are nowhere to be found.

Only an insane person will keep doing the same thing the same way and expect a different result. Am yet to see a nation that got developed by investing so little on the education of her youth and students but spend so much on SME propaganda. Still searching for a nation that gave nothing more than mere, non-professional, common, stark and non-sophisticated skills/training to her youth and achieved rapid industrial development.

Why should we buy a trailer engine, fix it in a car and try to make it compete with an aircraft? Why should we make people earn mere skills and expect them to compete with foreign sophisticated technologies? We have to know that the issue of local production of goods and services is a serious competetion with the developed nations.

Some questions for the proponents of entrepreneurship/vocational education.
 When will out textile, fashion and leather industry be able to make products of international standard? When will a Nigerian mechanic be able to manufacture car engines and other motor parts? When will our furniture makers be able to make furniture that will compete with ones made overseas? When will a computer repairer be able to produce motherboards, memorycards, monitors, just to mention a few?

Did America achieved greatness by emphasising on vocational trainings on how to make shoe polish, bake cake, produce detergents, event decorations , frying akara and establishment of football viewing centres? Did Britain get it right by teaching her youth how to start a beer palour and salon businesses or by ensuring technological dynamism? I wondered if it is mere phone repair training was what brought China among world's  mobile phone producers. Over and over again, I see entrepreneurship and vocational education as a scam.

Take a look at the furniture industry in Nigeria, you'll discover it is almost dead because foreign furniture has flooded the Nigerian market. Foreign furniture makers have been able to introduce much variety of products with various designs, even at exorbitant prices, yet people still buy them. Imported furniture  attains this much because modern machines are regularly produced to make new designs of furniture, but here in Nigeria, we only buy simple tools, we don't engage in design and manufacture of  machines/tools to be used in the furniture industry, so we are perpetually making furniture that cannot compete with the foreign ones. It is only engineering that provides modern machines, stack entrepreneurship cannot.

Entrepreneurship and and vocational education has never helped Nigeria in the manufacture of modern machines for production of finished goods that can compete favourably with imported ones. The best entrepreneurship has offered us is to use social media means to engage in selling of imported products as well as setting up of few businesses with the use of foreign machines. It is appaling for government to still keep preaching the sermon that can never bring solutions to us.

Every sector of the Nigerian economy has been badly affected by the erroneous policy of entrepreneurship and vocational education. From the agricultural sector to the transportation sector, from manufacturing to education, from construction to entertainment, name it, we have rendered our nation incapacitated when it comes to production of goods and services. There can never be abundant job opportunities as long as we keep executing this lame practice. 

I wonder why we have not given so much vocational training to professional operating as doctors, nurses and pharmacist in the medical field. We give this set of people trainings that can make them compete favourably with their foreign counterpart. I believe it should appear proper to the government to substitute entrepreneurship and vocational education with the training they receive in the teaching hospitals.  The government (after emptying the laboratories and workshops of polytechniques and universities) substituted requisite training for our engineers and scientist with entrepreneurship and vocational training, so they are rendered handicapped when it comes to provision of modern goods and services as well as job creation.

It is high time we changed our job creation policy of entrepreneurship and vocational studies to provision of qualitative education at all levels, especially science and technology education so that Nigerian graduates would possess requisite modern and sophisticated skills for our nation and the world market at large. It is only qualitative education and intensive research that can initiate intellectual thinking for creation of innovative goods and services.
 
Entrepreneurship and vocational studies have been found to have contributed immensely only to economy of nations with massive investments in education and research. Singapore and South Korea are the examples of nations that have eradicated illiteracy and have invested huge funds into science and technology education, so entrepreneurship thrives there.

Let the laboratories and workshops of our secondary schools and higher institutions be adequately equipped with modern and facilities so as to provide avenues for learning practicals. We need to replicate the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who utilised the qualitative education they obtained in the tetiary institutions to create worldwide business ventures in their fields.

Real entrepreneurship is when Nigerian graduates of electrical engineers can produce transformers, power generation turbines, alternators, televisions from local technologies. Metallurgical engineers must be able to produce steel for oil and gas pipelines as well as in train and car manufacturing. Combustion engines, pumps, hydraulic and pneumatic parts must be what our mechanical engineers must be able to manufacture from their companies. Businesses of agricultural science graduates should able to feed the nation cos they should empowered to do so. This is what is called real entrepreneurship.

Businesses that leads to industrialisation are offshoots of science and technological discoveries and investments. The kind of entrepreneurship Nigeria needs is one in which Nigerian chemical engineers can set up refineries and petrochemical companies with the aid local resources. I would also love to see mobile phones, computers and other information technology gadgets developed and commercialised by Nigerian graduates of computer science. 

The entrepreneurship that Nigeria needs is one in which local engineering enterprises will be able to metamorphous  into multinationals like General Electric, Ford Motors, Chevron, Microsoft Corporations,Tata Steel and the likes. This is how we can solve the problem of unemployment as well as put an end to the massive importation of good in Nigeria. However, with this, Nigeria will become industrialised and be listed among the developed nations of the world.

oneolajire2000@yahoo.co.uk

Pussyisfood:


You are very ignorant. Real entrepreneurship is not when Nigerian graduates are able to build transformers or petrochemical factories. Real entrepreneurship is the ability of building a strong business model that lasts the test of time. My grams can make better burgers than MacDonalds, but how many people can build a better business than MacDonalds? Misconceptions like these are the reasons why Nigerians fail at entrepreneurship because they think that building a business is all about building a very big building with branches everywhere. Also because of this, they end up in a quagmire for they decided what to do instead of letting the market tell them what to do. Now I am not saying that building large businesses immediately is bad. Carnegie build the Carnegie steel company with help from the Roth child's. Morgan used Edison to build general electric. Rockefeller built Standard Oil. Ford was built because there were European investors who invested heavily in his business. But you have to realize that the quality of an organization is not determined by its size. Jews and Indians know this very well and that's why they have some of the world's best businesses. Small and medium scale businesses are the back bone of any economy. If you are still confused about it then maybe you should learn about the Dot com bubble of the 90s. many businesses started and closed down because they didn't have a viable business model. This incident caused a recession in USA because investors lost fortunes to these financial illiterates.

Coitus:
Entrepreneurship is good but Nigeria is not business friendly. I've witnessed a lot of people around me suffering because their business has crumpled, forget all this nonsense motivational speakers talk/write about entrepreneurship, in an actual practical sense using Nigeria as a case study, its very very hard. Learning a skill and leaving the shit hole of a country has become my only goal.

oneolajire:


Sorry, can't argue with you cos "pussy is the only thing you know".

oneolajire:
https://www.nairaland.com/2983340/entrepreneurship-nigeria-scam-multiplier-poverty


ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN NIG IS A SCAM


Nigeria is a country where all big investors have no inventions (tangible or intangible) to their credit. Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Michael Dell, Thomas Edison and the likes all have products to patent, but most entrepreneurs we have in Nigeria have invented nothing and have made it through dubious means. 

Entrepreneurship/vocational education is government's way of telling the youth and graduates that she (the government) lacks industrialisation and job creation strategies while the youth have been left to fate.

Entrepreneurship/vocational education is government's way of making the youth/graduates look intellectually lazy and burdensome as well as telling them that they are have been abandoned in the valley of unemployment. Unemployment rate increased simply because government owned industries and companies get strangulated by the python of corruption as well as the refusal of the government to establish new ones.

Entrepreneurship in advanced countries is about innovations, inventions, improvements, expansions, people and institutional empowerment. Modern and sophisticated skills are being utilised to manufacture goods and services which culminates into abundant job creation.

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is of the graduate job seeker told to engage in bead making, soap making, hair dressing, laundry and so on. These businesses have neither inventions nor advancement to add to the business practice and the economy, as they also have little or no impact on the international market. 

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is also of the rich that colludes with the government to defraud the masses, destroy public corporations and infrastructures in order for them to import alternative goods. The rich set up few enterprises and often pay peanuts to their employees in order to increase their wealth; culminating into increase in poverty level and underemployment in the country.  

The government of advanced countries often invest billion of dollars on education and research, so they always have intellectuals who will offer innovative products and services to the world. These products and services are initially developed into small scale businesses as they many even grow into large enterprises. While Nigeria keeps wasting hard earned funds on Small and Medium Scale (SME) development, yet the businesses are nowhere to be found.

Only an insane person will keep doing the same thing the same way and expect a different result. Am yet to see a nation that got developed by investing so little on the education of her youth and students but spend so much on SME propaganda. Still searching for a nation that gave nothing more than mere, non-professional, common, stark and non-sophisticated skills/training to her youth and achieved rapid industrial development.

Why should we buy a trailer engine, fix it in a car and try to make it compete with an aircraft? Why should we make people earn mere skills and expect them to compete with foreign sophisticated technologies? We have to know that the issue of local production of goods and services is a serious competetion with the developed nations.

Some questions for the proponents of entrepreneurship/vocational education.
 When will out textile, fashion and leather industry be able to make products of international standard? When will a Nigerian mechanic be able to manufacture car engines and other motor parts? When will our furniture makers be able to make furniture that will compete with ones made overseas? When will a computer repairer be able to produce motherboards, memorycards, monitors, just to mention a few?

Did America achieved greatness by emphasising on vocational trainings on how to make shoe polish, bake cake, produce detergents, event decorations , frying akara and establishment of football viewing centres? Did Britain get it right by teaching her youth how to start a beer palour and salon businesses or by ensuring technological dynamism? I wondered if it is mere phone repair training was what brought China among world's  mobile phone producers. Over and over again, I see entrepreneurship and vocational education as a scam.

Take a look at the furniture industry in Nigeria, you'll discover it is almost dead because foreign furniture has flooded the Nigerian market. Foreign furniture makers have been able to introduce much variety of products with various designs, even at exorbitant prices, yet people still buy them. Imported furniture  attains this much because modern machines are regularly produced to make new designs of furniture, but here in Nigeria, we only buy simple tools, we don't engage in design and manufacture of  machines/tools to be used in the furniture industry, so we are perpetually making furniture that cannot compete with the foreign ones. It is only engineering that provides modern machines, stack entrepreneurship cannot.

Entrepreneurship and and vocational education has never helped Nigeria in the manufacture of modern machines for production of finished goods that can compete favourably with imported ones. The best entrepreneurship has offered us is to use social media means to engage in selling of imported products as well as setting up of few businesses with the use of foreign machines. It is appaling for government to still keep preaching the sermon that can never bring solutions to us.

Every sector of the Nigerian economy has been badly affected by the erroneous policy of entrepreneurship and vocational education. From the agricultural sector to the transportation sector, from manufacturing to education, from construction to entertainment, name it, we have rendered our nation incapacitated when it comes to production of goods and services. There can never be abundant job opportunities as long as we keep executing this lame practice. 

I wonder why we have not given so much vocational training to professional operating as doctors, nurses and pharmacist in the medical field. We give this set of people trainings that can make them compete favourably with their foreign counterpart. I believe it should appear proper to the government to substitute entrepreneurship and vocational education with the training they receive in the teaching hospitals.  The government (after emptying the laboratories and workshops of polytechniques and universities) substituted requisite training for our engineers and scientist with entrepreneurship and vocational training, so they are rendered handicapped when it comes to provision of modern goods and services as well as job creation.

It is high time we changed our job creation policy of entrepreneurship and vocational studies to provision of qualitative education at all levels, especially science and technology education so that Nigerian graduates would possess requisite modern and sophisticated skills for our nation and the world market at large. It is only qualitative education and intensive research that can initiate intellectual thinking for creation of innovative goods and services.
 
Entrepreneurship and vocational studies have been found to have contributed immensely only to economy of nations with massive investments in education and research. Singapore and South Korea are the examples of nations that have eradicated illiteracy and have invested huge funds into science and technology education, so entrepreneurship thrives there.

Let the laboratories and workshops of our secondary schools and higher institutions be adequately equipped with modern and facilities so as to provide avenues for learning practicals. We need to replicate the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who utilised the qualitative education they obtained in the tetiary institutions to create worldwide business ventures in their fields.

Real entrepreneurship is when Nigerian graduates of electrical engineers can produce transformers, power generation turbines, alternators, televisions from local technologies. Metallurgical engineers must be able to produce steel for oil and gas pipelines as well as in train and car manufacturing. Combustion engines, pumps, hydraulic and pneumatic parts must be what our mechanical engineers must be able to manufacture from their companies. Businesses of agricultural science graduates should able to feed the nation cos they should empowered to do so. This is what is called real entrepreneurship.

Businesses that leads to industrialisation are offshoots of science and technological discoveries and investments. The kind of entrepreneurship Nigeria needs is one in which Nigerian chemical engineers can set up refineries and petrochemical companies with the aid local resources. I would also love to see mobile phones, computers and other information technology gadgets developed and commercialised by Nigerian graduates of computer science. 

The entrepreneurship that Nigeria needs is one in which local engineering enterprises will be able to metamorphous  into multinationals like General Electric, Ford Motors, Chevron, Microsoft Corporations,Tata Steel and the likes. This is how we can solve the problem of unemployment as well as put an end to the massive importation of good in Nigeria. However, with this, Nigeria will become industrialised and be listed among the developed nations of the world.

oneolajire2000@yahoo.co.uk