Recently, I had a steaming discussion with some friends where each of us probably related our tons of experiences – first-hand and otherwise – about paid employment and the myriads of factors militating against the outburst of entrepreneurial horsepower in most Nigerians, especially, the university graduates among us. When you ask a typical Nigerian graduate what he or she wants to do post-graduation, the common answer is, “to try and get a job, you know it is not easy.” but sadly, it is only about one in every 100 graduates that are gainfully employed in those ‘successful’ organizations. That’s a paltry one percent! What happens to the remaining 99 percent? They hope. And keep hoping.
Is there a solution?
Entrepreneurship may well be the answer that we need to reduce the depth of unemployment and the frustration that comes with it. What is entrepreneurship? The term is a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist, Richard Cantillon, as the person who pays a certain price for a product to resell it at an uncertain price, thereby making decisions about obtaining and using the resources while consequently admitting the risk of enterprise. But entrepreneurship is not just about setting up one’s own business. You can display the skill of enterprise by recreating common things into very uncommon and profitable outputs. Perhaps, that is why renowned management guru, Peter Drucker defined an entrepreneur as someone who searches for change, responds to it and exploits opportunities. It then means that innovation is a specific tool of an entrepreneur, hence, an effective entrepreneur converts a source into a resource.
Few young Nigerians, who have been bold and courageous enough to dream up something, pursue them and constantly improve on them, have made serious impacts in the country today. Nairaland, bellanaija and linda ikeji are examples and there are still countless more. On a different platform, the individual who devised a means of packaging fried plantain chips in those lovely and colourful wrapping sheets that most of us currently buy while in traffic is a genius! Can you imagine how much money the business of plantain chips is making just because someone was responsible enough to think of a better way to package the product?
Quite understandably, the Nigerian business environment, the society and even our immediate families constrain a lot of us in many ways. We are taught from a very tender age to grow up, get educated and secure a paid employment maybe as a doctor, lawyer or accountant. Not once in the growing up years did most wealthy parents or school teachers guide their wards into thinking that they could actually become a manufacturer, a cloth designer or a business owner of some sort. Even innate skills such as singing, dancing, painting, sporting etc. were equally discouraged, all in favour of studying to ace one’s school examinations. Inevitably, the training that a Nigerian undergraduate studying, for example, Mass Communication at a tertiary institution receives, only compels him to, upon graduation, ‘look for work’ as a reporter. The training may not sufficiently guide him to, perhaps, start a blog and commercialize it or veer into providing other ancillary services in advertising and public relations as an entrepreneur. This short-sighted approach makes me ask myself, “Who is the owner of that organization that I want to work for as an accountant or administrator?” Again, ask any banker who his biggest customer is; is he an employee or perhaps, even a self-employed illiterate?
A cursory look at the profiles of those who made it into the recently released Forbes list of world richest people revealed that most of them were self-made - Aligo Dangote, Walmart’s owner, S. Robson Walton and the world’s richest man today, Carlos Slim Helu & family etc. just name them. (Hey! I’m not talking about those who divert state wealth for their personal aggrandizement).
I guess it is now our choices to make – you and i. to be or not to be the next Afropreneur. And whether we want to keep on reading that Eze goes to school and thereafter became an accountant at a departmental store in the big city or that the Drummer Boy – yes, the blind one, who became the best musical producer, after studying music and pursuing his dreams. Go figure!
