Tuesday, May 26, 2015

MICRO BUSINESS, THE SHORTCUT OUT OF POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA (I).



Since Nigeria attained her political independence in 1960, the problem of rising unemployment and poverty have remained a puzzle that the various successive administrations in Nigeria have not been able to solve. While several economic programmes and policies have been implemented at the federal, state and local government levels to address this twin problem, the average Nigerian have become more and more impoverished as such policy measures/programmes only succeeded in creating avenue for the operators to have their own share of the national cake.

I have decided to write this note, at a time that many Nigerians are looking up with great hope for a change in their living condition from the incoming administration in Nigeria. I am not a pessimist but it is important I explain some facts to my audience so that they do set themselves up for another disappointment.

Firstly, I want you to understand that there is no nation, anywhere in the world where the government has succeeded in providing full employment for her citizens. For instance, from 2004 to 2010, U.S. micro-businesses created a net of 5.5 million jobs. In Canada, Small businesses play a large role in net job creation, creating 77.7 percent of all private jobs. In almost all the Asian countries today, small businesses have become the engine that drives their economies. So, it is practically impossible for any administration in Nigeria to create jobs for the million under/unemployed Nigerians.

Secondly, poverty is a universal factor. Even in America, more than 45 million people, or 14.5 percent of Americans, live below the poverty line. And the reason is this, as long as you remain a consumer and not producing anything, you will always remain within the poverty circle. Let me give you an illustration. Let us assume that President Buhari decides to fight poverty by giving every Nigerian N10,000,000 each. Within a period of one to two years, you will observe that those who have means of production in Nigeria will become richer by over 50%. For instance, the food stuff sellers will be making more money, car dealers will be making more money, sellers of building materials will make more money, etc. but those who have nothing to sell will soon run out of cash because their target will be to get all the good things they desired in life.

Some of the questions that most participants at our monthly business seminars usually ask are:
-         How can one survive in business in Nigeria where there is no light?
-         How can one raise money to start the kind of business that he/she desires?
-         What is your own question? You are free to send it anyway.  

These kind of questions is what I will devout my time to be dealing with in this write-up and subsequent posts on this my blog.

According to Stephen Dooley, Jr., “A man who wants to do something will find a way; a man who doesn't will find an excuse.” So, I am writing this post for those who truly want to go into personal business as a way out of unemployment and poverty. But those who believe they prefer to wait for the non existing job, I wish them well, but, don’t forget that time does not wait for any man. You might be adjusting your age downwards in your resume but the fact remains that for each day that goes bye, you are getting older.

Do you truly wish to start your personal business but power supply and capital is your problem? There is no problem; I’ll only plead with you to give a trial to what I will be sharing with you in this blog.

You can start small
With the advancements in information and communication technology (ICT), starting a business today in Nigeria is as simple as ABC. You might not need to rent an office space, you might not need a generating set, and you don’t even need to worry about overheads. That is why at Thinking Minds Integrated Business Solutions, we try as much as possible to help our clients redesign their ideas to fit into a more feasible and workable scenario where the business can satisfy its purpose of providing solutions to customers at a relatively cheaper way.

One of the major advantages of micro businesses is that, they can be established with zero or minimum capital, it’s size makes it easy for the owner-manager to manage, mistakes and errors can be easily absolved and rectified, operating expenses are usually very minimal, etc.  (Watch out for part two).


Thinking Minds Integrated Business Solutions organizes monthly sensitization seminars on the practical ways of establishing micro, small-medium scale enterprises. For free consultancy services, call: 2348033291724, 2348052833097. E-mail: thinkingminds@ymail.com.

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