By John Meze
The Institute of Strategic Entrepreneurs of Nigeria (ISEN) has called on the Federal Government to encourage entrepreneurship, as well as remove bottlenecks bedeviling entrepreneurship in the country.
ISEN which made this call through its Director, Training and Membership, Dr Albert Ndeze, also urged the government to take steps that would encourage the youth to take more interest in entrepreneurship to combat the nation’s unemployment indices.
Speaking at the institute’s induction lecture and fellowship award tagged “Empowering and Motivating the Youth to be Self- Employed, Self-Reliant through Entrepreneurship Development Skills”, in Lagos, Dr. Ndeze urged government to address bottlenecks such as access to research and empowerment funding to attract more youth interest in the area.
He said that addressing these challenges would engender an astronomical increase of 100 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) by 2031.
He called for a more favourable entreprenuerial environment, pushing for additional vocational training to empower first degree holders.He said this was to engender ess dependency on unavailable white collar jobs.
Ndeze said the institute was ready to partner with government on youth empowerment programmes to gainfully engage the youth against the societal vices some were currently engaged in.
“Government must create a favourable environment for both entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial institutes to thrive, he stated, adding that “once this is in place, it would ensure more job creation and more occupied youths as a ripple effect”.
“Government must develop the nation’s human capital to avoid human capital flight by identifying and training those with skills to acquire practical knowledge necessary to attain self employment and self reliance,” he said.
In his keynote address, Rev Anayochi Ekeh, a tax and management consultant, described entrepreneurship as the paradigm shift the nation needed to move from a developing to a developed nation.Ekeh, however, hinged the nation’s entrepreneurship survival on the practical efforts of government to provide ease of access to loans and grants, improved infrastructure, and more friendly business regulatory activities.He charged entrepreneurs on the use of intuitive abilities, and activities that would develop and improve their skills, particularly in production and manufacturing, for greater national advantage in the global business community.
“In comparison with China, India and other developed countries of the world, what they have done differently is the use of their intuitive abilities to think through the futuristic needs of the world and create it, Rev Ekeh stated, noting that “thisgoes to show that entrepreneurship is the paradigm shift that the nation needs to grow”.
Mr Nwoke Uwaoma, a fellowship awardee, in his remarks, appealed for the creation of a dedicated research funding facility across the country to engender ease of access to funds by entreprenuers.Uwaoma, who is also a global science pundit and research scientist with focus on fluidic and thermal research, lauded the institute’s strides in ensuring that the Nigerian youth is self-reliant.
ISEN Charges FG to Encourage Entrepreneurship
