The Survey of Business Owners which provides a broad socio-economic picture of business owners across the globe reveals that 1 out of 10 Asians own a business outfit, while 1 out of 158 blacks own a business setup.
The afore-stated does not only pose a worrisome challenge, it also serves as a pointer to why we have an economy which is barely strong enough to bear the financial demands of the nation at large.
For many who grew up and had their primary school education in Nigeria, we were at a point introduced to the numerous mineral and natural resources which comes from each state, for some of us, it even became a song, as we had to find an appealing way to memorize these facts less we forget them. We were told of the Bitumen deposit in Lagos, Edo, Ogun and that of Agbabu in Ondo State which was described as the second largest in the world; the Gold in Edo, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Oyo, Iron Ore in Benue, Kogi Delta. Talk about the natural resources, the Cocoa in Ondo, Oyo, Edo, Imo; the Coffee in Kwara, Bachi, Osun; The Oil Palm in Oyo, Ondo, or the Cotton in Katsina, Kano, Niger, Kwara and Sokoto amongst a host of other mineral and natural resources.
Technically, with these abundance of mineral and natural resources, Nigeria should be amongst the top producers of commodity in the world, and the issue of lack of job opportunities would have been at the barest minimum. However, is bitterly and regrettably strange that we are nowhere to be found on this list.
The nation has been relegated right before our eyes into a society that imports the most basic of agricultural and manufactured goods and services. We import products and goods which ordinarily are within our capacity to produce. We live in a reality where major chunk of the population of people, including the masses has taken an affection for luxuries which comes from other nations.
We as a national actually began well, prior to 1986, Nigeria earned more than half of its revenue from agricultural commodity exports – mainly cocoa, groundnuts, palm oil, and palm kernels. In 1955, 98 percent of Nigerian exports were primary commodities, 92 percent in 1975, and 98 percent in 1985. During that period Nigeria imported secondary products such as chemicals, machinery, and transportation equipment to facilitate the production of the export commodities.
The emergence of oil which should have further solidified our place as a major exporting nation would eventually be our Achilles heel, the over-dependence on oil has transformed us to a consumption nation.
Today, Nigeria imports virtually all goods under the earth including agricultural products, plant and machineries, clothing, fertilizer, aluminum, automobiles, pharmaceutical products, sanitary products, building and construction materials, iron and steel.
By 2009, the country spent $42.1billion on the importation of machinery, heavy equipment, consumer goods and food products from UK, France, Germany, China, USA, and South Korea. These countries from which we import I describe as production nations.
With the various economic realities in our nation and also on the global stage, it is very important that we retrace our steps, it is very needful and important for the case of our progress that we have a re-think and prioritize those factors which will not only help build our economy but also help sustain it.
While I acknowledge the various challenges that comes with individual starting and running businesses in Nigeria, we must also take advantage of the few opportunities and business friendly atmosphere which comes our way.
The Nigerian market is one which practically sells everything which it does not produce, what this means is that we are building economies of other nations in our nation at the detriment of our nation.
Oil is already failing us and it would continue to fail us, that is the harsh reality, the world is already moving past the era of oil. It is high time; we begin to ask ourselves what part of production or manufacturing chain that we belong to.
The last few years have seen me become a major advocate of industrialization through indigenous means, and this is because I see a lot of benefits attached to this for the individual and the nation in general.
Right there in Ore Industrial Park, we have successfully addressed some of the major issues which militates against the growth and development of businesses. And it would be unfair if it is only foreign investors who are coming to take advantage of this when our people could have benefitted more.
Talk about power, talk about security or the proximity to raw materials, you can have all these with ease, it is time we begin to look at the bigger picture, start small if you must but never deny yourself the opportunity to start.
The history of our missed opportunities reads like a horror story and is depressingly sad, the investments that collapsed (steel, aluminum, paper plants, and so on) were of strategic importance to the Nigerian economy and were expected to provide the foundation of several spin-off enterprises providing widespread employment. We can turn that tide around today by becoming an agent of wealth creation, let us give ourselves the opportunity to re-start and re-grow our economy.
We cannot grow as a community when only 1 out of 158 is creating wealth, join the production chain together, let us collectively bridge the gap as we seek to create communal wealth for our people and the generations to come.
Dr. Femi Akinkuebi is the Managing Director of Ore Industrial Park, Ore Ondo State.
