Okay, this is a serious write-up. Better brace yourself.
In the tales of the pre-birth, birth and post-birth of this former British Colony called Nigeria, we would come to see that as a people, we have always been entrepreneurs. The earliest evidence of our initiation into enterprise was the Trade by Barter system. In simpler times, when people produced more than they required, rather than discard these items, they exchanged the surplus for what they didn’t have but needed. This way, producers came to realize that they can concentrate their areas of production to produce more and then exchange with what they wanted. With this exchange of products, entrepreneurship began.
Decades later, we had people from different tribes and with different tongues as entrepreneurs who were exposed to opportunities outside their native areas.
The Hausas who were astute in tanning, dyeing, weaving, and metalworking were famous for wide-ranging itinerant trading. They were wealthy merchants who shared the highest social positions with the politically powerful and the highly educated.
The Ibos who also specialized in buying and selling of goods and perfected the entrepreneurial expertise in inventory control, management and distribution – which till today, has remained their prevalent way of entrepreneurship.
The Yorubas who were predominantly town dwellers who practised small-scale, domestic agriculture and were well known as traders and crafts people. For centuries, Yoruba artists produced masterpieces of woodcarving and bronze casting. Like the Ibos, their finished products were traded on as business ventures and enterprises.
Entrepreneurship is derived from the French word entreprendre which means to understand. Therefore, an entrepreneur can be described as a person seeking to understand activities concerned with identifying and exploiting business opportunities while assuming its attendant risks.
Then the colonial rule came and only a handful of Nigerians had the capacity to start a business in buying and selling and in trade generally. In this period, it was paramount to make use of banking sectors either to borrow money or save money from your business, and this opportunity was only given to a few people who settled in urban areas- the elites.
There was a great limitation to the number of people that could start a business and see it through because the banks were mostly interested in satisfying the colonial masters. Education was almost free and there were a lot of persuasive measures to discourage the people from their entrepreneurial desires. At that time, and even until now, a typical Nigerian entrepreneur was a self-made man or woman who had a strong will to succeed.
Then, on October 1st 1960, Nigeria was offered freedom. The people were granted the opportunity to reshape the country to soothe their personal interests. Having a knowledge of the value of entrepreneurship in economic development, the Nigerian government developed many funding programs to encourage entrepreneurial activities. In spite of this, there were many problems affecting the growth and development of enterprise in Nigeria.
Asides from the mindset the older educated generation now had of entrepreneurship, there were also weightier issues like inadequate power supply or the absolute lack of it and the issue of transportation from rural to the urban or the agricultural product market. There was also the lack of genuine support for those intending to start up a business and a lack of strong willed-power to take risks especially in a country that looked like it was designed to impede your success. Unfortunately, although entrepreneurship in Nigeria has evolved over time, the problems still remain. These issues were true then, they still are now.
In recent times, despite the odds, a few entrepreneurs who braved the risks, took their destiny in their hands, took the initiative to start off project ventures that tackled fundamental technological and physical challenges Nigerians faced. Along with these stemmed the same old problems such as lack of capital and inadequate access to loan scheme needed for expand, lack of security of lives and property, lack of managerial prowess and absence of the zeal to take risk, etc
Enterpreneurship is now fully a selfless alternative to employment and a subtle solution to graduate unemployment. Female entrepreneurs have also evolved in the years past. Women used to predominantly be petty traders, hair weavers and ‘market women’. Now, we have women running successful businesses that they started from scratch, leading joint partnerships, changing the world. Ofcourse, this is not without its challenges as women still struggle to be seen and acknowledged as able counterparts in male-dominated industries.
Over decades and possibly centuries, the growth of entrepreneurship has been both organic and forced. In 2021, we saw a couple of these companies raise funds to further fuel their desire for economical and technological advancement in the country and in the same breath, policies from the government rose that stifled the energy and will of these entrepreneurs.
Every week, a new tech company springs from the half-fertile, half-infertile ground that both breeds and kills the light in the eyes of entrepreneurs. The evolution of entrepreneurship in Nigeria sits on the backs of Nigerians who have walked through fire intentionally to enforce development on the country and her people despite the odds.