CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Nigeria is naturally endowed with entrepreneurship opportunities; but the belief of the total potential of those opportunities has been dampened by the adoption of inappropriate industrialization policies at different times. Many policy interventions that were geared towards stimulating entrepreneurship development via small and medium scale enterprises promotion, supported by  technology transfer strategy, have failed to achieve the desired goals as it led to the most indigenous entrepreneurs becoming distribution agents of imported products as opposed to building in-country entrepreneurial capacity for manufacturing, mechanized agriculture and expert services (Thaddeus, 2012). Entrepreneurship is one of the economic variables that attract the attention of governments and researchers both in the developed and developing countries in the last two decades. Several efforts and initiatives are being made by governments and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to promote entrepreneurship and contribute to the overall economic growth and development. Interests in the entrepreneurial development continue to be in the forefront of policy debates in the developing countries, especially Nigeria. Recently, private sector has dominated the entrepreneurial development policies globally. Baig (2013) opine that the non-public sector will contribute to economic growth, job creation, and national income and hence to national prosperity and competitiveness. According to her, the non-public sector contributes considerably to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and therefore unleashing domestic resources (financial and entrepreneurial) is probably going to form a more stable and sustainable pattern of growth. Entrepreneurship is a key factor in any economic activity. For a sector to be competitive and contribute effectively to sustain growth, it requires increased private investment. This development must result in an enhanced productivity to stimulate and to be proper; it must also generate employment opportunity. There can be no gain-saying that Nigeria has long recognized the importance and valuable contributions that small and medium enterprises (SMEs – often disaggregated into micro-enterprises and SMEs) as a major source of new competition can make to poverty alleviation, wealth creation, employment generation and private sector development. The SMEs, especially micro –enterprises have for long offered safety net for the survival of the poor, unemployed youths and women including the emergent “new poor”, this is as well as being the nursery-bed of entrepreneurship development in the nation. These SMEs have consistently served as a vehicle not only for the poor to raise their income but also acquiring and applying skills to raise productivity for indigenous (and may be multinational) private sector growth, providing better wage earning opportunities for the majority of the polity (70%) that are poor while raising our national income. It is for these reasons that successive Nigerian governments, since independence, have always tried to promote SME sector through a complementary range of fiscal, financial and advisory services. Entrepreneurship is the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. The wealth is formed by people who took the major risks in terms of equity, time and career commitment or provide value for some products or unique, however value must be infused by the entrepreneur by receiving and locating the mandatory skills and resources. Entrepreneurship is also the method of entering into managing your own business enterprise. Whereas entrepreneurs are individuals or persons, entrepreneurship is a process. At times the terms “entrepreneur” and “owner manager” are used interchangeably as if they mean the same thing because entrepreneurship is inextricably linked to small business management. Entrepreneurs are often both owners and employees and a considerable number of them are of them are small business owners or managers. Such people are risk takers, creative, innovative, independent, hardworking and posses other qualities that are driving force behind any entrepreneurial activities in the economy. These entrepreneurial activities significantly affect the economy of an area by building the economics of an area by building the economic base and providing jobs. The focus of this paper is therefore, to explore entrepreneurship development in Nigeria, to determine what the problems, issues militate against entrepreneurship development in Nigeria and proffer solutions to them.

1.2      STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Third world countries such as Nigeria is a richly endowed with abundant human and natural resources. The country is blessed with a variety of mineral deposits including petroleum, natural gas, uranium, tin, columbines, coal, precious metal, gemstone and a vast Agricultural farmlands. Entrepreneurs make a substantial contribution towards entrepreneurship development in Nigeria; however, the realization of these potential contributions has been flawed by a lot of challenges. Despite the potential contributions of entrepreneurs towards entrepreneurship development, entrepreneurship in Nigeria has continued to perform below expectation and hence the expected role entrepreneur will play towards Entrepreneurship development in Nigeria has been constrained by challenges entrepreneurs face in Nigeria such as harsh government regulations, gaining access to financial constraint, inability to acquire to information technology have been the cause of the failure of many entrepreneurship development in Nigeria. The study focuses on entrepreneurial development in Nigeria.

1.3AIMS OF THE STUDY

The major purpose of this study is to examine entrepreneurship development in Nigeria. Other general objectives of the study are:

1. To examine the extent of entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.

2. To examine critically the sources of these challenges to entrepreneurial development in Nigeria.

3. To examine the impact of entrepreneurship development on the economic growth of the country.

4. To examine the prospects of entrepreneurship development in the nation’s economy.

5. To examine the relationship between entrepreneurship development and economic growth of Nigeria.

6. To examine how to proffer solutions to these issues and problems that militates against entrepreneurship development in Nigerians.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. To what extent is the entrepreneurship development in Nigeria?

2. What are the challenges to entrepreneurial development in Nigeria?

3. What are the impacts of entrepreneurship development on the economic growth of the country?

4. What are the prospects of entrepreneurship development in the nation’s economy?

5. What is the relationship between entrepreneurship development and economic growth of Nigeria?

6. What are the solutions to these issues and problems that militate against entrepreneurship development in Nigeria?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

H01: There is no impact of entrepreneurship development on the economic growth of the country.

H02: There is no significant relationship between entrepreneurship development and economic growth of Nigeria.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study is significant in that it will help to identify the importance of entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.

·        This study is significant in the sense that it will:  Highlights the importance of entrepreneurship training and its impact on unemployment reduction in Nigeria. One of the SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) goals highlights education (training) as a critical factor to reducing poverty and dependency. 

·        Allow the identification of the concept and framework of entrepreneurship development and its contribution to Nigeria’s economy. 

·        Generate greater awareness among tertiary institutions on the importance of having proper and practical strategies for acquiring entrepreneurial skills.

·        Provide useful knowledge on factors that might have impact and contribute to the successful adoption of entrepreneurship training by all Nigerian youths.

·        This research work will further serve as a guide and provides insight for future research on the topic and related field for academia’s and policy makers who are willing to improve on it.

1.7SCOPE OF THE STUDY 

The study is based on entrepreneurship development in Nigeria, evidence from Kano state.

1.8 LIMITATION OF STUDY

Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Entrepreneurship: entrepreneurship could be described as an act of how, by whom and with what effect opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated and exploited (Scott and Venkataraman, 2012).

Entrepreneurial Development: This refers to every activities channelled towards creating and advancing the practice of entrepreneurship (Osemeke, 2012).