ABSTRACT

Entrepreneurial development is a major factor towards ensuring that a country experience growth in terms of employment and self-dependability. Entrepreneurial development has also led to employment generation, growth of the economy and sustainable development. Entrepreneurship is supposed to be a bail out for economic stagnation with reference to creating job opportunities, this is , combating unemployment in an economy .Objective of this study is to know whether or not entrepreneurial development is truly a strategic tool towards enhancing Nigeria economy and also how it has affected the economic growth using idumota Market in lagos as a case study.

The use of drafted questionnaire was used to testing hypothesis and discussion of findings .For dis study 70(100%) questionnaire was distributed, but was able to retrieve 65 (93%). Which is still valid.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Over the years, it has being proven from other research work and in developed countries that Entrepreneurial development is a major factor toward ensuring that a country experience growth in terms of employment and self-dependability. Economic displacement is one of the external forces that influence the development of entrepreneurship (kuratko, 2009). This is why Alam and Hossan (2003) see entrepreneurship as playing a key role in the process of economic development through creation of employment, increasing investment and consumption in a nation. In similar vein, Chigunta (2001) notes that entrepreneurship has been receiving increasing recognition as a source of job creation, empowerment for the unemployed and economic dynamism in a rapidly globalizing world. Also in the word of Garavan and O'Cinneide (1994) in their contributions maintain that entrepreneurship is often used for developing enterprising people and inculcating an attitude of self-reliance using appropriate learning processes. In Nigeria before the advent of colonial government, unemployment was a rare phenomenon because the people were highly entrepreneurial and productively engaged in subsistence jobs and farming. This entrepreneurial engagement is prevalent in Yoruba land of western Nigeria, Hausa land of the northern Nigeria, and among the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria.

It is on record that Yoruba and Hausa ethnic groups are great entrepreneurs in pre and post independent Nigeria. The Igbo ethnic group particularly is recognized internationally for its 12

culture of entrepreneurship and enterprise development (Dana, 1995). This is why Ananaba (1969) asserts:

“The economy of the various states which make-up modern Nigeria was basically a subsistence economy and customs had established the practice that people serve their parents, village heads and the community without remuneration. On a given day, people went and work for a particular individual1. Through economy the higher would be the poverty level and associated welfare challenges.

Entrepreneurial development has also led to employment generation, growth of the economy and sustainable development. The current number of colleges and universities offering small business management and entrepreneurship development programme has grown from one university in 1947 to over 1600 in the 1990s (Solomon and Fernald, 1991; Solomon et al, 1994; Solomon, et al, 2002).

White and Kenyon (2000) also found a „flourishing youth enterprise culture‟ in the United Kingdom among young entrepreneurs aged 18-24 years. In Zambia, it was show that 25% of the youth are self-employed (Chigunta, 2001). Most of these young people, especially younger youth, tend to be concentrated in marginal trading and service activities. Findings in Ghana of small scale enterprises reveal that young people owned almost 40 percent of the enterprises (Osei, Baah-Nuakoh, Tutu, and Sowa,1993).

Similarly, research in South Africa suggests that the probability of self-employment among young people rises with age (Chigunta, 2001). When Nigerians especially unemployed youth are mentored and provided the needed resources and enabling environment for business start-ups, they will economically be engaged thereby shunning the illegal acts of hostage-taking, kidnapping, bombing and vandalism and homelessness.

According to Groves (1997), in Nickels, McHugh, and McHugh (1999), job-creating power of entrepreneurs can be worked at of some great American entrepreneurs from Du Point in 1802 to Avon in 1886 and Bill Gates to Ted Turners in the recent times and also in Nigeria we have the likes of Alico Dangote, Mike Adenuga, Jimoh Ibrahim etc who have stood out over the years as a result of entrepreneurial spirit in them as they started small but today they are people that everyone wants to reckon with and not just in Nigeria but all over the world.

Small and Medium Scale Enterprises often owned by entrepreneurs are sub-sectors of the industrial sector which play crucial roles in industrial development (Ahmed 2006). Also, following the adoption of Economic reform programme in Nigeria in 1981, there have been several decisions to switch from capital intensive and large scale industrial projects which was based on the philosophy of import development to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises which have better prospects for developing domestic economy, thereby generating the required goods and services that will propel the economy of Nigeria towards development.

It is based on this premise that Ojo (2009), argued that one of the responses to the challenges of development in developing countries particularly, in Nigeria, is the encouragement of entrepreneurial development scheme. Despite the abundant natural resources, the country still finds it very difficult to discover her developmental bearing since independence. Quality and adequate infrastructural provision has remained a night-mare, the real sector among others have witnessed downward performance while unemployment rate is on the increase. Most of the poor and unemployed Nigerians in order to better their lots have resorted to the establishment of their own businesses. Consequently, Entrepreneurship is fast becoming a household name in Nigeria.

This is as a result of the fact that the so called white collar jobs that people clamors for are no longer there. Even, the touted sectors (Banks and companies) known to be the largest employer

of labour are on the down-turn following the consolidation crisis and fraudulent practices of the high and mighty in the banking sector which saw to it that banks like Oceanic, Intercontinental, Fin-bank cease to exist.

Since the office jobs that people desire are no longer there for the teeming population, and the few ones that succeeded in getting the jobs are thrown out as a result of the factors identified above, the need for the government and the people to have a rethink on the way-out of this mess became imperative. Hence, the need for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) became a reality as a means of ensuring self-independent, employment creation, import substitution, effective and efficient utilization of local raw materials, reducing rural urban migration and contribution to the economic development of our dear nation (Nigeria).

According to Emmanuel, Oni and Daniya (2012) benefits of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises cannot be achieved without the direct intervention of the government and financial institutions and this is why over the years a number of policies have been formulated by the government with a view to developing Small and Medium Scale Enterprises. For example, the Nigerian government under the then leadership of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo promulgated micro-finance policy and other regulatory and supervisory frame work in 2005 and this was done in order to see to it that small and medium scale business enterprise strive.

1.2. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Entrepreneurship is supposed to be a bail out for economic stagnation with reference to creating job opportunities that is, combating unemployment in an economy. But Nigeria as a country is still faced with increasing unemployment rate in the sense that most of its graduate are without job and this propel the researcher to find out what the challenge is despite the effort of the government towards ensuring that hiding skills are discovered.

In view of the above problem, this study is intended to critically appraise and analyse the operating environment and circumstances of SMEs in Nigeria with a view to actually identifying why they (SMEs) are not playing the vibrant and vital roles in the Nigerian economy as they (SMEs) does in other economies such as USA, India, South Africa which has so many similarities with Nigeria in terms of population and other demographic variables.

1.3. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

1.3.1. GENERAL OBJECTIVE

To know whether or not entrepreneurial development is truly a strategic tool towards enhancing Nigeria economy and also how it has affected the economic growth using Idumota Market in Lagos as case study.

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