Why we’re planning to raise one million entrepreneurs in Nigeria – Omotola

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

Foremost entrepreneur, Lai Omotola has unveiled plans to raise one million entrepreneurs through a programme, tagged: “Think Entrepreneurship Training,” with the sole aim of radically transforming the Nigerian economy in the next decade.

Omotola, who is the Chancellor of E-Boot Camp Limited, the body driving the Think Entrepreneurship Training said the solution to the country’s problems did not depend 100 percent on the person who becomes the president in 2019.

Speaking at an interaction with newsmen at the weekend in Maryland area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, Omotola stated that only entrepreneurs could pilot Nigeria to becoming the world’s fifth largest economy by 2038.

“This is the target of the think entrepreneurship training programme we are introducing to get one million people to commence entrepreneurship and in the next decade produce businesses that are in billions turnover.

“We will demystify entrepreneurship. We will also make it friendly. At E-Boot Camp, our belief is that if we can positively change the mindset of the Nigerian entrepreneurs, then we can build the most robust economy.

“With the potentials we have in our country, if we are able to liberate the entrepreneurial spirit in this country, then in the next two decades, Nigeria should be the world’s fifth largest economy in the world,” he said.

According to Omotola, big economies all over the world had always been propelled by private sector led by entrepreneurs, arguing that it was entrepreneurs that built economy and not government.

He said what the government normally do was to create policies that would be pro-business and not anti-business.

Omotola, who is also the Group Managing Director, CFL Group, added that it was entrepreneurs who built America, citing the roles such entrepreneurs as John Davidson, Rockefeller Snr, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt played in building the economy of the world’s most powerful country.

According to him, these were men who used innovation to build America and not the American government, saying that the US Government only partnered them to make it successful.

“Therefore, Nigeria can’t be different and over the years, we have seen entrepreneurs rise to the occasion and also seen entrepreneurs fall at the loudest ovation. We see the impact of Dangote to the economy and just recently, he stated that when he completes his refinery, it will be 23 billion dollars bigger than the Nigerian budget.

“The government awaits the completion of the same refinery to end fuel importation.  He said he has paid over N250 billion in taxes and will be N1.2 trillion in the next 5 years. You can imagine what this country will look like if we have 100 persons like Dangote,” he said.

Omotola explained that he initiated the programme after due consideration and in-dept study of Nigeria’s socio-economic situation, which showed that the solution “to our problems does not depend 100 percent on the person that becomes the president in 2019.”

He noted that whoever “becomes the president in 2019 will have greater challenges ahead. The next four years will not bring us out of the woods regardless of the person that occupies the seat. This is the bitter truth.”

Omotola further explained how he arrived at this conclusion, citing the country’s 2018 appropriation bill that had not been passed into law; its huge debt stock that would cost N1.2 trillion to service it in this year alone and a recurrent expenditure amounting to about 70 percent of the total proposed spending.

“We have a budget of about N8 trillion. Out of this proposed spending, N1.2 trillion will be used to service debt, about 70 percent will go into recurrent expenditure and less than 25 percent will go into to capital project.

“When we look at the budget performance of capital project, it is less than 50 percent. The budget has not been passed even in May. So, let assume that the budget is passed by the end of May. We have entered the raining season. For the next five months, it will rain and there is little contractors can do till October if climate change does not make it worse.

“Construction work will commence in October. By December, construction companies will go on holiday. By implication, we only have two months for construction work. For me, this suggests that the 2018 budget on the side of capital project has failed even before it is signed.

“We all know that we need massive infrastructure development to leap this economy and sadly this will continue to be the routine for a very long time. Besides, the Federal Government will continue to be burdened by labour union for increment in wages across all sector of the economy,” he stated.

Omotola said there was no sign that two-thirds of states owing salaries would clear all backlog in the next four years even as additional arrears continued to pile up, lamenting that this scenario suggested that the solution was for government to improve on revenue and borrow more which was what this government was doing.