Elumelu urges government to encourage entrepreneurs

Worried by the alarming rate of unemployment in Nigeria, Chairman of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Group, Tony Elumelu, has urged government at all levels to create an enabling environment in ensuring the transformative growth of entrepreneurship in the nation and across the African continent.

Speaking at the inaugural distinguished lecture series of the Lagos State University (LASU), titled: “Entrepreneurship: The Challenges and opportunities for Nigeria’s future leaders”, in Lagos, Elumelu listed tips to becoming a successful entrepreneur to include discipline, hard work and enormous sacrifices.

The UBA chairman, who urged would-be entrepreneurs to display high level of integrity, foresight, prudence, humility, resilience and largely have the knack to identify opportunities, noted that failure is part of life and if they don’t get it right, they should not be deterred and should continue striving till they get it right.

He advised his audience to have good management skills to be successful. “You will not be successful entrepreneurs if you don’t know how to manage people. Your vision, focus and ability to execute will help your business grow”.

Also talking on tips to becoming successful entrepreneurs, he urged them to be disciplined, make sacrifices, work hard, and even harder. Be positive about the future, embrace entrepreneurship and develop yourselves as leaders, as the continent is in dire need of it, he said.urging all and sundry to join hands in making the UBA initiative a reality.

The university’s Chancellor, Adesola Oguntade, described the event as a deliberate effort by the university’s management to forge harmonious relationship between the gown and town and an opportunity to renew contact, as this would help the growth of the institution.

“The topic is of great essence at this point. The choice of the speaker by the management is commendable. He is the right choice and is capable of leading a great and robust debate”.

The chief host, Professor Lanre Fagbohun, stated that his message was very simple and clear. He promised the state government that they would prepare the students for global competition and urged Elumelu make LASU as one of your hubs in Africa”.

While promising that he would contribute his quota to ensure that the students have a better future, he asked them to read biographies of achievers.

He said that the seed planted through the UBA intervention would help develop Nigeria and Africa.The UBA Group chairman, who advised entrepreneurs to learn how to manage people as investors and players in key sectors of the economy, also urged them to make good use of any opportunity that comes their way and succeed with it. He urged Nigerians to patronise Made-in-Nigeria products and advised producers to improve on the quality of their products so as to encourage excellence.

“Partnership signed with Caleb University on its three post graduate programmes, Masters in Finance, Masters in Business Administration and Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Journalism will produce Nigerians for academics and the industry”, he said.

He remarked that the linkage agreements would ensure the placement of students from Caleb University on a better pedestal in securing jobs upon graduation.Ajibola added: “Students, being the future leaders of any nation, are the target of CIBN towards producing a more informed group of Nigerians in learning and character for the banking industry.”

The agreement also signals the commencement of activities towards making Caleb University students enjoy automatic exemption from certain subjects upon graduation to become Associate Members of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (ACIB).

Central to the success of the agreement is the registration of Caleb University as members of CIBN and this will confer waivers in subjects for Caleb University graduates, to obtain ACIB.Ajibola commended the Management of Caleb University for its commitment towards making sure the agreement is achieve to the benefits of the students.

Furthermore, the CIBN President stated that the ACIB Banking and Finance Linkage Programme would improve the quality of those that would be graduating from Caleb University.Also a Dean in the university, he affirmed that the MoU would also increase the depth of knowledge of students and improve the quality of those teaching the course, as the institute will work closely with the school to implement the linkage.

The Vice Chancellor of the university Prof Ayandiji Aina remarked that the partnership would help project the image of the University in terms of the students’ readiness to be certified to work in the banking sector, also journalist who apply for the post graduate diploma programme on financial reporting.

“The signing of the MoU is symbolic in a number of ways, especially when one considers that some years back, one of the captains of the banking industry did pronounce that ‘Nigerian graduates are unemployable.

“We are determined to sustain the relationship with CIBN to extend the frontier of knowledge that will add to the intellectual base of the industry,” he said.