Alake urges govt to promote SMEs, as Egba mark Lisabi Day

THE Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo has called on government at all levels to give priority attention to the promotion of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs)

He said the promotion of SMEs would help the nation’s economy to recover from its present bad state, and reduce the high level of unemployment threatening the survival of the country

He said, “Failure of the country’s economy is due to the collapse of the SMEs”.

Speaking during a press conference he addressed to highlight activities lined up to mark this year’s “Lisabi Day”, the Alake disclosed that the theme of this year’s celebration is “Creating Wealth Through Small and Medium Enterprises”

He reasoned that development of SMEs would go a long way to reduce the rising number of unemployed youths in the country.

The annual festival, is celebrated to honour Lisabi, a most distinguished war hero of the Egba people

He suggested that training centres to train artisans, such as mechanics, carpenters, tailors and welders among others should be set up by the government at all levels to train interested youths who would in turn use the skill acquired to establish their own business.

Oba Gbadebo affirmed, “The Small and Medium Enterprises employ far more people than government can ever imagine. This year we want everybody to be aware of the potential in them, if you ask somebody why are you not setting up your own business and the person say I have no capital, we wont take that because the capital is in your brain and that is your capital so this one week we want to emphasise this to our people in Egbaland and beyond. The way out of Nigeria’s economic woes is entrepreneurship”.

He disclosed that one of the achievements of the Lisabi Day celebration, which began 30 years ago, was that it had not only brought Egba tradition and culture to the fore but had also popularised them. The festival is sponsored by Globacom Mobile Network.