Naira Bet founder urges youths to embrace entrepreneurship as career

Founder of Naira Bet and member of the House of Representatives, Akin Alabi, has urged youths in the country to embrace entrepreneurship, saying doing so would enable them survive the current economic hardship and become potential employers of labour.

Alabi said youths should have a new orientation by focusing on how to be self- employed, instead of wasting precious time searching for scarce office jobs after graduation.

He spoke at the NYSC Orientation Camp in Ede during a three-day Business Boot Camp organised for about 720 selected youths in Osun State by his colleague in the House, Bamidele Salam, representing Ede/Egbedore/Ejigbo Federal Constituency, to impart business skills in graduates.

Alabi said youths should seize the opportunity of the liberal business climate in Nigeria to develop and launch themselves into the business world.

Alabi, citing his experience, said contrary to insinuations that Nigeria is a difficult place to set up businesses, the country remains one of the easiest to do business in the world and one of the few countries where anyone could wake up and start a business without regularisation and payment of tax at the formative stage of the business.

He said: “Here, we have people who started their businesses in front of their parents’ houses without government disturbing them and maybe when you have grown, you can then be approached to come for regularisation and payment of tax.”

Salam said a country as populated as Nigeria can only thrive if attention is focused on small and medium enterprises, adding that through this, many youths would be profitably engaged and provide employment for others in society.

He explained that the programme was in line with his campaign promises to use his position to take youths away from the streets, adding that the initiative was put place to change the orientation of youths regarding employment.

He stated: “We are going to enlighten them on how to run a business successfully. The event is in batches and those who have good business ideas would be provided business seed.

“We opened an online portal for them, where over 1,500 people registered and online test was done and we selected 720 participants who have been divided into three. Forty successful participants would be selected from each batch. The next batch will start in April.

“After the camp, they will be handed over to a consulting firm for mentorship. The best 120 participants will be given a grant of N10million over a period of two years and be exposed to opportunity for loans to expand their business.”