By Moses Nosike
Nkiru Asika, CEO Enterprise Creative, in this interview with Saturday Vanguard Business, explains what it takes to be successful in the creative sector. She also advises on what can be done to reduce high rate of unemployment in Nigeria. Excerpts:

Enterprise Creative, was it a sold product to you or your vision made real?
Enterprise Creative is my God-given vision. It’s the cumulation of everything I believe in and experiences I have acquired over my working years. I have always been in the creative field.

I have been in Journalism, TV production, Music, Event, PR, Publishing. And I have always had the passion to develop people. Therefore Enterprise Creative is a vision that is borne out of my experiences, nature and interests.

Who are your target audience?
Basically, Enterprise Creative aims at serving existing and aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals in the creative industries, such as Music, TV, Film, Radio, Publishing Advertising, Digital etc.
It seems you don’t like working for people but prefer doing your own things…

I’m quite an independent person. I’m certainly an independent thinker, and I’m not afraid of taking risks. Also, I have a lot of what I want to transform into reality. I have not found the one job that can give me the ability to express myself in the way I would wish.

So, when you want to build a career, what are the major things you should consider?
You put it correctly – building a career as opposed to getting a job. I have interviewed people that say, I want to come and work for you, and I asked them why do you want to work for me?’ They will reply, ‘I need a job or I have nothing doing right now.’

There is a difference between getting a job or looking for a job, and trying to build a career. You have to look at building a career in terms of short, medium and long terms because if you don’t have any plan as to where you want to go to within that career you probably are not going to get there.

You have to position yourself for the future, and also understudy others that are doing well in your chosen career. Invest in yourself as much as possible in terms of training and upgrade your skills. Seek out people that can help you and open yourself to new experiences, don’t be too narrow in your focus.
Does Enterprise Creative impact anything to our youths and ?

Enterprise Creative will play a sort of supporting role to those who want to build their creative careers and businesses. We aim to be a resource organisation where you can get information, access people that can help you and whatever you need that will take your creative career or business to the next level.
One of the challenges in the economy today is unemployment, do you think this challenge of unemployment can be solved?

Unemployment can never be solved completely anywhere in the world. There is no country that doesn’t have some level of unemployment. But obviously, we have levels that are unacceptably high. I believe there some measures that can be taken to tackle the challenge of unemployment in the country. We can start with education.

I don’t think people are being educated for the job market. I have said in the past that it seems as if young Nigerians are being educated for the mid-19th century, as opposed to the 21st century. As someone in the creative industry, I think the creative sector needs to take a keener interest in what is happening to our education and begin to look for ways to bring positive impact to education.

After all, it is the tool of the creative economy: media and technology, that are shaping many of the changes in the world and influencing the way people interact and learn.

Secondly, Nigerians need to quit this attitude that everybody must be a professional, everybody must go to university, everybody must get a degree. There are many occupations that don’t require a 4 or 5 year degree programme. We marginalize people who don’t go to university, yet we can’t employ all the people that went to university.

So what is the point? It’s important to instill pride and professionalism in other fields:tradesmen, artisans, technicians, craftsmen. We also need to encourage and support entrepreneurship because as more people are self-employed, as more people are empowered to start new businesses, they too will become employers of labour.

Would you say govt is still creating jobs?
I want to commend this government for taking the issue of unemployment seriously and looking at it from a more innovative view point than previously seen. Last month, I was invited to a summit organised by the Ministry of Finance, on “ Growth and Employment”.

In that summit, they looked at 6 key areas in the economy which they felt will provide growth and employment for the Nigerian economy.

They identified Entertainment, Leather, Tourism, Meat, Construction and ICT as the 6 key sectors that would drive growth and employment for Nigeria.

Stakeholders from various industries deliberated and then presented a communiqué to the Minister of Finance and the National Economic Management Team, outlining the ways in which we want Government to help poor industries. I was the facilitator and sector leader for the Entertainment group.

With your experience in the creative field, what is your advice to beginners that want to venture into the industry?

First and foremost, you have to be sure of yourself, because there will be a million people out there telling you why what you want to do will not work. Be your own cheerleader.

Secondly, find people who can be a source of support to you – financially,morally and intellectually. Immerse yourself in your field and work hard to be the best you can. And keep striving to improve, never be content with where you are.
How was your growing-up?

I had a wonderful childhood. I was blessed to be born into a loving and privileged family, to parents that had good values and who believed in you developing yourself as an individual.

My parents were not the type that pushed you to follow any path, rather they encouraged us to nurture our talents and follow our hearts.