By Dayo Adesulu

Heritage Bank has called on the nation’s teeming population of undergraduate and post-graduate students to embrace the global shift towards entrepreneurship as a means of generating employment and wealth, instead of perpetually looking for non-existent employment after graduation.

According to the Bank, the unfolding global economic challenges, with its attendant dwindling revenues and fiscal realignment, have continued to force governments and businesses to tighten their belts while both the public and private sectors continue to witness more job losses, thereby widening the unemployment market and reducing regular employment opportunities for new graduates.

While representing the Bank’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ifie Sekibo at the 2014/2015 Orientation programme organised by the University of Lagos for its incoming postgraduate students, Group Head, SME Banking, Bayo Ogunnusi noted that the growing global rate of youth unemployment has made it imperative for individuals to creatively and pro-actively seek new skills and other legitimate wealth generation initiatives in order to achieve happiness and personal fulfilment.

“In spite of the global economic challenges, every individual has the potential to be great in life. However, identifying and developing such potential by searching out and resolutely embarking on a profitable enterprise is the responsibility of such individuals,” Ogunnusi counselled. He added that Heritage Bank would always be readily available to offer support and partnership for any and all entrepreneurship ideas aimed at creating, preserving and transferring wealth, especially among youths who are the pivot of the country’s economic and socio-political future.

According to him, “Heritage Bank is a brand committed to delivering distinctive financial services, building on the legacy of innovation and partnership to create, preserve and transfer wealth across generations. Therefore, the Bank is totally committed to supporting young individuals who would like to start their own small businesses and painstakingly nurture such.

As an innovation-driven business, our doors are always open to young people with new ideas, fresh thinking and nuggets of opportunities that need a little push to be developed into economic giants.” The 2014/2015 Unilag Postgraduate Orientation Programme with the theme Unemployment in the 21st Century: Prospects for Creating Wealth, was held at the University’s Main Auditorium.