By Moses Nosike & Akoma Chinweoke

It is a known fact that if Nigeria must achieve  full economic recovery , key infrastructure, hitherto neglected, must be provided to bring back  investors confidence

Larry

In this interview with Saturday Vanguard Business, Larry C. Fejokwu, founder of the African Entrepreneurship Empowerment Institute, Washington , speaks on why those saddled with the responsibility of tendering the Nigerian economy must come up with a more pragmatic and people-oriented programmes to  reduce the level of poverty in the country.

The long years of neglect have forced the country’s youths into counter productive activities. How in your view can the trend be tackled?
Well, basically if as a nation you fail to plan for your socio-economic development then you have planned to fail.

Therefore, it is not surprising that  the enormity of crime has quadrupled in the last ten years because in the year 2000 , Nigeria had the best opportunity in the world to strengthen her economy, but behold, it was eight years of frivolity and lack of serious disciplined economic policies. We saw  the deterioration in the economy as there was no impact of the heavy oil income on the populace.

The youths automatically became restive and that led to counter productive activities. To address these crisis, government needs to declare a  state of emergency in employment and security .

We can decide to employ one million youths in a particular sector and then strategically provide the resources to go ahead and implement such a policy which would include training that would empower the youths in various areas. America is the greatest country in the world today because 60 percent of its economy is powered by SMEs and there is a fantastic provision for  every SME in terms of support, training and empowerment.

Once you have your talent , the American dream is there  for you.  There is so much obsession to money in Nigeria because the government have not provided for the people.  The so called MDGs are making little impact but given the enormity of the problem, it is inconsequential.

So, without a determined effort on the part of government to provide specific policies, we would remain where we are. If we begin to harness our resources and experts from all over the world, Nigeria could be transformed in five years time as long as we provide the enabling environment for them to come back and work. We need a new vision, good policy, leadership and sound philosophy to show where we are going  and before you know it, it would begin to grip into the system and the people would key into it.

What is the  VEEP initiative  about and how is it going to help change the situation ?
Well, the inspiration came from America where I have spent some time now . Also when I read through the volumes of pioneer entrepreneurs, I discovered that  persistence, resilience and environmental support are very crucial for one to succeed in any business endeavor.

Malaysia for  less than a decade has become the world largest producer of palm oil and it is today earning more money from it than we earn from oil, yet it was what they borrowed from us.

So, we have discovered that  millions of youths  who are subjecting themselves to pranks, needs government help. You can’t just establish a system of running the government where 70 percent of all the resources would be used to maintain the leaders at the expense of the masses.

So, we have been able to connect with some entrepreneurs in the USA to assist Nigerian youths. This is why we have created a programme  christened   Visionary Entrepreneurship Empowerment Programme, VEEP, a model of American entrepreneurship. It involves how resources can be mobilized by youths to become what they want to be . The ICEPS  is a revolutionary aspect of it and these two programs are aimed at  mobilizing, motivating and maximizing youth talents.

Many of our youths are still very confused on what to do to start earning a living. So, we need to start the process of mobilization, training and orientation as everybody regardless of the challenges of life and have a vision of where we want to be. All you need  is a little bit of push and direction. We are already working with some US entrepreneurs to introduce support scheme in Nigeria whereby we would work with  Universities to train the youths.

The key to America’s greatness is knowledge -based entrepreneurship. Whether you are a mechanic, you must know how to do it right so that you can afford to get support from the bank. This new revolution we are trying to introduce would enable youths who have gone through the training to be well guided with support and resources to start up something. The entrepreneurship sector  is the way to go in the modern world.

So, we are going to be involved  in empowering the unemployed graduates and undergraduates. We are also going to be involved in facilitating the establishment of SMEs across board with supports from our friends and collaborators in USA.

More importantly, we are going to set up entrepreneurship clubs in the universities and sensitize the political leaders on how they can with very little support play their constitutional role of assisting these youths to stand up. The US project team in America would be using the Ovic system which is specially developed for Africa called the online industrial innovation and production centre .

It would be an a world class  entrepreneurship program developed and managed from US, so everybody who is a participant would access it and would receive on-line support and management and at the end of the day, the person would be certified with an entrepreneurship certificate which would enable  him receive support to source funding to set up his choice of  business.

Despite its backwardness, many still see the Nigerian economy as one capable of  ruling the world economy by the 21st century. Do you see that dream becoming a reality?

Definitely, we have been using political singsong to tell the world where we are aspiring to be. Yes , it is a good aspiration. Sure, Nigeria has everything under the sun to become what she should have been but it has not only failed to utilize her potential and resources but has floundered even the so called development plans.

The country was blessed by the first oil boom and what did we see, no plan , no spiritual discipline, no love for humanity, therefore the enormous resources God gave to us to rehabilitate, reconstruct and reconcile were wasted away under  the military regime.

There was also the influence of the super powers who saw our stupidity,  stepped in to create more confusion. We saw how the few strategic activities initiated   to stamp corruption out of the public service and restore discipline  were cut short by the military regime. The huge  resources we earn from oil, were either syphoned outside the country or half goes to corruption leaving the people to remain prostrates.

Ajeokuta which is one of the biggest steel plant in the world till toady is still a controversial industry. In the early 79-80, in the era of River Basin Authority, Northern Nigeria was the largest producer of groundnut and it was self sustaining . The various regions of the country were virtually self sustaining and have their outputs in England with a focused developmental model. Eastern Nigeria was an agricultural economy with great scientists.

There after, we have not been able to achieve anything call it the green revolution. Every so called political sing song revolution has failed .The green revolution of OBJ failed because it was not well thought out  We have consistently failed to manage our resources and policies have not been properly implemented.

There has been complete lack of humanism. Policies are aimed at serving the interest of the elites and not  the masses and therefore, it is not surprising that  the larger population particularly the youth is languishing in poverty.

So, given the background of where we are coming from, how on earth can we in the next ten years emerge one of the top world economies when we have the worst roads across the whole federation? How are we going to become a major power in 2020 when the resources are declining. The only income we are earning now  to sustain ourselves is  from oil and much of the income is used to service the bureaucracy (big government). Recently in America, Obama signed a bill for 30billion dollars to support the SMEs .

Policies are created to solve problem, you target a race, the youth population is about 50 percent and given the fact that all the universities turn out  thousands of graduate every year, look at the contradiction, all the industries in the last ten years has virtually collapsed. .

The small and medium enterprises and even the big ones are not functional . So, what miracle in ten years are we going to perform to fix our light, roads, create good governance and policies that would attract  investors ?
Filename: Fejokwu