NIGERIAN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL REALITY AND FOUNDATION FOR NATIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (Published)
Nigeria, as an innovation or creative response, was the criterion of British entrepreneurship. Its objective was to obtain essential raw materials and slave labour urgently required for the resuscitation and survival of the British industrial system and farm plantations in Europe. These British entrepreneurs on national assignment came in contact with numerous desolate, isolated and marginal settlements locked up in wild forests or desert. Creative response was applied to this hopeless situation that had at least two essentials: (1) The said settlements could practically never be understood ‘ex ante’ as Nigeria, and (2) This creative response shaped the whole course of the said subsequent settlements and their long-run outcome as the nation-state of Nigeria. Nigeria offered Nigerians a strong base in large population, increased landmass, abundant natural resources etc and enviable opportunity to improve themselves through servicing and understudy. The colonial officers. Secondly, a fundamental national unity was rooted in the Nigeria’s Independence of 1960. This empowered Nigerians to cluster and face common challenges and opportunities and to network and jointly attain national objective. Instead, our tribal focus defined Nigeria as a warfront with constitutional protection rackets, institutionalizing corruption and incompetence. Unemployment and poverty became the twin faces of the economy. Our intangible wealth constitutes a negative 71 percent for Nigeria unlike Ghana with positive 80percent. The low literacy level is responsible for the low national human capital in Nigeria. This paper strongly recommends free compulsory and universal education at all levels including adult literacy programme for all Nigerians. This worked in all developed nations. The country’s manufacturing sector was compelled to depend on the importation of minerals that Nigeria has in abundance consequently, infrastructure at mine sites deteriorated due to neglect. Today it is empowering China with a literacy rate of 87.3 percent.
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Reality, National Economic Development, Nigeria