Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria: A Review

Abstract

Empirical researchers and policy makers have shown increasing interest in entrepreneurship and its association with economic development. In the literature, a good number of studies have established positive relationship between entrepreneurship and employment generation, poverty alleviation and economic development. It is for this reason that various governments in Nigeria over the past three decades implemented a number of policies and programmes aimed at addressing the high rate of unemployment, wide-spread poverty and low level of economic development. Unfortunately, the various policies and programmes have failed to achieve the desired results. This paper attempts to identify the causal factors that militate against the effectiveness of government efforts at entrepreneurship development. Major government programmes are examined to identify inherent weaknesses. Supported by empirical and theoretical literature, this paper asserts that the treatment of all small businesses as entrepreneurial constrains the development of entrepreneurship in Nigeria and in other developing economies, as policies and programmes are implemented across the board. It canvasses a distinctive categorization to distinguish entrepreneurial firms from non-entrepreneurial small businesses and the development and implementation of policies and strategies that are suitable for each class of small businesses. While all small businesses need support, entrepreneurial firms need higher level of support to enable them play their catalytic role in employment generation and economic development. Other group of challenges identified by empirical studies, which militate against the development of small businesses, entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial, should be properly addressed. These include environmental hazards, infrastructural inadequacies, high level of insecurity and the incidence of wide-spread corruption.