Volunteerism to Entrepreneurship: Addressing Start-Up Fund Paucity in Nigeria

Credit: Infoprations Analysis, 2018

As part of its efforts towards unemployment reduction and equipping unemployed Nigerian graduates with the employable skills, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari established N-Power programme. In two years, the programme has provided jobs for 500,000 recent Nigerian graduates. Available information has equally shown that 10 million youths would be trained by 2023. 

The beneficiaries are expected to secure employment after the programme or establish businesses. Infoprations has earlier reported the good and bad of the programme. In 2017, there was 88.2% assurance that Nigerian government could retain Npower volunteers. This has reduced to 12.2% this year.

We are Ready, But…

However, Infoprations’ check of the official social media page of the programme reveals volunteers has been asked to state what they would do after the programme. Analysis shows volunteers who responded to the question prefer being entrepreneurs to seeking jobs in private and public establishments. Most of the volunteers believed that being entrepreneurs and employers remain not an issue because they have acquired necessary skills and knowledge. The critical issue is securing the needed capital. 

Start-up Fund Paucity:A Perennial Issue

The current position of the volunteers aligns with the previous issues on accessing start-up capital by prospective entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Government efforts at unlocking access to finance for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises through banks and concerned agencies have not achieved desired impact. 

A recent study indicates the rejection rate of loan applications by commercial banks was greater than 50% for some and as high as 90% for others. The high lending rate has equally been discovered to discourage Small and Medium Scale Enterprises from borrowing.

Based on the existing insights, Infoprations doubts the realization of the Npower volunteers’ readiness to transit to entrepreneurship. Already, analysis has shown that Nigerians’ interest in seeking jobs was high than venturing into entrepreneurship from January 7th to 10th October, 2018. This indicates that concerned stakeholders need to address factors impeding access to capital in the country.