Nigeria Businesses Need Reform Paradigm

In order to fulfill Nigeria’s potential of stimulating economic prosperity, a reformulation of the nation’s business paradigm both theoretically and experimentally must be achieved, says Ayodele Ibrahim Shittu.

 Shittu, an expert in entrepreneurship and business innovation economics, who lectures in the Department of Economics, University of Lagos, whilst delivering the lead paper titled, “Transforming business and economy through innovation” during the Worldstage Economic Summit 2017, explained that commitment, consistency, and sincerity of purpose on the part of the business and political leaders and followers are required to transform Nigeria’s business environment for greatness and prosperity, thenationonline reported.

According to him, Nigeria’s business environment is yearning for innovation in order to fulfill its potential of stimulating economic prosperity. In view of this, Shittu noted that as a nation, “we must promote collaborative relationships between the university and our industries”.

He said, “We must focus on specific economic sectors, promote knowledge-sharing between the enterprises in both formal and the informal sectors, put in place physical centers such as business incubators, accelerators, etc, encourage innovative supply of infrastructure and utilities, as well as prioritize innovative financing options to both existing and new businesses.”

His paper which assessed Nigeria’s business environment on the basis of three indicators (ease of doing business, business confidence, and capacity utilization), revealed that Nigeria’s performance on the ease of doing business over the last eight years which depicts an increasing trend, implies a woeful performance between 2008 and 2016, where Nigeria ranked 169th position among 190 economies around the world.

According to him, this consistent diminishing in ranking was considered embarrassing to all as a nation, and as such, nudged the federal government in its wisdom to set up the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council to supervise the competitiveness and investment climate agenda at both federal and state levels in the country.

On Nigeria business confidence index, Shittu stated that there is a glooming perception of the business environment among leading firms in selected sectors of the Nigerian economy.

“Since the first quarter of the 2016 FY through the second quarter of the 2017 FY, we have witnessed negative perceptions of business activities in the country. While the level of pessimism is declining, common constraining factors cited among the firms surveyed include financial barriers, unfavorable political climate, competition, and insufficient local demand.”