Nigeria: Boys are not smiling

Hi guys. I have been scarce and the reason is captured in the title above.

I was at a seminar recently on a panel session talking about how capital is not really the main challenge in starting a business (and it is not, I still insist). Anyways, some man from the audience almost got on the stage to beat me up, I am exaggerating a bit though, but he was very angry, Lol! Of course, I am not that insensitive, we are all in this Nigeria together, so I can understand the frustration.

Over time, I have come to realize that entrepreneurship is not for everybody, to be honest. As much as we promote entrepreneurship and glamorize it, it is not a walk in the park anywhere in the world, not to talk of Nigeria… hmmm! I have recently decided; we cannot continue to have these entrepreneurship conversations, without tackling issues of the environment we operate in.

Let’s face it; the operating environment of a business affects its success either positively or negatively. You can have all the grand ideas and be resilient as ever; if the environment stifles you, you can’t sustain it. This is not to say that nobody can be successful in a hostile environment, after all some billionaires of the world today emerged during the greatest recessions and some others in the midst of war.  Besides, as I type this, someone is just dedicating a new house or cruising a brand new car from legit business, in this same Nigeria (They should come and tell me how o, lol).

I am not a politician, but I can see that things are indeed rough right now in Nigeria. What makes it worse is, we don’t even know what the plans are to alleviate the struggle, if any. Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot be pushing people to go into entrepreneurship, without at least doing something to address these issues.  Every little drop counts.

This is why I was excited to see the vision and mission of the column, an editorial aimed at drawing out solutions to our country’s challenges. As part of her launch activities, the COLUMN is calling for entries from Nigerians to identify what our greatest challenges are and proffer solutions on how to address them, one challenge at a time.

We have too many brilliant Nigerians (I know a lot), for us to be struggling for air like this! Haba!

Someone reached out to me when I posted the release yesterday and said, Sade don’t you think religion should be on this list.

What do you think?