THE ROLES OF SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIES IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
It is an undisputable fact that Nigeria of the pre-independence era was predominately small scale in its productions and marketing activities. Industrial revolution brought about a shift from the orthodox trade by barter to a more
sophisticated marketing system where consumers satisfaction becomes the ultimate goal of the most businesses.Thus small scale business becomes the next option since they stood a better chance of offering a more personal relationship with customers as well as socio economic satisfactions of societal needs.
Unfortunately the over concentration on the oil sector which Nigeria hoped will boost economic growth led to the negligence of the small scale industries until
economic depression set in during the oil boom period. This and other factors led to the quest for private participation in the various economic sectors through the Small Scale Industries especially in the present civilian government where the Industrial Development Centres (IDCS ) have embarked upon a loan scheme for small business to enhance their contribution to national economic development. The question now is, will small scale contributes to national economic development? One might wonder if this will be realistic, but it is quite
obvious that Nigeria as a country developing very slow due to economic dependency of the country. It therefore becomes apparent that the way out of the problem lies within Nigeria. What are found in Nigeria are basically the
large scale operations which have given the most contributions to the economy of the developed nations across the globe. One would therefore questioned the backwardness of small scale business to government negligence of the
small industries. Nevertheless the immense contributions of small scale industries in terms of increased industrial output job creation, improvement of standard of livening and general economic development has reawakened government interest and support on these small scale industries.
THE ROLES OF SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIES IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA