PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES OF SETTING UP SMALL SCALE BUSINESSES IN NIGERIA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
It is a well-known fact that for every economy to thrive, much emphasis needs to
be placed on the establishment of small businesses and the funding of the already existing ones. Aside its importance to the economy, it is a sound way of reducing unemployment in Nigeria. Every big business starts as a small business, and it started with an entrepreneur (small business), who at first, earns little or no profit. It was the new ideas of small business that brought most big business empires that create multiple jobs for our teeming youths today in Nigeria. Untried ideas become annulations that become concepts that changed the business world. Small business is the basis for the economic back bone of many developed nations.
Entrepreneurship is simply what makes a small business grow. Entrepreneurship occurs when an individual develops
a new venture, a new approach to an old business or idea, or a unique way of giving the market place a product or
service by using resources in a new way under conditions of risk. Small business triumphs and entrepreneurship are
closely related to it. It is difficult to separate them. The unemployment situation in the country coupled with the new
government instinctive towards easing social tensions among unemployed youths, through the programmed of the
National Directorate of Employment (NDE), were intended to lure a lot of unemployed Nigerians, including graduates
into self-determination through self-employment. Graduates and school leavers are now realizing that government
and the established private companies are not ready to come to their aid directly, through paid employment due to the
dividing state of the economy. Government has been playing appreciative role in promoting the survival and growth of
small-scale enterprise in recognition of them flexible and adaptive nature as well as their re-generative power in
promoting economic growth and development. Government also encourages people to establish their own small
scale businesses so as to reduce the problem of unemployment in the country and also reduce the problem of
importation of goods, more so, to encourage exportation. Government in believing that a dynamic and growing small
manufacturing sub-sector can contribute significantly to the implementation of a wide range development effectives,
has thus enunciated various policies to encourage their proliferation and make them veritable engines of growth and development.
1.2 Statement of the problem
It has long been established that small scale businesses or enterprises is an economic booster but setting up this
small or medium scale businesses has been an issue in Nigeria since most of the small businesses that have been
established has either been stalled or have closed down completely. The lack of growth of small businesses in Nigeria
even when some of these businesses have been well funded has been a cause for serious concern as it has made many small business owners job seekers again.
1.3 Objectives of the study
The following would be our aims /objectives of embarking on this study
- The examine the challenges of setting up small businesses in Nigeria.
- To examine the prospects of setting up successful small businesses in Nigeria.
- To study the importance of setting up small scale businesses in Nigeria.
1.4 Research questions - What are the challenges of setting up small businesses in Nigeria?
- What are the prospects of setting up successful small businesses in Nigeria?
- Are most small businesses established in Nigeria successful?
- What is the importance of setting up small businesses in Nigeria?
PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES OF SETTING UP SMALL SCALE BUSINESSES IN NIGERIA