The Executive Secretary of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote, has charged Nigerian youths beat adverse situations by creating business and job opportunities rather than complaining.
Engr. Wabote posed the challenge in Lagos while delivering a keynote address during a Webinar series held recently organized by the Junior Chambers International, JCI, Nigeria Senate Association Leadership Excellence for National Development, LEND.
The NCDMB boss who spoke on the topic “Leadership, Youth, Entrepreneurship & Regional Cooperation – A National Perspective,” said that it would be better if youths should channel their anger against challenges in the country to innovative solutions and enterprises that would address such problems.
According to him, youths should “Feel free to complain bitterly about any situation you don’t like, but also put on your thinking cap to make money out of it in a legitimate way.”
Engr. Wabote said that “Whether it is the nuisance of mosquitoes, the disgust you feel when you see heaps of refuse or pot-holes on our streets or developing a car-pooling app to decongest the road of too many vehicles, I encourage you to see every challenge or problem as an opportunity to wear your entrepreneurship cap to help humankind in your own little way and also prosper while solving the problem.”
He further advised youths to pursue their passions rather than joining crowds that complain about everything without proffering any solution as such attitude will only drag them into depression.
He maintained that for any society to avoid falling into decline, the mantle of leadership and entrepreneurship should fall on the youths from time to time, as “It is the ideas and energy of the youth that enables us to do some amazing things today such as being able to connect with someone in the other end of the globe within seconds.”
Engr. Wabote who also emphasized on leadership argued that everyone in the society needed to cultivate leadership qualities to succeed in different endeavors of life. He stressed that one did not need to be a political leader or a senior government official to demonstrate leadership qualities.
He therefore listed some of the attributes that would position a leader to achieve successful outcomes to include integrity, self-awareness, skilled communication, effective delegation, learning agility, shared vision and empathy.
The NCDMB boss noted that the population of Nigerian youths which is estimated to be over 55 percent of the entire over 200 million populations is an indication that the teeming youth population underscored the need for most government policies to be centered on youths as they are the largest demographic group among the entire population of the country.
On this background, he charged the government and other groups like the JCI, Boys Scout, the Rotaract, amongst others, to develop new strategies that would keep a large number of Nigerian youths engaged in useful activities and attract them into their fold.
Engr. Wabote also pointed out that entrepreneurs, especially the small and medium scale enterprises are the driving force of all thriving economies across the world.
According to him, 96 percent of all businesses in Nigeria are owned by SMEs and they are responsible for 84 percent of employment rate in Nigeria and contribute 48 percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP.
He maintained that the business environment in Nigeria is free and fertile for entrepreneurs and therefore called on youths to conceptualize business ideas that would thrive in the country’s economic ecosystem.
By Sunday Elom N
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