Matilda Orhewere: The Future Of New Businesses In Nigeria

The trend these days is that people get blamed for trusting people they have never done business with before especially when the business fails. The generation of people who did business on the basis of trust is fast fading. Sadly there is no replacement because the young people of these days have time and again given reason for people not to trust them.

They have not given a good account of themselves in that they have not shown that they place any value in decency and honour. Too many loans and transactions involving young people go bad and for these reasons, most banks and other financial institutions express reservation in doing business with young people. this is not good for business because for the few honourable ones, they are made to go through so many huddles in business and most banks out rightly refuse to do business with them.

Young Nigerians should be worried that after some time, the ‘old hands’ that have been providing cover for them in their quest for bank loans will no longer be there for them so who will be left to help new businesses in Nigeria? It is looking like what obtains in India where it is almost impossible for new businesses and entrepreneurs to enter the business world.

Creation and sustenance of new business depends on financial assistance or support in the form of loans. If banks continue and the rate they are presently going, future businesses in Nigeria may have difficulty in securing bank loans. Banks may want to justify the stringent conditions that loan seekers are compelled to fulfill before they are given loans by the fact that a lot of young Nigerian business people have shown lack of integrity in business relationships.

Securing loans in a place like Dubai where people value integrity is not as cumbersome and as mysterious as what obtains in Nigeria. The probability of securing approval for a bank loan can be predicted by one’s portfolio with the bank and status in the country but it is not the case in Nigeria. There are no known standards or guidelines for accessing one’s likelihood of receiving the approval of a loan.

It is essential that young Nigerians review their value system and consider the urgent need to develop their character as a means of ensuring a good future. It is very wrong for young people to be keen on wealth acquisition and having a taste for the good things of life while not laying the proper foundation on which to establish their claim to wealth.

It is very touching to see how easily young people secure loans in UAE and an African nation like Ghana. And one wonders why Nigerian young people refuse to develop values that will help build business that will be properly structured and positioned to outlive the founder.

GOD bless Nigeria.

By Matilda Elizabeth E. Orhewere

3 Comments

1. 

   ore

   October 15, 2012 at 2:09 pm

   this is a great write-up…
   aimed at development of values in youth
2. 

   oscarfrank

   October 15, 2012 at 10:13 pm

   It is really point of correction to us the young. Also banks should relax some of their demands too.
3. 

   john Jones

   October 26, 2012 at 7:30 pm

   when their parents have stolen wealth, how can they have imbibed any values to gradual wealth creation. Kids in university, wanting to drive luxury cars and popp champagne……….such is the level of decay in the psyche of the average Nigerian youth. The cancer only gets worse.