Nwamaka Okoye

Nwamaka Nwobi Okoye is a Nigerian interior architect, author, and social entrepreneur. Quotes Nigeria has a lot of vibrant entrepreneurs; I think we are one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the world. About 40 per cent of women in Nigeria have some kind of entrepreneurial endeavours. There is a lot going on; there are a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurs in Nigeria, although there are lots of challenges too. So, the entrepreneurial space is very exciting; you really have to be strong as an individual to engage in it, and I see entrepreneurs as the ones who will be the change makers for Nigeria and move us into the next level to be a dominant part of the global economy in the future. I believe the first one will be access to capital. There is a dearth of access to capital for entrepreneurs and this makes it very difficult for businesses to grow. Many of the small businesses fail after a very short period, not because of the quality of ideas, but the finance to bridge the gap – to go from the small business to medium or larger-scale business – is difficult to access. The interest rates for the banks are so high as well as the requirement of collateral. Also, the fact that the trust index in Nigeria is really low, which also makes access to capital difficult because even if you didn’t have money, you may get credit from your supplier but even to do that, everybody wants to know who is going to give who cash first. So, we are still cash-based. As a result, it becomes really difficult to grow. That will be one of the biggest challenges, the lack of access to credit or sufficient credit. And when you get it, the interest rate is too high. Another one is the difficulty of doing business. I know the government has done a lot in recent times to improve the ease of doing business, but we are still 145th on the Ease of Doing Business Index; so we still have a long way to go. I know they are working on it, but we that are on ground know how difficult it can be to just navigate the space. Issues of multiple taxation, and I’m not even sure who is meant to tax you and who is not meant to tax you; lack of enforcement of the law, making it difficult to toe a straight path. External Links