By Akin Samuel KAYODE.
Nigeria has never lacked entrepreneurial spirit. From the roadside trader to the technology founder, from the artisan in the workshop to the manufacturer in the industrial estate, Nigerians have demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to create something from almost nothing. Across the country, people wake up every day determined to earn a living, employ others and build businesses that can support their families. The tragedy is that too many Nigerian entrepreneurs are no longer building businesses; they are struggling simply to keep them alive.
This is one of the consequences of the economic environment Nigerians have experienced under the Bola Tinubu administration. Rising operating costs, expensive transportation, difficult access to finance, unstable input prices and weakened consumer purchasing power have created a particularly harsh environment for small and medium sized businesses. The entrepreneur who should be thinking about expansion is instead thinking about survival.
A small business is especially vulnerable because it rarely possesses the financial cushion of a large corporation. When electricity becomes more expensive, the small manufacturer feels it immediately. When transportation costs rise, the trader absorbs it. When the price of raw materials increases, the artisan pays more to produce. When customers have less disposable income, the business sells less. The pressure does not remain in one part of the economy; it travels from the business owner to the worker and eventually to the consumer.
This creates a dangerous economic cycle. Businesses reduce production because demand is weak. They postpone expansion because financing is expensive. They employ fewer workers because operating costs are rising. Some eventually close altogether. Each closure represents more than one failed enterprise; it means lost income, lost employment, lost tax revenue and lost confidence in the possibility of building a future through enterprise.
Government cannot build a prosperous economy while the people who create businesses are being pushed towards mere survival. The private sector is not an enemy of economic development; it is one of its greatest engines. Every successful Nigerian business has the potential to create jobs, develop skills, pay taxes, support suppliers and generate wealth within communities.
This is where the Tinubu administration deserves serious scrutiny. Economic reform should create an environment in which productive businesses can adjust, invest and grow. But if the cost of doing business rises faster than productivity and access to affordable capital remains difficult, government must ask whether its policies are creating the conditions for enterprise to flourish or merely asking entrepreneurs to endure.
Nigeria needs a business environment where an entrepreneur can reasonably plan beyond tomorrow. Taxation should be predictable. Regulations should be clear. Government agencies should reduce unnecessary bureaucratic burdens. Electricity and transportation costs should become more manageable. Ports should work efficiently. Access to credit should be expanded for productive businesses. An entrepreneur should spend more time building a business than navigating avoidable obstacles.
This is where Atiku Abubakar’s economic alternative deserves serious consideration. Atiku’s emphasis on private sector development, investment, infrastructure and economic diversification offers a framework for moving Nigeria from an economy where businesses struggle to survive to one where businesses can scale. The objective should be clear: make it easier to produce, easier to invest, easier to employ and easier to grow.
That requires affordable and accessible financing. Many Nigerian entrepreneurs have viable ideas but lack the capital required to expand them. A serious Atiku administration should strengthen mechanisms that connect MSMEs to productive credit, development finance, investment capital and appropriate financial instruments. Credit should not be a privilege available only to large corporations with substantial collateral.
Infrastructure is equally important. A business forced to generate its own electricity, absorb high transportation costs and endure inefficient logistics begins with a competitive disadvantage before it sells its first product. Government therefore has a responsibility to provide the infrastructure that allows private enterprise to compete.
Taxation also deserves a new philosophy. Government needs revenue, but taxation should not become so complicated or unpredictable that it discourages formalisation and expansion. The objective should be to broaden the tax base through economic growth, not simply squeeze more revenue from the same struggling businesses.
Nigeria must also recognise the importance of small businesses outside the major cities. The trader in a local market, the farmer processing agricultural products, the mechanic, tailor, carpenter, food producer and digital entrepreneur are all participants in the national economy. Their businesses may be small individually, but collectively they represent millions of livelihoods and an enormous reservoir of economic potential.
Atiku’s economic alternative should therefore place entrepreneurship at the centre of national development. Government should not merely celebrate entrepreneurs in speeches; it should build systems that allow them to succeed. Good roads, reliable electricity, affordable finance, digital infrastructure, efficient ports, predictable taxation and stable policies are all forms of economic support for the Nigerian entrepreneur.
There is also a critical connection between entrepreneurship and employment. Government cannot employ every Nigerian. No sustainable economy can depend on public payrolls as the primary solution to unemployment. The private sector must become capable of absorbing millions of young Nigerians into productive employment. That requires businesses that are expanding rather than contracting.
Young Nigerians should therefore be encouraged not only to search for jobs but also to create them. But entrepreneurship cannot be reduced to motivational speeches. You cannot tell a young person to become an entrepreneur and then deny that entrepreneur access to affordable finance, electricity, infrastructure and functioning markets.
This is why economic policy must move from rhetoric to ecosystem building. A technology startup needs digital infrastructure and investment. A manufacturer needs power, machinery, finance and logistics. A farmer needs inputs, storage and access to markets. A retailer needs purchasing power among consumers. Each business requires a different combination of support, but all require one thing from government: an environment in which effort has a reasonable chance of producing reward.
The broader objective should be to build an economy in which businesses can move from micro to small, small to medium and medium to large. That progression creates jobs, strengthens supply chains and increases domestic production. It also expands the tax base naturally because a growing economy produces more taxable activity.
This is the kind of economic transformation Atiku should place before Nigerians in 2027. Not a government that sees entrepreneurs merely as taxpayers, but one that sees them as partners in national development. Not a system that waits for businesses to succeed despite government, but an economic environment deliberately designed to help productive businesses succeed.
Nigeria’s entrepreneurs do not need government to run their businesses for them. They need government to remove the obstacles that prevent them from running those businesses effectively.
The choice before Nigerians is therefore bigger than who can announce the next economic policy. It is about whether Nigeria will continue to make entrepreneurship an exhausting struggle or create an economy in which enterprise can become a reliable pathway to prosperity.
Atiku’s alternative should be clear: support production, unlock finance, improve infrastructure, simplify taxation, reduce bureaucratic obstacles, attract investment and allow private enterprise to become one of the strongest engines of Nigerian growth.
Because when Nigerian businesses grow, Nigerians get jobs.
When Nigerians get jobs, households gain income.
When households gain income, demand grows.
When demand grows, businesses expand.
And when businesses expand, the economy grows from the bottom up.
Nigeria does not need to suppress the entrepreneurial spirit of its people.
It needs leadership capable of setting that spirit free.
Akin Samuel KAYODE.
Member, The Narrative Force.
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