By Chikwekwem Uchechukwu
The President of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Dr, Nike Akande, has advised President Mohammadu Buhari to shift attention to small and medium enterprises in other to save the nation from the hardship it is facing.
This was stated yesterday at a workshop entitled “Repositioning SMEs as non-oil Export Solution to the Plunge in Petro-dollar: The Nigerian Experience,” which was organized by Small and Medium Enterprises group of LCCI.
According to Akande, the country needs small investors as the situation of the country is becoming unbearable. She also argued that supporting the SMEs will help in providing jobs for the people.
“Considering the dwindling rate of business and naira in the country, the government needs to empower and support small investors. There are investors in other industry especially in agriculture. This will help in reposition the economy which will be in line with the idea of diversification policy of the federal government,” Akande stated.
Buttressing Akande’s view, the Managing Director of Oracle Nigeria, Adebayo Sanni, who was the guest speaker, said that the government is not making absolute investment in human capital and is not focusing on SMEs. Adding that the investors on their part have to leverage the use of technology to be valuable to the economy
“in recession times like this, SMEs work in hand with the technology. if infused together, it will provide countless opportunity for the SMEs and improve the economy of the country. the government needs to make absolute investment in human capital in recession situations like our own. The government is not focusing on SMEs as it should be doing,” Sanni stated.
In the same vein, the chairman of the SMEs group, Jon Tudy Kachukwu, expressed that the economy needs more of human capital development and this can only be achieved through SMEs development.
He added that the economy has forced some of the small investors to pack up but the ones surviving are likely to follow suit if government does not come to their aid.
“we organized this event to encourage our colleagues. We want them to know that there are ways they can survive this recession and that they should know that they are the last hope the country has, which means, if they fail, we all will fail,” Kachukwu stated.