Rotary Club of Ota set to empower entrepreneurs, traders
By Owoleye Oluwakayode
According to a 2018 report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the unemployment rate in Nigeria surged to 23.1 per cent from 20.42 per cent in December 2017.
As part of its intervention, Rotary Club of Ota, District 9110 organized one day Economic Empowerment Summit for entrepreneurs and traders in Ota environs.
Speaking at the event to herald the summit, President, Rotary Club of Ota, Rotarian Wale Hassan said Rotary is a global network an organization kind of business and professional people united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical in all vocations and build goodwill and peace in the world. He also admonished the beneficiaries not to see the empowerment as joke but as a privilege to reduce unemployment and to become employers of labour.
Some of the facilitators at the event include Mr Phillip Olujobi (HCIB) Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Adurawest Investment Ltd and Rotarian Olatunji Taordi Alao, a seasoned banker.
In his keynote addressed, the guest speaker in person of Mr Phillip Olujobi (HCIB) described strategy as the road map from present to the future and strategy can also been seen as where we are, where we are going, who we are and who we want to be.
Olujobi furthered advice the beneficiaries to see themselves as entrepreneurs and has a entrepreneurs they should think big continuously, believe in themselves, welcome new ideas, try new things, have deliberate improvement plan, keep record and lastly embrace technology. Moreso, they can start small and always scale up creatively as they grow.
Speaking at the event, the second guest speaker in person of Rotarian Olatunji Taoridi Alao, a seasoned banker talked about Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises(MSMEs). He described (MSMEs) has bedrock of development of any economy.
Olatunji reiterated statistically MSMEs constitutes more than 75% of all enterprises in Nigeria. This is mainly due to ease in terms of set up capital and human resources required to establish on MSME. These reason together make MSMEs a veritable group for socio-economic development of any serious nation.
Furthermore described MSMEs in Nigeria are confronted with very unfavourable business environment, certain peculiar challenges have continued to militate against their optimal performance and some of the external challenges include; poor state of infrastructure, weak access to production inputs especially finance and high cost of doing business. He urged the beneficiaries to use the the grant judiciously.
Speaking on the event, Club Secretary Rotarian Olusola Oyeniran, said, “we want to identify with people of Ota and its environs, lift them out economy crises and turned them to employers of labours. And that is what we mean by the diverse nature and the fellowship that we grow in rotary.”
On his part, the club treasurer, Rotarian Charles Umukoro, said, “we want the beneficiaries to use the financial empowerment judiciously so that others or second batch of beneficiaries can also benefit from empowerment program.
