A Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Federal University Lokoja (FUL), Prof. John Olatunji Alabi, says Nigeria does not lack entrepreneurs but the systems to help businesses survive, grow and create wider economic value.
Prof. Alabi, who is Director Centre for Entrepreneurship Studies and Head of the Department of Business Administration, stated this while delivering the University’s 46th Inaugural Lecture titled “Entrepreneurial Leadership through Entrepreneurial Education and Empowerment: Building an Entrepreneurial Economy in a VUCA World.”
He said economic transformation required more than producing entrepreneurs, noting that Nigeria needs entrepreneurial leaders who can spot opportunities, mobilise resources, create value and sustain enterprises in an unpredictable environment.
Prof. Alabi listed youth unemployment, weak links between industry and academia, reliance on the public sector, low survival rates among small businesses and skills mismatch as the main obstacles to entrepreneurial growth.
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He therefore urged all stakeholders to build a system connecting education, empowerment, innovation and enterprise development, stressing the need for government to provide enabling policies.
While calling on Universities to produce innovative graduates and move beyond transmitting knowledge to driving innovation and enterprise, Prof. Alabi stated that Industry must become an active partner.
He advised Financial institution to support the growth of enterprises, urging Entrepreneurs to embrace continuous learning, resilience, ethical leadership and technological adaptation.
The University Don also called for stronger links between academic programmes and innovation hubs, incubation centres, industry experience, digital skills and practical venture development.
Prof. Alabi presented what he called the Alabi Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Framework which casts entrepreneurial leadership as the catalyst, education and empowerment as the process, and an entrepreneurial economy as the outcome.
He urged stakeholders to prepare for a future shaped by rapid change rather than wait for opportunities, saying they must “educate for innovation, empower for enterprise and lead for transformation.”
In his remarks earlier, the Vice Chancellor of FUL, Prof. Gbenga Solomon Ibileye, said the lecture’s title rightly placed entrepreneurship within leadership, education and the economy rather than treating it as just another course.
He said the true measure of entrepreneurship education was what students could do with their knowledge beyond the classroom, and asked what the approach should change in the university’s curriculum and practice.
The Vice Chancellor also distinguished between merely surviving hard economic times and deliberately creating and sustaining enterprise. He said young people must move beyond enduring uncertainty to organising opportunities and building lasting ventures.
He commended Alabi for bringing leadership, education and empowerment together and welcomed the professor’s family and friends to the event.
