Nigerians need conducive environment for business to succeed – Osinbajo

Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice President of Nigeria has urged relevant ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to assist in creating a conducive environment in order to help businesses succeed in the country.

He said this on Monday in his statement at the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) clinics stakeholders review meeting at the presidential villa, Abuja.

“Everybody knows that Nigerians are enterprising. Practically every Nigerian has some kind of business, as they say, some hustle or some other things that they are doing,” stated the vice president. “People need the right environment, and that is what our role is, to ensure that we understand that it is to facilitate and make it easier, not to become a stumbling block or a tollgate.”

“This is a country where people want and desire to work; the constraints are what we have to address; this would be dealt with by human beings and not spirits,” he said.

Osibanjo added that our creativity and innovation must be first and foremost to remove the obstacles, that is what will solve Nigeria’s problems, implementation of the grand policies that we have and it depends on us.

He stated that it takes some young Nigerians three years to register their businesses meanwhile it takes six weeks in some African countries.

“If you get food and drugs administration registration anywhere else, you can be in a Nigerian supermarket… and they come and compete with our own people here. This is happening in every respect, even with exports,” he said.

The head of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Bank of Industry (BOI) and Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), attended the meeting.