CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In order to understand the impact placed upon the promotion and the development of the economic growth of Nigeria, it is first important to understand the concept of entrepreneurship. For an entrepreneurship to be most appropriate to the people in the Nation, it is important to bear in mind the skills that will be needed to improve the quality of life for individuals and to sustain healthy economy and environment.

Entrepreneurship activities and new firm formations are unquestionably considered to be the engines of economic growth and innovation such as, entrepreneurs among the ultimate determinant of the large regional difference in economic performance.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship monitor Report (2012), about 70% of an area in Nigerian economic performance is dependent upon how entrepreneurial the area is.

This in turn creates jobs and economic value to a region and at the same time, it keeps scarce resource within the country. Entrepreneurship is therefore known to be phenomenon that continues to excite the imagination of students interested in entering careers in which they must adopt to rapidly changing environments. Also the inventors looking for ways to commercialize their discoveries should also see entrepreneurship as the phenomenon. And same thing applicable to the CEOs of large firms seeking to remain competitive in a global market place. Since the early 1980s when entrepreneurship was identified as the driver of economic growth, both the term and the field of study were rapidly evolved.

According to Allen (2011), entrepreneurship is not  a unique domain of any country, gender, race, age, or any socio-economic sector, it can be found in some formed in any country, in every age group and (increasingly) in women as often as in men.

The entrepreneurial fever thus distinguished between the rich and the poor, in fact, it touches anyone who has the passion and the vision to work for himself, anyone who is determined to be independent and to take charge of his life. The mindset of an entrepreneur can be understood and practiced and the skills and behaviour of an entrepreneur can be learned and applied. The only characteristic of an entrepreneur that is arguably intrinsic is passion, or they drive to achieve something. Passion cannot be though or practiced. It simply exists when the right element comes together.

According to Allen, (2011), entrepreneurship is known as the mindset or ways of thinking. That is opportunity focused, innovative and growth oriented.      

He (Allen, 2011) also state that;

Entrepreneurs are those who recognize opportunities, gather the resources that are being required to act on the opportunity and drive the opportunity to completion.

At its core, entrepreneurship is about a new entry into new establishment market and exploiting new or existing product and services. However, the main objective of entrepreneurship in any given country is to reduce poverty, create wealth and jobs opportunities, promote and develop the economic growth of the nation and enhance new product and services.

According to Anyanwu in (Abasiakama) 2012, Entrepreneurship is the capacity and attitude of a person or group of persons to undertake ventures with the probability of success or failure.

This means that entrepreneurship demands that the individual should be prepared to assume reasonable degree of risks in addition to being highly innovative. It is general assertion that a well developed entrepreneur such as Aliko Dangote holds the key to the economic development and growth of any nation in which Nigeria is not an exception. How to create impact on the nation’s economy through entrepreneurs has been the topic of many seminars and conferences, it basically a recognize fact that a nation’s economy may sometimes not increase without a competence and an able entrepreneurship characteristics such as innovation, risk taking, perseverance. In the nation and sometimes social development because it determined the standard of living of the citizen and the Nations viability.

According to Abasiakama, (2012), he says that entrepreneurship is presently seen as the most effective method for bringing innovations to the market place. Individuals or groups create new enterprises and brings new product and services to the market they helps in broadening the economy based on creating jobs.

Employment creation and the boosting of income opportunity are some of Nigerians top challenges today. Although the promotion and the development of the economic growth and also creating employment opportunities in Nigeria actually depend on the investment decision of a private sector made up by mainly entrepreneurs. And also with these, entrepreneurship participation must form the basic element in any strategy to reduce unemployment and poverty affecting the Nigerian economy. Initially, the growth of business in Nigeria was delayed when compared to the growth in business activities in Asia and most of the European and the American Countries, some of the factors that  was responsible for the poor business growth in Nigeria where; lack of enough capital as well as  low savings and inadequate mean of transport and communications.

But now in Nigeria, some entrepreneurs ventures into logistics, telecommunications operations, running of micro-finance Banks so that they can boost the nations’ economy with the development of modern techniques. Efficient means of communications and transportations, insurance and the development of financial institutions so to help promote and develop the growth of the Nigerian economy. In conclusion, the best approach in promoting and developing economic growth of Nigeria rests predominantly between the governments that are responsible for providing environment for business to thrive. On one hand and on the other hand on the entrepreneurs who must play the game (production) according to the rules in order to ensure full development of the economic growth. This simply means that the researcher aims to look at the method and procedure on how the entrepreneurs can promotes and develop the economic growth of Akwa Ibom State.

One should not forget that without stable entrepreneurs and their activities in the state the economy will not be able to grow, but instead there will tend to be a high cost of living because of the people in the state. So government should place more support to entrepreneurs by providing more industries, stable power supply and securities.

1.2     STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS

It is a general assertion that a well developed entrepreneur holds the key to the economic development of any nation. It is also a recognize fact that the Nation’s economy may sometimes not increase without a competence and able entrepreneurs and their activities and characteristics such as perseverance, risk-taking, innovation etc in the nation. So the researcher seeks to explain some of the basic problems that confront the nation’s entrepreneurs on their cost of making the nation economically viable. Some of those problems are:

• Logistic Problems: This is when there is poor road transportation system which may be caused by soil topography, road excavation, flood, and there may be a delay in delivery i.e. inadequate delivery services.
• Shortage in Supply: This is when there is an interrupted supply which may be caused by raw material shortage.
• Social, Religious, Political Problems: Disagreement between religious groups, boundary disputes between states, community etc and disagreement between political parties can cause a disruption and a low turnover among the distributors which may lead to an ineffective service.
• Inadequate Management Ability: Lack of management ability manifest in improper planning, lack of skills to take records of the Business transactions, which result in high rate of theft difficulty in pinpointing who is at fault.
• Government Policy: This is when there is high taxation from the government and also policy on the importation of foreign goods and lending interest rate when this happen, the organization will need to invest more money, which will negatively affect the organization and it may also lead to an inflation in the

1.3     PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The Akwa Ibom State economy is characterized by escalating prices of raw materials and finished goods like; high cost of purchasing.