Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has explained why the Federal Government of Nigeria has decided to establish the Entrepreneurship Bank.
Prof. Osinbajo who spoke at the National Youth Entrepreneurship Empowerment Summit held in Abuja on Thursday said the government intends to empower Nigerians.
He explained that setting up an Entrepreneurship Bank is one of the key ways by which the government can directly finance entrepreneurship.
“I understand that today, 10 of you will be walking away from this Summit with N1 million each, courtesy of the Federal Government of Nigeria and 12 months Personal Mentorship Programme courtesy of the Tony Elumelu Foundation.
“Another 10 will win 12 months Mentorship Programme (bringing the total to 20 mentorships).
“The truth is that a lot of these initiatives are not on scale. We have several initiatives and several thousands have benefitted but to make the kind of impact that we want to make we simply have to do something that can deal with hundreds of thousands of people as opposed to a few thousands.
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“And that is the reason why in the next four years it is our intention to take a more active look at how to scale up the interventions of the Federal Government, which is why we are setting up an Entrepreneurship Bank which is one of the key ways by which we can directly finance entrepreneurship.
“At the moment a lot of entrepreneurship activities are built around the CBN or the BOI and several other banks, but we think that we need to devote a whole financial institution to look at how to develop entrepreneurship and how to encourage small and medium size enterprises.”
He added that, “We are also grateful to the Jimi Tewe Company, for the line-up of great young Nigerians who have excelled in various businesses and that have poured themselves without holding back into you all, for the growth of our nation.
“So also Eventti Planners for the coordination and logistics of pulling this off.”
