Nigerian economist and chairman of FIT Group of Companies, Chief Loretta Aniagolu, has explained why Nigerian youths should focus on job creation instead of job seeking.
She recently urged youths to stop complaining about the challenges in the country and look for ways to take advantage of the problems to generate wealth.
While speaking as one of the panelists at the inaugural edition of The Nigerian Hamilton Project: A National Dialogue Series on Development as Attitude, organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) in Enugu, Loretta revealed that the nation’s younger generation can be the catalyst for developing a new economic frontier for Nigeria, as long as they are willing vessels.
According to her, the earlier young Nigerians started transforming the country’s calamities into fortune, the better for the nation at large, and the transformation will only start once the youths begin to focus on empowering themselves to become employers rather than remain stuck in their job-seeking era.
Speaking at the event alongside policymakers, business leaders, and private sector players, Lauretta revealed that a young girl in Nigeria once kickstarted a pure water business in Enugu, and the idea came about after she constantly battled a lack of water in her neighbourhood for several years.
Lauretta said that the lady was smart enough to realise that if people could pay a lot of money to buy water in cans that was not even drinkable, then they would surely pay more to purchase water in sachets that is very safe to drink, if someone is innovative enough to create the business.
The economist added that while there are indeed lots of challenges to deal with as Nigerians on a daily basis, there are also lots of opportunities that can be positively exploited to secure major wealth, for those who are paying attention.
“Young people must stop spending time complaining about what is not being done right. Whatever that is not done right is an opportunity for you to take up the gauntlet and see how you can use it to your benefit.
I have tried to give examples of when some of us were starting up in the private sector. I used to read the newspapers and every time I saw negative news, I asked myself, how can I change this negative news into business.
I want to tell the story of a young lady that started pure water business in Enugu. Of course she has grown into bigger things now. Where she lived, there was no water and what she did was to figure out if they were paying too much money to access water from the water vendors in cans, which was not even drinkable. She decided to make the water drinkable and sell it. That’s how the word, pure water, came about. Then, I was an adviser to the government and she spoke to us and the rest was a story.
So, as much as there is difficulty in the country, there is a lot of opportunities for anyone who wants to see them
Unfortunately, a lot of young people don’t realize how much work they need to do to be able to get to these opportunities.
In Nigeria, everybody wants to eat, who’s going to do the work?
As much as there is disappointment on the part of leaders, you also have to task yourself. There is the Internet. The world is at your palm. There’s so much you can learn and work on. Young people need to use their creativity and God given talents to think out of the box. There is no job. But there is an opportunity everywhere,” she said.
