LCCI provides mentors to 60 young entrepreneurs
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has provided experienced business mentors to 60 young entrepreneurs who are passing through training via the chamber’s Business Education Services and Training (BEST) unit.
“We had earlier accredited and selected 75 young entrepreneurs for the current 2017 mentoring programme. Of this number, 60 dynamic young individuals have emerged after meeting our programme’s eligibility criteria for being matched with selected mentors,” said Soboma Ajumogobia, chairman of the BEST board of the LCCI, at the ‘Matching of Mentees with Mentors’ programme held in Lagos.
The LCCI mentoring programme started in 2013 with a view to raising a generation of well-trained, dynamic and young entrepreneurs well equipped to confront ever-changing challenges in business.
By November this year, the mentees will graduate as the fifth batch of entrepreneurs from LCCI’s mentoring programme.
“Our journey towards building a critical mass of globally competitive Nigerian entrepreneurs has been both chequered and eventful,” Ajumogobia recalled.
He said mentees had attended personal development workshops and a series of business training modules, stressing that they were being matched with mentors for the practical aspects of the programme which would last for eight weeks.
Nigeria has demography of 182 million and over 50 percent of this population are below 30 years. The population grows at 3.6 percent annually while youth unemployment is over 40 percent.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former coordinating minister of the economy, estimated in 2014 that 1.8 millions Nigerians enter the job market each year.
Nike Akande, president of the LCCI, said focusing on the mentoring initiative on the youth was a means of investing in their future, thereby guaranteeing better prospects for them and the country.
“The LCCI mentoring programme is a corporate social responsibility of the Lagos Chamber aimed at contributing to the development of our youths and making them job creators, while supporting their families and the nation,” Akande said.
She stated that the chamber was committed to continuous engagement with government to promote the creation of conducive business environment to ensure business sustainability.
“An empowered private sector is better positioned to create the needed jobs for our teeming unemployed youths,” she said.
Vincent Nwani, director of research and advocacy at the LCCI, told the mentees that anybody raring to be competitive in the international market must first be competitive at the local market.
“You need network. Punctuality is important but network is more critical,” Nwani said.
Toki Mabogunje, vice president of the LCCI, advised the young entrepreneurs to make the best use of the opportunity to grow their businesses.
Some of the appointed mentors included Obiorah Madu, Jon Tudy Kachikwu, Gabriel Idahosa, Gbenga Ismail, Abiodun Oladapo, Remi Babalola and Judama Adejola, among others.
ODINAKA ANUDU