Business Leaders, Experts Chart Path to Economic Reforms

Funmi Ogundare

A seasoned scholar and Executive Secretary of the Institute of Entrepreneurs, Dr. Rotimi Oladele, has called on Nigerians to collaborate with the government in ensuring a positive policy marketing that will boost the economy.

Oladele who made this known at a roundtable, themed, “Economic Reform Agenda: Implication for Businesses and Strategic Response for Survival,” hosted by the Business Club Ikeja (BCI), in Lagos, explained that Nigerians need to make individual business strategies to tackle the situation.

“Nigerians need to ensure that they partner with the government, analyze the policies and how they are affected, as well as how they can benefit from it. Until individuals see the Nigerian economy as their own, the country will not go anywhere,” he stated, while commending the federal government over the fuel subsidy removal. 

At the roundtable, moderated by the Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Advanced and Professional Studies (CIAPS), Prof. Anthony Kila and Dr. Adesola Falaiye, a corporate law expert, spoke on, “Removal of Subsidy and its Impact on Business.”

Falaiye urged businessmen and women, as part of solutions to the subsidy removal, to adopt alternative measures to energy while doing business.

A Human Resources expert and Director, Human Capital Management, PKF Professional Services, Nkeiruka Nnamdi who spoke on ‘Zero Cost Intervention’,  urged business owners to be “empathic with their workers, be open to them so that they can have a feel of what the business is going through.”

In his remarks, the former Chairman Vitafoam Plc, Dr. Dele Makanjuola, urged Nigerian business leaders to study and emulate Asian and other expatriate leaders who are still making profits regardless of how harsh the economy is in the country.  

 The President of the Business Club Ikeja, Chief Tajudeen Akande stated that the economic roundtable, is part of efforts by BCI to help business leaders get together, develop relationships to share opportunities and find solutions to issues affecting all.