The African Association for Small & Medium Enterprises (AASME) has established a Knowledge Hub (K-Hub) in Aba, the commercial city of Abia State, in a bid to make entrepreneurship the bedrock of the Nigerian economy, starting from Eastern Nigeria.
Fixed together with the Peace Building project, AASME Knowledge Hub vowed to ensure that the business environment will be hostile-free and favourable for all those willing to compete and develop the economy of the area further.
The Knowledge Hub is projected to be an academic institute for trade in Africa to the world. It will be capturing, sharing and exchanging development experience with national and international partners to accelerate the development of and around Micro Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSME).
The President General/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AASME, Ambassador Darlington Onuoha said that the Knowledge Hub, consisting of organizations, universities, research, institutions, Non-governmental Organization (NGO) and firms that are working successfully to create new knowledge, drive innovation, and build networks.
He said that the knowledge Hub will also accommodate localities with high interest and external networking and knowledge-sharing capabilities and provides cutting-edge knowledge of MSMEs, emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem, humane entrepreneurship and other relevant topics.
Onuoha said Knowledge Hub will also serve as an access point to the best industry resource training and current realities of MSMEs and that is why AASME encourages everyone to be a participant, partner, and sponsor as it begins the move to offer certification, training, research that concerns business development of MSMEs.
Speaking during the first inauguration of the governing council board of the AASME Knowledge Hub and Peace Building Projects in Aba, Onuoha said that AASME is working on the SMEs development that will catch up with potential investors that will develop the SMEs subsectors of the economy.
He said that this is one of the things the AASME Knowledge Hub wishes to achieve through knowledge, innovation and creativity, being a community member of the International Council for Small Business (ICSB).
“The AASME K-Hub & Peace Building Projects has more than 35 components with a mind-blowing value as a centre for wealth creation through knowledge for economic development, for, Africa to the world.
“The Hub is for Training, Research, Capacity Exhibition, Award and Certification. We are open to partnership, collaboration, sponsorship, etc.
“We invite you specially for the official grand breaking ceremony come January 2023 and our continental programme on African Continental Free Trade Agreement Area (AFCFTA) with Federal Government of Nigeria, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Abuja January 2023.”
Onuoha added that the hub as the largest tool for the global public services community counts digitally with colleagues and experts sharing knowledge insight and best practices, experience and ideas on how to improve services and create connections with peers and experts in a secure environment.
He said that the essence of peacebuilding is all about the necessity of peace in business and it is aimed at resolving injustice in non-violent ways to transform the cultural and structural condition that generates deadly or destructive conflict and also address the underlying cause of conflict, helping people to resolve their differences.
The keynote speaker at the inauguration, Prof. Uwaoma Uche, Dean College of Social and Management Sciences Gregory University Uturu (GUU), said that the choice of entrepreneurship education in an atmosphere of peace is the way out of the present economic downturn in Nigeria.
Uche who represented the Chancellor of GUU, Prof. Gregory Ibe spoke on the topic: “Importance of Entrepreneurship Educational Development and Knowledge Hub, Peace Building in a Developing Democratic Economy like Nigeria.”
He said that entrepreneurship education is the adoption of pedagogical and other teaching methods in equipping people with the knowledge of how to venture into businesses or develop the urge to build.
Uche, however, explained that no investors will be interested to engage in a volatile business environment, adding that great entrepreneurs started small and made it big after a while, but needs a peaceful atmosphere for them to succeed.
“Today peace is a scarce currency in Nigeria. The lives of Innocent citizens are wasted at the altar of violent expressions. Many civilians and soldiers have died in the name of defending territorial integrity.
“Armed robbery, cybercrime, assassinations and the proliferation of sophisticated weapons are the order of the day. Other security challenges such as cross-boundary banditry, pipeline vandalism, cattle rustling, open market extortion by security operatives on our highway and rape in the camp of displaced persons It is apparent that sustainable development and entrepreneurship development can only thrive in the atmosphere of peace.
“Therefore, all stakeholders in the development of the nation should ensure the maintenance and sustenance of peace if entrepreneurship must thrive in our society.”
He said that considering Nigeria’s present economy bedevilled by the triplet misfortunes of poverty, unemployment and underemployment, entrepreneurship has not just become compelling but virtually the sole panacea, at least in the immediate.
Uche called on the government to therefore continue to support the growth and thriving of entrepreneurship in Nigeria including the creation of a conducive business environment using the instruments of law and policy, the provision and injection of capital to support entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs as well as grafting progressive sustainable educational policy on entrepreneurship education and studies.
Speaking further in entrepreneurship education, Uche said that the meaning goes beyond formal educational institutions to the adoption of teaching techniques through any medium and in any forum to teach people how to apply entrepreneurial skills in various ways.
He charged youths in the zone to rise and embrace the new way of improving their ideas stressing that youth entrepreneurship education prepares young people to be responsible, enterprising individuals who become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic development and sustainable communities.
Uche said that true entrepreneurship education provides opportunities for youths to master competencies related to core entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and attitudes. He said that it also helps the youths to recognize innovation opportunities, idea generation and marshal resources in the face of risk to pursue opportunities.
“The implications of entrepreneurship education to sustainable development is that it empowers people with skills with which they can start small businesses from practically nothing.
“It promotes vision with enthusiastic passion, activates the urge to build, and promotes strategies that change vision into reality. A society made up of entrepreneurship-minded people will not be characterized by poverty, unemployment or laziness.
“This invariably means that entrepreneurship education is a springboard for the economic development of any nation. Through entrepreneurship education development of any society will be participatory in nature. Both government and the governed would be seriously engaged in the process of developing society.
“People will not just sit idle or simply search for government jobs but could seek to establish their own small and medium scale businesses thereby building the economic base of the society. Such development process which is participatory in nature endures for a long time and stands the test of time.”
