British Council, firm to empower 80 entrepreneurs

An impact advisory firm, Octoville Development Company, has partnered with the British Council and King’s Trust International to empower 80 young Nigerian entrepreneurs with sustainable business skills. Chikodi Onyemerala, the director of programmes at the British Council in Nigeria at the event yesterday said youth unemployment is identified as a major problem, and the initiative […]

An impact advisory firm, Octoville Development Company, has partnered with the British Council and King’s Trust International to empower 80 young Nigerian entrepreneurs with sustainable business skills.

Chikodi Onyemerala, the director of programmes at the British Council in Nigeria at the event yesterday said youth unemployment is identified as a major problem, and the initiative aims to strengthen young people’s capacity to start and nurture their own businesses.

Oluwaseun Olorunmaye, the chief operating officer (COO) at Octoville said the programme is aimed at enhancing the skills of 80 young business owners in Abuja.

The COO said the initiative will equip participants with better business management, finance assessment, and investment attraction skills — making them more effective entrepreneurs.

“At the end of the training, by the 8th week, we’re going to be having a pitch event. At that event, we’ll be giving a 300,000 Naira grant to these businesses,” Olorunmaye said.

“From experience, we found that these businesses are able to at least use that seed capital to first being able to kickstart operations, for those that stop operations at some point, get raw materials, and some are also able to use this small seed to go on to register their businesses.

“In summary, I would say our goal is to ensure that these businesses are able to move from just an idea to a live business. For others, these businesses are able to move from at least a nano to a micro enterprise in this case.”

On his part, Nelson Okwonna, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Octoville, explained that the training ecosystem, including universities and secondary schools, has failed to provide young people with the necessary core competencies, thereby hindering their development.