Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen and a push in the right direction.”
VANGUARD’s Editorial on April 22, 2026, titled, ‘Making the Student Venture Capital Grant successful’, was mostly right in its recommendations to the Federal Government regarding S-VCG. The editors can be forgiven for not knowing that the idea was first advanced in the 1990s. Why it failed then should dampen our enthusiasm now.
There were two slight errors in the report concerning the initiative. The current approach is not entirely new as stated. Nigeria had been involved with the United Nations before in an attempt to promote entrepreneurship among Nigerians in tertiary institutions. A similar project was started in the middle 1990s with UNIDO; which called for Nigeria to contribute ten percent counter-part funding; but, which the FG under Abacha refused to pay. Mentorship was at the heart of the first attempt.
The Nigerian Director of the UNIDO-EMPRETEC Programme was Dr Ben Nwaochei, who was recruited from his position as Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Management, Victoria Island. Ben, in turn recruited three of us, his subordinates at NIM, to serve as Mentors to the prospective recipients of the grants at the time. I was one of the three; sent for brief training in mentorship – which was the most vital aspect of the entrepreneurship development programme. Incidentally, I am currently engaged in mentoring a young man who is heading for self-employment; so, the issue of mentorship is something which I strongly believe must be incorporated into the new S-VCG. Otherwise success might elude us. Giving free money to young people without previous experience is frequently a sure road to disaster. For every Bill Gates, self-made, there are hundreds of millions failures. For most, capital was not the cause of failure.
N2.5bn a drop in large bucket“What is worth doing is worth doing well.” To begin with, the N2.5 billion allocated to this programme is not nearly enough; considering that up to N50 million can be granted. Even if the entire N2.5bn is available for grants, it will serve only 50 prospects; N5 million will cover only 500 candidates. Obviously, this is not a radical approach to solving the problem – given the number of graduates Nigeria turns out every year. It smacks of another election year gimmick designed to lure shallow thinkers into believing that something serious is being done. Nigeria needs more than 50 or 500 young entrepreneurs – every month, not every year.
Why mentorship? Failure rate of start-ups is high“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” Nearly eighty per cent of new ventures fail within the first five years; a good number don’t even last a year – irrespective of capital availability. Management literature is replete with examples and the causes of failure; too numerous to mention in this short column.
But, my experience as a Senior Lecturer/Consultant, at NIM, in the 1990s exposed me to at least thirty Small and Medium Scale Enterprises; whose owners or sponsors ran frantically to the Institute when the ventures were already on death bed.Not all, but, in many instances the businesses could have been saved if help was sought on time. Invariably, it was like patients being rushed to hospital just as they were taking their last breaths. The Nigerian experience might not reflect the global trend; but three major errors of judgment doomed most of them. Some succumb to one or two; a few to all three and they collapse very quickly: financial management; marketing and indiscipline. Money is not the root of all evils; contrary to old age adage. It is quite often a lack of sound financial management skills that liquidates new ventures.
Too many prospective entrepreneurs understate the costs involved and simultaneously overstate the expected revenue at the start. When confronted with unexpected costs and lower income despair sets in quickly; only the most resilient can survive the first blow. A new hotel and hospitality centre opens in a neighbourhood only to discover that there is no parking on the entire road and it has no parking space of its own. The products or services to be offered might be excellent; but, no product or service sells itself. There must be a marketing plan. Frequently, the new businesses lack a marketing plan. Strongly believing in the products or services offered, they open shops and are bewildered when customers fail to patronize them. Panic sets in. Nothing is more discouraging than opening and closing for two weeks without a soul coming in. A new distributor of minerals opens with eight competitors, all struggling for customers, on the same road.
The daughter of a wealthy businessman opens a boutique in an exclusive area. All the other competitors open by seven in the morning and close at ten in the evening – every day except Sunday. She opens and closes when she likes.Knowledge, skills and attitudes required for success in every sector and by a particular start-up are seldom present in the individual starting a business. Technical knowledge might be excellent, but, skills, attitude and self-discipline might be initially lacking among people embarking on a new ventures. Mentors help to fill the gap and increase the chances of success.Most new owners of businesses experiencing cash inflow on a scale hitherto unknown to them find it extremely difficult to distinguish between their own money and that of the business.
They spend indiscriminately – including borrowed funds – until the business runs out of funds and no new loans can be raised. Mentors provide the maturity required to keep their fingers out of the company’s account
