THE NEED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN A DEPRESSED ECONOMY (A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIAN ASSOCIATION OF SMALL-SCALE INDUSTRIALISTS (NASSI) ENUGU STATE CHAPTER)
CHAPTER ONE
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The need to incorporate in our system the need to be technologically self-reliant cannot be over-emphasized. The first step is to develop our human and natural resources, thus increasing our per capital income. In the past even years, or more, especially during the administration of Ibrahim Babangida, Nigeria has constantly pursued an economic policy that is geared towards self-reliance for the individual as show by such programmes as the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) which is a graduate assistance scheme aimed at helping young school leavers to acquire necessary skills and funds that will help them to start their own business, other programmes with such mission include the people bank, Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP) and Nigerian Association of Small-scale Industrialists (NASSI).
The entrepreneur and his activities forms an integral part in the development of our economy. At this point, it becomes pertinent to define who is an entrepreneur and why we are having an insight into his plight to actualize the aims and objectives of its existence.
Nwana, L.E. (1995:32) defined an entrepreneur as an individual who is willing and able to take business risks for gainful purpose”.
Despite the aspirations of many, only a few people in this country and indeed Enugu our place of concentration has carried out their intention of having business established by them. Studies have been shown that 90% of these who seriously decided to incorporate a company five or more years ago have not yet done so. In Enugu state our emphasis will concentrate on the Nigerian Association of Small-Scale Industrialists (NASSI) Enugu State chapter, formed in 1978 owing to the creation of Enugu State in 1991, the Enugu office was established, to represent the organized small-scale industrialists in the state, thus tries to uplift the status of this sector.
