Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Economic Growth in Nigeria

Abstract. This paper underscores the importance of entrepreneurship as a realistic mechanism for sustainable economic growth in Nigeria considering the experiences of developed nations like the United States and vibrant economies like China and India. The paper discusses that entrepreneurship has been instrumental in economic growth, balanced regional development and job creation in most dynamic economies, where technology is changing at a faster rate and the product lifetime cycle is shrinking. The methodology adopted in this paper is the narrative-textual case study (NTCS); it is a social science research method that relies on the information and data from several sources for problem-solving or problem-identification. The paper reveals that the right 198 Journal of Sustainable Development Studies business environment for entrepreneurship is lacking in Nigeria on account of the challenges of frequent power outages, bad roads, multiple taxes extortion of money from SMEs by government officials, lack of genuine support service for SMEs and expensive transportation/telecommunications costs have all combined to inhibit entrepreneurship and economic growth. The paper therefore concludes that government should focus on capacity building, improving infrastructure, judicious utilisation of the oil wealth and enabling environment thereby leading to sustainable economic growth. Key Words: Entrepreneurship, sustainable development, right environment, technological innovation, industrialisation, capacity building. 1.