The Fate Foundation and its research arm, the Fate Institute, have released two major documents offering fresh insights into Nigeria’s economic landscape. The first is an industrial sector report titled “Beyond the Hustle: Nigeria’s Industrial Awakening.” The second is the 2025 edition of The State of Entrepreneurship in Nigeria.
Director of the Fate Institute, Amaka Nwokolo joined the conversation to unpack the findings. She explained that the industrial report is a call for Nigeria to rekindle its industrial ambition, especially as the organization marks its twenty fifth anniversary. This milestone provided an opportunity to reflect on Nigeria’s enterprise journey and the long standing obstacles affecting the productivity and competitiveness of micro, small, and medium enterprises.
According to her, Nigeria might be discussing entirely different outcomes today if it had adopted a strong industrial policy in the year 2000. She noted that global dynamics have changed drastically, with major economies now becoming more inward looking in pursuit of industrial security. This shift raises a crucial question about Nigeria’s position in the global landscape. She stressed that industrialization has become an urgent national conversation.
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Amaka highlighted worrying indicators from the report, including the decline in manufacturing’s contribution to GDP, which currently stands at about thirteen percent compared to fifteen percent in 2023. Despite its potential to drive economic growth, most Nigerian businesses remain stuck at the micro or nano level. Out of nearly forty million MSMEs in the country, an overwhelming ninety seven percent operate at survival scale. Very few grow into small or medium sized businesses, creating what she described as a “missing middle” that weakens industrial growth and job creation.
She emphasized that meaningful progress requires business expansion across all states, not only in Lagos, Kano, and Abuja.
Discussing the State of Entrepreneurship report, Amaka noted that this fifth edition marks half a decade of data tracking across five pillars: skills acquisition, business performance, enabling environment, technology and innovation, and perception of opportunities. Historically, the enabling environment has ranked the lowest, but for the first time in five years it showed a slight improvement. She said this reflects a growing sense of optimism among entrepreneurs, though the overall ecosystem still performs below average.
The report also revealed a troubling pattern in business longevity. Nearly half of Nigerian MSMEs are only one to five years old, with many folding due to recurring problems such as unstable policies, limited funding, poor infrastructure, multiple forms of taxation, energy constraints, and insecurity. She expressed concern that these same issues were identified as far back as 1995, suggesting that systemic progress has been painfully slow.
Amaka warned that unless these structural challenges are addressed, Nigeria risks having the same conversation in the next twenty five years. She added that industrialization cannot take off while businesses remain trapped at subsistence level.
She noted that only one point one percent of firms in the MSME sector are large companies. In fast growing economies, small and medium sized businesses typically mature into strong suppliers for large firms. Without scale and structure, she argued, Nigeria cannot achieve its goal of becoming a one trillion dollar economy by 2030.
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Amaka acknowledged encouraging signs, including the government’s draft industrialization policy and the participation of the Minister of Industry at their policy dialogue. She expressed hope that insights from the reports will help refine national policies.
On gender distribution, the report shows that fifty five point eight percent of MSMEs surveyed were male led while forty four point two percent were female led. She pointed out that although women face the same challenges as their male counterparts, they often experience them differently, particularly regarding funding access and societal bias. She commended women for being highly adaptive, especially in technology adoption, but emphasized that adaptability still requires capital to translate into growth.
Another area of concern was business registration. The report found that fifty four percent of MSMEs remain unregistered due to fears of taxation and regulatory burdens. Amaka expressed optimism that the new tax law, with its harmonization and streamlining measures, could encourage more businesses to formalize.
