Nigerian Banks are a disgrace. Yes, leadership is a major problem here, but the day Nigerian Banks wake up to their responsibility the Nigerian economy will BLOW. The last time I mentioned a specific Bank the Manager almost lost her job so I won’t mention any. Let me give you

an example of what I am talking about. Consider the possibility where Nigerian Banks identify and support genuine small businesses by giving them less hurdles to access funds for expansion and growth. The unemployment figures will crash. GDP will explode. But they won’t. Rather,

they will be chasing so-called “high net worth individuals” who themselves are credit risks Cos of the amount of unrepaid loans they carry. Just recently, I had reason to begin to slowly pull some of my company’s funds out of a Bank. Asked this yeye bank to set up

a credit line for my commodities business. For collateral, I asked them to place a lien on one of my accounts with them which had 5x the credit line I requested. Also, take note that the account of the commodity company with them had 2x the line request. So, why was I

asking for the line? Because I told them I was tired of paying charges to the bank for doing absolutely nothing for me in return. So, I told them to work for their damn money. Guess what? Useless bank refused and insisted that I collateralize the line with an illiquid asset. Can

you believe this? Now, imagine what small businesses that don’t even have our capacity go through! A small business with the right support is tomorrow’s big business. Small businesses in the US create 1.5m jobs annually and about 90% of the businesses in America are SMEs.

With about 30.7m SMEs in America employing over 150m Americans,little wonder serious nations don’t joke with them.These companies get support from Banks.The implication is that if you support SMEs in Nigeria, in less than 10 years unemployment in Nigeria can shrink by

Over 70%. Yes, in this clime we expect government to do everything but the banks should necessarily take the front row. I agree that there are monetary policy dimensions to this but over time, the actions of the regulatory authorities to get banks to support SMEs has not been

reciprocated by the banks. Just look at the amount of SME funds lying dormant in Banks. However, these banks will gladly give chronic debtors more money just Cos they have assets that they reckon they can use as collaterals; assets that have been

Used to access loans in other banks. A friend of mine is owing a banks in excess of 240B and just recently, he is getting ready to get more. How do they even sleep with such reckless indebtedness. Anyway, the best bet for funding for SMEs is to look outside banks. This option

I will go into in my next intervention on growing small business. This intervention will be on how to get funds. But before then, if the spirit leads, I will want to teach you guys how to market your business. Many of you here are really wasting time. Stay tuned.