…pledges to support, sponsor enabling bills
By Ime Silas
Entrepreneurship alone will not transform Nigeria’s economy. What the country needs is a deliberate shift from individual businesses to full industrial ecosystems, Policy Expert Ikakke Bassey told delegates at the Ibom Conference 2026 last week.
Speaking on the theme “Moving from Enterprise to Industry,” Bassey, who is also the Labour Party (LP) candidate for Uyo/Ibesikpo Asutan/Nsit Atai/Uruan Federal Constituency in next year’s national assembly election, argued that Nigeria must stop producing graduates trained only to seek jobs and start building an environment that produces job creators.
“Do we want an economy that produces job seekers, or an economy that produces job creators?” Bassey asked the audience at the Nudge-Bridge Initiative session on “Driving Industrialization, Innovation and Sustainable Development.”
He broke the challenge into two parts: entrepreneurship and industrialization.
On entrepreneurship, Bassey said three elements must be produced intentionally: the promoter, the enterprise, and the process. That begins with knowledge, attitude, and environment.
“Our educational curriculum must change,” he said. “Every year, our schools produce graduates who have largely been trained to look for employment. But the labour market is changing faster than ever. With artificial intelligence and data science transforming the nature of work, some of the knowledge we acquire today may become obsolete tomorrow.”
He called for education that teaches people “not only how to get jobs, but teaches them how to create jobs.”
Beyond the classroom, he said, Nigerians must be trained to see opportunities in problems and to take informed risks.
Government, according to Bassey, has the critical role of shaping the environment. He listed security, reliable electricity, access to capital and land, tax incentives, rule of law, and fair regulation as non-negotiables.
“Above all”, he added “it means an environment where businesses can compete based on value and innovation — not political connections”.
Bassey pointed to a cultural model with modern policy potential: the Igbo apprenticeship system known as Igba-Boy. While the conventional model is one entrepreneur to many employees, he said Igba Boy can produce one entrepreneur to many apprentices, to many new entrepreneurs, to many new businesses and jobs.
He continued “We can train them. Build them. Certify them. Capitalize them. Launch them. Mentor them. That is how we build an entrepreneurship society.”
On industrialization, Bassey defined it as moving from consuming and trading to producing goods and services at scale. Using cocoa and cassava as examples, he explained how processing raw materials into finished products creates entire value chains involving farmers, factories, transporters, packaging firms, banks and retailers.
To achieve this, he outlined eight priorities: infrastructure including power, roads, internet and industrial zones; industrial skills to operate and maintain machines; intentional industrial policy; guaranteed markets through government procurement and exports; technology adoption; long-term capital through institutions like the Bank of Industry; processing plants to add value locally; and strong local supply chains.
“One factory can create an ecosystem of interconnected businesses,” Bassey noted.
He drew the key distinction for policymakers: “An entrepreneur creates a business. An enterprise creates a product or service. An industry creates an ecosystem of interconnected businesses. And industrialization creates the conditions for those industries to operate at scale.”
The goal, he concluded, is not just more businesses, but ecosystems. “Not just entrepreneurs who employ people, but entrepreneurs who create other entrepreneurs. Not just factories, but factories that create demand for hundreds of other businesses. Not just jobs, but an economy that continuously creates new jobs.”
“That is how we move from consumption to production. From job seeking to job creation. From enterprise to industry,” Bassey said, “and ultimately from an economy that merely participates in the global market to an economy that produces, competes and creates value at scale.
Let me also state here that, as matter of fact, this is one of the key reasons I have offered myself to represent the people of Uyo, Ibesikpo Asutan, Nsit Atai, Uruan Federal Constituency in next year’s election. I must say that I am impressed with the massive support I have received so far from my people. They have listened to my messages and they have demonstrated in practical terms that they are in full support of my aspiration to enable their liberation.
As a way of appreciation of this massive support, I must do all to justify the confidence they have in me by ensuring that I sponsor and support bills, and also implement programmes as part of my Constituency projects that would bring about industrialization-driven economic emancipation of the good people of my federal Constituency.”
