By Bianca Iboma-Emefu
The Business and Professional Women (BPW) Nigeria has charged women in the country to develop more skills at ensuring that they see opportunities in the many challenges confronting the nation.
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Women are generally known to spend their earnings on the welfare of their husbands, children and relations. Due to their inability to take on the financial responsibilities of the family when the husband is no more, experts say women need to re-examine how they can create sustainable means of livelihood.
The BPW Nigeria recently held a conference and annual general meeting in Lagos, with the theme “Wealth creation in emerging markets.” The managing director, Ritemate Technologies, Jide Ogunleye, while delivering the keynote address, explained that there was a need to transform the Nigerian economy from a consumption-driven one to a producing economy.
Ogunleye said women could contribute to this vision by using their entrepreneurial abilities to identify business opportunities in import substitution, regardless of the state of the economy.
He emphasized growing money in an emerging market like Nigeria. “You must find the opportunities. There are so many problems to be addressed. These few challenges include infrastructures, such as power, access to finance, size of the market,” he said.
Ogunleye added that women should pay particular attention to technology. He equally stressed the need of collaboration thrive in digital markets, adding that it is important to collaborate, as it helps selling great ideas.
“During COVID-19, I set a target for myself. Today, by the grace of God, I have been able to build the business, using digital tools. I came from a place where I had no idea and started learning. You can come from that point of not knowing to knowing, using a GPT chat. Let us not just envision tech but we need to make use of it,” he said.
The national president of the group, Mrs. Yetunde Oladeinde, said the event has brought together members and dignitaries from all walks of life, creating an opportunity for women to be in the fore front of salient and topical issues relating to women.
She further explained that impacting on the lives of women and society in general was something the organisation was passionate about. She said: “Consequently, we feel that, as an organisation whose primary focus is women, we shall begin in no small measure the process of sensitising women on this critical aspect of our human existence.
“We hope that the conference has provided multiple opportunities to address some of the critical issues and begin to push for more participation from women on all fronts. Women entrepreneurs have a strong and emerging presence in Nigeria, with 40 per cent of newly created businesses being woman-owned.”
Oladeinde stated that change in the perception of whose place it is to save, budget and invest in wealth-creating assets in the family was urgently needed.
“In recent times, some women have started taking leadership positions in the society and in corporate organisations. They are beginning to play major roles in income-earning activities and wealth creation.
“These women are actively involved in driving socio-economic change through their efforts in different areas of human endeavour. Many of them are making progress in leadership, business and several professional fields, driving economic activities, transforming and developing the society.
“They are ready to take giant leaps in business and invest in wealth creating ventures. To achieve this, more initiatives targeted at empowering women are urgently needed.
“As successful women leaders identified some personal decisions women should make to achieve their investment goals,” she said.
She also talked about the numerous opportunities for women and youths in the state, as well as how to maximise these opportunities for growth and development.