Entrepreneurship in Nigeria has been given a boost with the successful completion of the 13- week intellectual drills of a resourceful entrepreneurship reality shows; the MTN Business Next Titan academy.
At the recent grand finale of the inaugural season of the show, where a 27-year old lady, Ogbeifun Iroghama, emerged winner, most business executives, who spoke admitted that the show had set the pace for women entrepreneurship.
The winner, Miss Iroghama, a graduate of Public Health and Promotion, said her mission in life is to become wealth creator, who will impact on individuals and the nation’s economy.
Speaking at the event, the CEO of 3Invest, Ruth Obi, emphasised the role of women in building and sustaining entrepreneurship in the country, when she stated that participating and emerging as the overall winner of the entrepreneurship reality show is not about winning the prize money or courting fame but ‘about greatness through establishing businesses that are capable of providing solutions to the myriad socio-economic challenges that Nigeria currently faces’.
For her, the emergence of enterprising young women across different sectors in the nation is inspiring, taking into account the growing agitation to accord the female gender its desired place in impacting on the society positively.
According to her, this is in tandem with various global initiatives like UNESCO’s Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and campaigns by the Aids-Free-world organisations. She also added that it is expected that the passion exhibited by the winner of the Next Titan’s entrepreneurship reality show would go a long way to inspire more women in Nigeria and beyond to go into transformative businesses.
Interestingly, the determined Iroghama didn’t just stroll into victory. At the final stage, which was witnessed by journalists and other stakeholders, the winner had 15 other bright contestants to slug it out with. The resume of the different contestants, which were made available to newsmen, also indicated that they were all Nigerian graduates. Meanwhile, in her reaction, the young lady said she needed motivation, grit and the support of her family to reach the top.
When she was left with just one more contestant, Tinuade Olarewaju, who was promoting her artisan-empowerment business, to compete with, she met her match. Fortunately, the majority of the other 14 contestants voted her as the overall best contestant at the end. The young lady was presented a cheque of N5 million, a 2013 model of Ford Focus and a one-year free business mentorship.
Explaining the reason for sponsoring the entrepreneurship TV reality show, the General Manager, Enterprise Sales, MTN, Oyinye Ikenna-Emeka, said ‘MTN believes in Nigerians and is committed to supporting their enterprising spirit’. She went ahead to admonish all the contestants to put into practice everything they have learnt from the academy in such a way that it will benefit the country.
