The National President of the Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria (ASBON), Mr Femi Egbesola, has said that at least eight million small businesses in Nigeria have shut down in 18 months due to the economic hardship in the country.
Egbesola said that approximately twenty percent of businesses in the country were compelled to stop operations from January 2023 to June 2024, attributing this alarming trend to the economic policies implemented by President Buhari and Tinubu’s administrations.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with SaharaReporters on Friday, September 6, he said: “We have had cases where businesses shut down. We have around 40 million small businesses in the country and with 20% already shut, it would mean that we have about 8 million businesses shut.
Many persons have di3d from shutting their businesses, some could not fulfil their loan obligations, so they di3d from the pressure. Others are in the hospital as of now.
A state of economy should be declared as we are the highest employer of labour (referring to small-scale businesses). We account for 86% of the country’s workforce and you can imagine what happens when small businesses cannot survive.
Businesses are now downsizing, for instance, I used to have 52 workers but now I have only 14. Imagine that kind of downsizing due to economic issues.”
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