Dr. Kola Adesina, Group Managing Director of Sahara Group, on Wednesday said that micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria face a financing gap of N13 trillion, despite providing up to 88 percent of total employment in the country.
Adesina disclosed thus while giving the keynote address at the 2025 Annual Directors conference organised by Chattered Institute of Directors in Abuja.
According to him, in Nigeria today, over 39 million MSMEs generate nearly half of GDP. “They are the true engine of our economy, yet the roads they travel, both literally and figuratively, are riddled with potholes. Power remains unreliable, finance remains scarce and policy remains uncertain.
“Our MSMEs face a N13 trillion financing gap — about 17 percent of GDP. These are not signs of failure; they are signs of an economy waiting to be properly wired,” he said.
He decried that the Balance Sheet of a Nation in the boardroom, celebrate profit and growth but outside those walls, the national bottom line still bleeds red ink.
He emphasised that for Nigeria to experience real growth, there must be growth in all critical areas, including governance, infrastructure, education energy.
“For the stock price of Nigeria Plc to rise, the balance sheet of Enterprise Nigeria must be positive in all critical areas, from governance to infrastructure, from education to energy, from trust to transparency. That is the equation that determines the true value of our nation in the global marketplace.”
Adesina also charged private business owners to end the myth that development is solely government’s duty and that business exists only for profit. He stressed that business disconnected from public purpose cannot prosper for long.
According to him, the real economy thrives where enterprise and nation work as partners, not as strangers.
For him, clear priorities for sustainable transformation in championing smart regulation and investment incentives that remove friction for MSMEs, streamline permits, harmonise taxes, and strengthen credit-guarantee schemes.
He said, “Enterprise is not sustainable unless it is inclusive. Women- and youth-led MSMEs are too often excluded from finance and supply chains. Set inclusion targets. Pay your small suppliers promptly — within 15 to 30 days. Co-invest in reliable energy solutions for your production clusters. Your success is tied to theirs and theirs, to ours.
“True productivity grows from shared knowledge and collaboration. Partner with universities, sponsor incubators and accelerators, open part of your data or infrastructure to start-ups under controlled conditions.
“Africa holds one-fifth of humanity. It is time to match that demographic power with innovation power. When we build ecosystems instead of silos, we transform a continent of hustlers into a continent of producers.”
Speaking further, Adesina stressed the need for the organised private sector to actively collaborate with the government in selecting and aligning priorities to enable big-leap results in resource allocation for infrastructure, social-impact projects, and human-capital development.
“Africa, Nigeria will record significant progress only when this alignment between public purpose and private capability becomes deliberate, structured, and sustained.”
