Foundation Urges SMEs To Drive Value Creation Nationwide

Founder of the Jerry Eze Foundation, Pastor Jerry Eze, has urged small and micro business owners across the country to pursue value creation not only for themselves but for their communities and the nation.

He disclosed this at the foundation’s Grant Award Ceremony in Abuja recently. The foundation disbursed grants totalling one billion naira to 240 small and micro business owners, each receiving $3,000 to scale, transform or start a new business.

He said, “Business owners who have received this grant today, by next year you will stand here and testify to how big your businesses have become.”

He also said his late mother was the one who taught him that one can give everything.

In her keynote address at the event, Oby Ezekwesili, former vice president for the World Bank (Africa Region) and former minister of Education of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, delivered a clear message to the recipients:

“Every beneficiary, every dreamer in the room, the world does not need more magnified egos or glorified inaction dressed up as humility.

What our continent needs, what Africa demands, is scale. Not just growth for growth’s sake, but deliberate, purposeful expansion that matches the size of the problems we are called to solve.”

She added, “You no longer have the luxury of starting small and staying there. The resources have been placed in your hands. The platform has been given. The acceptable direction is impact at scale. Africa is watching. Build accordingly.”

In a special address, Ibukun Awosika, former Chairperson of First Bank of Nigeria, said, “Today, the Jerry Eze Foundation has done something profound. It has built a bridge between potential and progress, and each awardee must harness their potential to the fullest. The smartest entrepreneurs are not the ones who know everything; they are the ones who know they do not. Every person in your ecosystem has walked a road you have not, seen things you have not seen, and learned lessons you have not had to learn yet. When you are wise enough to let that in, to bring those experiences to the table and build with them, that is when you stop building a business and start building an institution.”

According to the foundation, in the lead-up to the event, the global consulting firm KPMG was engaged to independently manage the beneficiary selection process. Over 16,000 applicants registered on the grant portal, 9,668 completed the process and met the strict selection criteria, and 240 entrepreneurs across Nigeria were selected.