Micro-Credit: An amelioration of poverty for small-scale entrepreneurs in Nigeria

Abstract

Since the formal sector of Nigerian economy cannot fully employ the Nation.s active population, degeneration of human condition in the society becomes inevitable and this leads to poverty in all ramifications. The immanent condition has spurred creative and innovative individuals to embrace entrepreneurial endeavours as a sanctuary from nascent unemployment, underemployment and the general economic quagmire. This is so as small-scale enterprises is believed to provide easy entry into entrepreneurship as it may require relatively little financial capital especially when put against the travails of securing favourable employment in the formal sector of Nigeria. The poor, unemployed and the retrenched in both developed and developing nations have continually embraced entrepreneurship as a means of job creation and income generation. Nonetheless, of the several challenges confronting Nigerian entrepreneurs, access to micro-credit constitutes the biggest problem as it is crucial to the economic empowerment of small business entrepreneurs. Thus, this paper explores the significance of micro-credit support in poverty amelioration among entrepreneurs and the overall impact of inaccessibility of credit to entrepreneurship development in Nigeria as a whole. It also examines other forms of capital needed for an enterprise to succeed or fail if entrepreneurs lack them. The paper however adopted an eclectic theoretical approach in explaining the subject matter with Marxist and Weberian postulations. It concludes by proffering action-oriented recommendations.