Reno Omokri, an aide to former president Goodluck Jonathan, has urged President Bola Tinubu to take a clue from the Igbo business model, to develop the Nigerian economy.
Omokri who disclosed this through a post on his Twitter handle on Saturday, said the Igbo apprenticeship model and the South Korean chaebol business model are almost similar in practice, noting that the model can be replicated to tackle unemployment in Nigeria.
Chaebol is a business model being practised in South Korea in the 60s, creating a global multinational with huge International operations, which is owned and managed by a family dynasty.
Meanwhile, he stated that the Igbo model of business entails learning as an apprentice from a master, for several years, and the master shoulders the responsibility of opening a new business for the apprentice and monitoring it to a stage when the apprentice can stand alone.
“If President Tinubu wants to turn around the Nigerian economy in the shortest possible time, he ought to study the Igbo apprenticeship model.
“It is the most successful informal business model in the world, as well as the most prolific venture capitalist scheme on Earth, producing more US dollar millionaires per capita than both Harvard and Yale Universities,” he said.
Omokri added that “Igbo traders and merchants recreate wealth by taking on apprentices, almost as unpaid interns, who study their masters day to day business techniques and help them run their shops, markets and businesses.
“After some time, their masters are required to financially set them up in their businesses and guide them until they can stand on their own two feet.
“Imagine if this was in place in every state of Nigeria and practised by every ethnic group. Unemployment in Nigeria will almost vanish overnight.
“This is how South Korea became an economic superpower, using the chaebol business model, which is similar to the Igbo apprenticeship model.”
However, he maintained that Nigerian business and economic issues should be addressed by tapping from the experiences of the successful indigenous businessmen, traders and merchants, rather than technocrats that rely on Western theories, which are not in conformity with real-life business practical.
“The President should get the representatives of leaders of Alaba, Onitsha, Aba, and other entrepreneurial hotspots to Aso Rock, for a conference on how they can help government expand their business model to reach other Nigerians.
“Let all Nigerian ethnic nationalities learn this business model from our oriental brothers. Ask them to teach your economic and finance minister how they do it. Pick one of them and make him the minister. A trader who knows how to create wealth will make a better minister than a PhD technocrat who only knows how to speak grammar!
“Our homegrown economic success will work better for us than borrowed money and ideas that may not fit our peculiar situation,” he advised.
