A prominent Nigerian serial entrepreneur and business strategist has issued a clarion call to the nation’s business community, urging a fundamental shift in mindset that he believes is essential for economic transformation. Mr. Ezekiel Solesi, Chief Executive Officer of LimbSimple, delivered the charge at the Futurecast Africa 2026 conference held in Abuja, an event organized in collaboration with IDCL Global under the theme “A New Nigeria.”
Solesi argued that the prevalence of a “small business mentality” constitutes the single greatest impediment to Nigeria’s economic advancement. He asserted that a genuinely new Nigeria can only materialize when entrepreneurs deliberately scale their enterprises to a level capable of generating meaningful employment and influencing policy direction.
“If you build bigger businesses and you employ people gainfully, somebody who is well fed can understand policy and understand leadership,” Solesi stated, drawing a direct line between economic empowerment and informed civic participation.
Two Economies, One Nation
The entrepreneur painted a stark picture of Nigeria’s current economic reality, describing it as a nation running two parallel economies. On one track, foreign direct investment is on the rise, signaling international confidence. On the other, inflation remains rampant and seemingly unchecked. Solesi attributed this dissonance to the overwhelming dominance of small, undercapitalized businesses that lack the scale to absorb labor or generate the tax revenues needed for public investment.
The Four Pillars of Business Growth
To bridge this gap, Solesi challenged entrepreneurs to embrace four critical imperatives:
1. Aggressive Marketing – He cautioned that any entrepreneur who is not actively marketing their business is operating out of pride, noting that potential customers are not passively searching for them. Visibility, he stressed, is non-negotiable.
2. Data-Driven Decision Making – Business owners were urged to pay meticulous attention to revenue data, which he described as the clearest indicator of what the market truly desires. “Your business is always talking to you. We are the ones that are not listening,” he remarked.
3. Progressive Organizational Structuring – He called on entrepreneurs to move beyond informal operations and build proper organizational frameworks that can support scaling.
4. Brand Building – Solesi emphasized that a strong brand is a business’s most valuable asset, earning it the benefit of the doubt from customers even when things go wrong. “A brand is not just your logo; a brand is what people think about you, and it is most of the time built by doing what you say you will do,” he explained.
Personal Responsibility for National Renewal
Also speaking at the conference, Mrs. Oliwakemi Olorede, CEO of Futurecast Africa and IDCL Global, underscored the significance of the fifth edition of the event. She described it as a platform designed to challenge Nigerians to take personal ownership of the country’s future. According to Olorede, every Nigerian, regardless of their status or profession, serves as an ambassador of the nation and has a role to play in reshaping its global narrative.
The conference provided a forum for robust dialogue on how individual and collective action can drive the transformation needed to reposition Nigeria as a competitive, prosperous, and innovative economy.
