When the wife of the President, Mrs Remi Tinubu, suggested that women could deploy small grants into ventures such as frying akara, roasting corn and making kulikuli, she probably did not anticipate the immediate torrent of ridicule and intense mockery that would follow.
Middle-class commentators, social media influencers and urban opinion moulders dismissed the suggestion as primitive, uninspiring and disconnected from the realities of modern economic aspiration. Memes surfaced. Cartoons multiplied. Mock depictions of the First Family frying bean cakes and roasting maize flooded the digital spaces.
But beneath the mockery lies an uncomfortable question: are we laughing at Mrs Tinubu’s suggestion, or are we laughing at the millions of Nigerians whose daily survival depends on exactly those kinds of enterprises? Perhaps it is time to separate economic reality from social vanity.
Nigeria today is not merely battling inflation or unemployment; it is confronting a structural poverty challenge in a country of over 200 million people. In such an economy, small enterprises are not just economic pastimes; they are economic shock absorbers in real terms.
The woman selling akara at a roadside kiosk is not simply frying bean cakes; she is participating in a value chain. Farmers cultivate beans. Traders distribute them. Millers process ingredients. Transporters move goods. Retailers create final value. Every tray of akara sold sustains multiple livelihoods. The same applies to roasted corn and making kulikuli.
These are not symbols of backwardness. They belong to what economists describe as Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) – products with constant demand, rapid turnover and immediate cash flow. Unlike many white-collar ventures that require significant capital and lengthy gestation periods, these businesses generate daily liquidity. And that is precisely why they remain resilient.
Ironically, many of Nigeria’s celebrated entrepreneurs began with businesses no more sophisticated than food retail, street commerce or cottage production.
What modern economic discourse sometimes forgets is that capital accumulation often starts small.
One of the great misconceptions in public policy is the assumption that empowerment must always look sophisticated to be meaningful.
For years, governments at every level have organised highly publicised “youth empowerment” programmes. Young people are assembled in stadiums and conference halls. They receive certificates in digital marketing, entrepreneurship, shoe making, fish farming, coding, photography, branding and dozens of fashionable skills. Television cameras roll. Political speeches are delivered. Photographs are taken. Social media campaigns follow.
Then the participants go home with starter packs, token stipends or equipment insufficient to establish sustainable ventures.
Months later, many of those beneficiaries quietly return to unemployment. What remains is not enterprise but optics.
The political value extracted from those programmes often exceeds the economic value delivered.
Mrs Tinubu’s statement, whether elegantly expressed or not, challenges this culture of empowerment theatricals.
Her argument appears rooted in a simple economic truth: income matters more than political drama.
There is little dignity in receiving a certificate for “advanced entrepreneurship” without capital, but there is considerable dignity in earning daily profit from selling a product people actually buy.
Indeed, the informal sector remains one of Nigeria’s largest employers precisely because it rewards practicality.
Akara does not require imported technology. Roasted corn does not depend on foreign exchange. Kulikuli making does not wait for venture capital.
These businesses are local, accessible, scalable and culturally embedded.
A woman who starts with one frying stand can eventually employ assistants, open additional outlets, supply schools and events, diversify into beverages and household products, and become a distributor. Every established and flourishing enterprise was once small.
The global language of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) exists because economies understand that large industries do not drop from the sky. Today’s conglomerates began as yesterday’s modest ventures.
The danger in ridiculing microenterprise is that society begins to romanticise visibility while despising productivity.
The brutal truth is that not everyone will become a tech founder. Not everyone will launch a multinational. Not every empowerment programme must produce software developers.
A healthy economy needs traders, processors, manufacturers, retailers and service providers across all scales.
This is not an argument against sophisticated empowerment. Nigeria should absolutely invest in technology, manufacturing, vocational excellence and industrial growth.
The woman frying akara is not competing against innovation; she is participating in it at her level. Economic dignity should never be determined by how Instagram-worthy a business appears.
If a small grant can transform into sustainable daily income, employ neighbours and keep a household afloat, then the enterprise deserves respect, not ridicule.
Mrs Remi Tinubu might have unintentionally touched a national raw nerve. But in economies under pressure, humble enterprise is not humiliation. It is survival.
And oftentimes, survival is the first step towards prosperity.
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