JONAED

Entrepreneurship refers to the capacity and attitude of a person or group of persons to undertake ventures with the probability of success or failure Anyanwu, 1998, Okpara, 2005, Okechukwu 2009, Nwaru(2014). However, entrepreneurship may reflect superior information and perhaps more importantly imagination, which subjectively reduces the risks and uncertainties of new opportunities, which are ignored or rejected by other investors. Entrepreneurship predates public service and other forms of paid employment. In traditional Nigerian societies and communities occupational skills were transferred from fathers to son and mother to daughters. Alternatively, parents sent their sons and daughters to reputed masters of trades for apprenticeship. Overtime, those trade masters formed guilds and occupational training became institutionalized. Young girls attended domestic science institutes to become caterers and seamstresses while young boys attended commercial and technical institutes to become typists and mechanics. Through apprenticeship and stint of tutelage young boys and girls acquired trade skills, became successful, busy and started off their own business became success mantras. The British colonial rule over Nigeria dealt a devastating blow to the entrepreneurial culture of Nigerians by introducing and promoting the public corporate service culture. Worse still, the public service was dichotomized into technical (Blue collar) and administrative (white collar) jobs. Among the Igbo, “OruOyibo” became the new status symbol and success mantra.