Business
‘SMEs, Key To N’Delta Dev’
The Director-General of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms Arunma Oteh, says Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are essential to the development of the Niger Delta region.
Oteh, who made the assertion in an interview with The Tide source in Yenagoa, said that SMEs had the potential to create jobs and attract bigger investments.
The director-general explained that SMEs would transform the economy of the region by gradually growing small scale entrepreneurships into large scale ones.
Oteh who was in Bayelsa for the 2014 International Conference on Small and Medium Scale Enterprise, applauded Bayelsa Government for using SMEs to drive its developmental plans.
“We are very excited that Governor Seriake Dickson has made small and medium scale enterprises a pillar for his restoration programme for Bayelsa.
“We believe that given that 95 per cent of the world’s population is driven by SMEs, the problems of the country’s income distribution and unemployment can be addressed same way.
“It is very heartwarming that Bayelsa government has devoted its energy to growing small scale investments; it has focused on a very important aspect of the nation’s economy,” she said.
Oteh said the ecosystem approach which focused on providing finance through the SME development fund and skills development partnership was a recipe for transforming the region.
She said that with business support services to SMEs, Bayelsa had the potential to become Nigeria’s Silicon Valley.
“Bayelsa has the ecosystem to become Africa’s Dubai, given the strategy that the state government has adopted.
“We feel that this should be emulated across the Niger Delta region and indeed across the nation,” she said.
She said that job creation through SMEs would engender economic growth and development.
“If we must have inclusive growth, we have to meet our challenge of unemployment by job creation.
“If we want economic inclusion with the rest of the world, the only way to do it is to support small and medium enterprises.
“Nigerians are hard working and enterprising. What is needed is for Nigerians to realise their potential to change their fortune,” she said.
L-R: Group Managing Director, Diamond Bank, Dr Alex Otti, Chairman and Obi of Onilsha, Nnaekeka Achebe and Secretary of the bank, Nkechi Nwosu, during the 23rd Annual General Meeting of the bank in Lagos, recently.
The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has said that Bank Verification Number (BVN) enrolments rose by 6.8 per cent year-on-year to 67.8 million as at December 2025, up from 63.5 million recorded in the corresponding period of 2024.
In a statement published on its website, NIBSS attributed the growth to stronger policy enforcement by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the expansion of diaspora enrolment initiatives.
NIBSS noted that the expansion reinforces the BVN system’s central role in Nigeria’s financial inclusion drive and digital identity framework.
Another major driver, the statement said, was the rollout of the Non-Resident Bank Verification Number (NRBVN) initiative, which allows Nigerians in the diaspora to obtain a BVN remotely without physical presence in the country.
A five-year analysis by NIBSS showed consistent growth in BVN enrolments, rising from 51.9 million in 2021 to 56.0 million in 2022, 60.1 million in 2023, 63.5 million in 2024 and 67.8 million by December 2025. The steady increase reflects stronger compliance with biometric identity requirements and improved coverage of the national banking identity system.
However, NIBSS noted that BVN enrolments still lag the total number of active bank accounts, which exceeded 320 million as of March 2025.
The gap, it explained, is largely due to multiple bank accounts linked to single BVNs, as well as customers yet to complete enrolment, despite the progress recorded.