There is no disputing the fact. Nigeria has produced remarkable entrepreneurs, notable men and women who built businesses, banks, manufacturing companies, technology businesses, media organisations, telecommunications firms and trading empires out of remarkably difficult circumstances. Many of them started with little more than an idea, a borrowed or rented office, some, alone in their homes, and some with a handful of staff and an extraordinary appetite for risk.
However, there is a world of difference between building a successful business and building a business that can survive and outlast its founder. Nigeria has no shortage of the first kind. What I believe we badly need more of as a country is the second!
And I say this, based on what I have observed over the years in our country, not just after political independence in 1960, but even before. Despite the vast number of businesses carrying on across the landscape of our country, from Lagos to Abuja, Ibadan to Kaduna, Benin to Kano, Onitsha to Kafanchan and Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, many thriving and many others also struggling, contending with electricity challenges and the high cost of doing business here, it is possible for a business to be profitable and thriving well at the moment and yet remain very fragile.
That is why I believe there is an important question every serious entrepreneur should not only consider but confront: What will happen to this business when I am no longer here? In the long term, that question matters more than the annual turnover.
It’s very possible that a business can have thousands of customers, but when rigorously examined, still depend entirely on one key individual. It’s also possible for a business to occupy a magnificent headquarters and employ hundreds of people, yet, still hold no institutional memory beyond the founder’s head. The company appears to have the semblance of a solid institution. But it is not. It is only an extension of a person. When the individual is not there, the company is not able to function well and may eventually pack up.
That is not what Nigeria really needs!
We have had thriving companies and supposed conglomerates in Nigeria whose fortunes nosedived after the death of their founders. Some even shut down almost immediately. That is not what would serve Nigeria best. Nigeria needs businesses that will outlive the personalities who created them.
And the recent transformation of Nigeria’s banking industry as directed by the CBN Governor, Dr. Olayemi Cardoso, helps illustrate the point. While the recapitalisation of our banking institutions has produced stronger balance sheets across the sector, and this is immensely good for the growth and expansion of the economy, the impact would be seen more in what those balance sheets are deployed for, especially when it comes to helping more Nigerian businesses grow and last.
Already, the Federal Government has pushed banks to move beyond traditional intermediation and put more capital to work in production and job creation. This is particularly important, because while capital is an input, institution-building is the multiplier.
A founder who is obsessed only with expanding the organisation’s infrastructure towards generating more revenue may build a business. However, a founder who thinks about systems, people, governance and succession will be building an enduring institution. Unfortunately, this is where many Nigerian businesses struggle!
As a people, I have also observed that we celebrate the founders of major businesses so thoroughly that we usually forget to ask whether the organisation can function without them or even whether it can survive the day the MD/CEO cannot approve the memo or sign the cheque.
Of course, it is possible that in the early years, that kind of dependence may be necessary. A young business usualy has nothing but the founder’s acumen and judgment to rely on. But there comes a point where the founder’s greatest contribution is no longer doing everything himself, it is in building an organisation capable of doing many things without him. And that would require deliberate effort and consistent work. It would require competent managers who are empowered to decide, financial controls that do not run on personal trust, documented processes, clear reporting lines, real governance system, and a culture that company employees can pass on to those who come after them.
Above all, it takes succession planning!
A founder who begins searching for his successor when he or she is no longer feeling healthy to continue in the position or about to retire, is already too late to it. And succession is not simply about naming the next managing director when the founder dies. It is about transferring knowledge, responsibility, relationships and values long before the transition becomes necessary.
The best founders build people while they build products. They mentor executives, delegate real authority, let younger leaders make consequential decisions, and deliberately step back from certain calls so the organisation learns to stand on its own. That takes humility, and for some entrepreneurs, humility is the hardest part of the job.
Success can create the illusion that because the founder built the business, he or she must remain indispensable to it. But indispensability is not always a mark of strong leadership; it is instead clear evidence of poor institutional design. The founder who matters most in 10 years is the one working to become less operationally necessary today, even as he becomes more strategically influential.
This shift matters more as Nigerian companies chase larger pools of capital. The listing of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals is a case in point. The IPO is meant to broaden ownership and raise capital for expansion, alongside announced plans to significantly increase refining capacity. What makes such a move significant is not simply that Aliko Dangote built a massive enterprise. It is that businesses of this scale have to evolve from personal enterprises into institutions capable of attracting capital, professional management and public scrutiny, and of enduring long after the founder who built them has moved on. That is the direction Nigerian capitalism needs to take so that more businesses are able to survive changes in ownership, leadership, economic cycles and generations.
It is also why family businesses must take succession seriously. The first generation builds with sacrifice. The second inherits opportunity. The third determines whether the institution survives at all. Without governance, family businesses become battlegrounds over ownership and inheritance; and we have seen many of these in our country especially ones that their owners ran polygamous families.
But with governance, they become engines of generational wealth. The answer is not to remove the family from the business; it is to set rules that let family interests and institutional interests coexist.
The same principle applies to small and medium scale enterprises. An entrepreneur running a N20 million business should think about institutionalisation with the same seriousness as the owner of a N200 billion one. Documentation, financial discipline, delegation, training and succession planning can all begin today, regardless of size. Institution-building is not a luxury reserved for large corporations; it is a habit that should start while the organisation is still small.
This is the real reason Nigeria needs more businesses built to last!
Our next phase of economic development needs more than entrepreneurs who can start businesses. It needs entrepreneurs who can build organisations, companies that employ people today and keep creating opportunity long after the founder is gone. It needs founders who understand that their greatest legacy may not be the wealth they accumulated, but the institution they left behind, and an economy that does not lose ground every time one of its builders exits the stage.
A business that collapses when its founder leaves was only ever successful for a season. However, one that keeps creating value after the owner is gone has become something greater. It has become a legacy, and one more enduring brick in an economy that is intentionally built to last.
O’Femi Kolawole is a journalist, author, publisher and media development professional. He is the founder of Posterity Media and writes The Long View on business, leadership, institutions and Nigeria’s future. He can be reached on 08033983499 or ofemikolawole@gmail.com.
