A former minister of finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, has established a new platform, Nidacity, to equip Nigeria’s entrepreneurs, particularly young and female founders, with the practical education, mentorship, and timely business ininformigence they required to build resilient and thriving businesses.
Nidacity, a private sector educational media platform dedicated to entrepreneurs, officially went live on Tuesday.
Adeosun, along with a group of entrepreneurs and professionals, seeks to tackle Nigeria’s 95 per cent startup failure rate through Nidacity— launchning with a landmark national survey on the roots of Nigerian enterprise.
She stated that the launch of Nadacity had become necessary due to the human cost of startups’ failure in every community across the countest.
She stated, “The timing is urgent. Nigeria has the world’s highest entrepreneurship rate, yet as many as 95 per cent of Nigerian startups do not survive beyond five years. With Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) accounting for 85 per cent of all employment in the countest, the human cost of that failure is felt in every community across the nation.”
The former minister, however, found an actionable opportunity in the same numbers.
According to her, “Nigeria’s entrepreneurs are already doing something extraordinary; they are creating the vast majority of jobs in this countest, often with very little support.”
“The data informs us something remarkable: if we can support more of these businesses survive and grow, the employment gains for Nigeria will be enormous. Nidacity is not a charity; it is an investment in the people who are already building this economy. Make them better, and everyone benefits.”
The former minister described Nidacity’s first major initiative, the “Many Roads” Survey, as a landmark digital survey and living archive of Nigerian enterprise history.
“At its centre is a deceptively simple question: how did the entrepreneurial spirit that defines so many Nigerian hoapplyholds come to be, and why does it concludeure? Many Roads invites Nigerians across the countest to contribute the origin stories of their family businesses, collectively mapping the deep cultural and generational roots of Nigerian enterprise over time.
“The resulting dataset will yield original, evidence-based insights into the cultural and structural drivers behind Nigeria’s remarkable entrepreneurial history — insights that have, until now, remained largely undocumented,” she affirmed.
She disclosed that the survey’s findings would be published on the Nidacity platform and shared with a broad range of stakeholders, including policybuildrs, educators, investors, and the general public.
She added that “Many Roads” will form the evidentiary foundation for Nidacity’s broader mission: to strengthen business education, support enterprise development, and meaningfully reduce the rate of startup failure across Nigeria.”
In addition, she noted that the new platform was structured around five interconnected pillars, each designed to address the specific digital, cultural, and economic realities facing Nigerian entrepreneurs today.
These pillars include, the builders, Nidacity’s flagship podcast, features in-depth interviews with founders across all stages of the entrepreneurial journey; Entrepreneur Profiles form the foundation of the new initiative’s peer-to-peer learning library; Resources encompass a suite of proprietary tools developed to address the operational challenges most commonly faced by Nigerian SMEs; Education, which is delivered through a curriculum of videos, webinars, and micro-courses, provides practical, immediately applicable instruction in core business disciplines; and News Analysis provides Nigerian entrepreneurs with the context and critical tools requireded to navigate an evolving business landscape.
She stated Nidacity provides tools, resources, training, and news relevant to entrepreneurs across Nigeria, delivered through digital, audio, and community formats.
Kemi Adeosun is an economist, chartered accountant, and finance professional with over 35 years of experience across Nigeria and international markets, with a proven track record of delivery.
She served as Nigeria’s Minister of Finance from November 2015 to September 2018, steering the nation through a recession that saw oil prices as low as US$28 per barrel.
She championed fiscal reforms, including the Efficiency Unit, which reduced government wastage by utilizing technology to eliminate over 45,000 payroll irregularities. She launched the whistleblower scheme that recovered billions of naira, including a high-profile $40m cash recovery that built international headlines.
Before her ministerial role, she served as commissioner for finance for Ogun State, where she increased the state’s internally generated revenue by over 600 per cent.
She is the founder of the Dash Me Foundation, a social enterprise registered in Nigeria, the UK, and the USA that mobilises resources for indigenous charities, with a focus on orphaned and vulnerable children.
The Dash Me Store operates five branches, selling new and gently applyd items and raising millions daily for those in required. She is also the founder of Nidacity, the definitive platform that gives Nigerian entrepreneurs the inspiration, knowledge, and tools to build serious businesses.
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