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One of the economic challenges Nigerians are contending with at the moment is unemployment, especially among the youths. According to the National Bureau of Statistics – NBS (2019), out of the 90.4million labour force in the country, as at the third quarter of 2018, as much as 23.1% (20.9million) of them were unemployed while about 20.1% (18.2million) were underemployed. Underlying causes of unemployment in Nigeria could however be primarily attributed to the ever growing population of the country and yearly turnout of high number of graduates with fewer industries to absorb them all. As further indicated by Olawale (2017); Nigerian Finder (2017), other drivers of unemployment in the country include unstable and corrupt political environment, lack of quality education and basic infrastructure. Resultant effects of the unemployment includes reduction in the national outputs of goods and services, high rates of poverty, rural-urban migrations by youths, and crimes (Oye, Ibrahim and Ahmad, 2011; Nwankwo and Ifejiofor, 2014). A way out of this economic scenario is the need to engender entrepreneurship development among individuals in the country. This goes in line with Audretsch and Thurik (2004) expression that entrepreneurship constitutes a fundamental engine for enhancing economic development of a country.
Successful entrepreneurship practice however depends on the wits, prowess and skills of an enterprising individuals to catch on the existing opportunities for economic gains. According to Drucker (1985), entrepreneurs search for changes and responds by exploiting the opportunities. Among the arrays of opportunities being leverage upon by the enterprising individuals in today’s world include the potentials of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) for fast tracking economic activities, and satisfaction of the ever growing socioeconomic needs of the human society. With ICT as an important side of social and economic development, Leitão and Ferreira (2009) expressed that the technologies are being intuitively and strategically deployed to enhance entrepreneurial practices, thereby giving rise to variant ICT-based enterprises (ICT-BEs) around the world. According to Wamuyu (2014), ICT-BEs are business operations that have to do with use of ICT to either aid the production process or enhance distribution of goods and services. In essence, ICT-BEs entails the exploitation of ICT to meet the needs of a specific market.
The emergence and wide distribution of ICT in the Nigerian socioeconomic sphere have equally presented enormous opportunities for economic development, and to salvage the high rate of unemployment in the country. Consequently, several enterprising individuals in the country have begun leveraging on the electronic technologies for effecting business transactions in various dimensions for economic gains or wealth creation. While contributions of the information-driven technology to the national economy, through registration charges and taxation of the ICT service providers, is well recognised, the technologies’ impacts on the country’s micro economies is yet to be given due attention. According to Foster and Heeks (2010), microenterprises, which are traditionally connected with small goods trading and industrial production, provide significant employment in developing countries and have a strong influence on providing for those close to poverty. In view of this, this study is set out to examine the dimensions of ICT exploitation at the microeconomic level for entrepreneurial practice and its impacts on the socioeconomic status of the entrepreneurs. To guide the study are the following objectives:
- 1.
Highlight the emerging opportunities for ICT-based entrepreneurial practice in Nigeria,
- 2.
Examine the dimensions of ICT entrepreneurship development in the country,
- 3.
Ascertain the social and economic impacts of ICT-BEs on the entrepreneurs in the country