{"id":6486,"date":"2026-11-02T13:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T13:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/02\/over-5350-cross-river-msmes-empowered-as-meda-owen-enoh-rally-support-for-tinubu-in-2027-businessday-ng\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T13:02:00","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T13:02:00","slug":"over-5350-cross-river-msmes-empowered-as-meda-owen-enoh-rally-support-for-tinubu-in-2027-businessday-ng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/02\/over-5350-cross-river-msmes-empowered-as-meda-owen-enoh-rally-support-for-tinubu-in-2027-businessday-ng\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 5,350 Cross River MSMEs empowered as MEDA, Owen Enoh rally support for Tinubu in 2027 \u2013 Businessday NG"},"content":{"rendered":"

No fewer than 5,350 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and local entrepreneurs across Cross River State have benefited from direct cash grants, skill acquisition, and capacity-building programmes under ongoing state and federal government interventions.\n<\/p>\n

Great Ogban, the Director-General of the Cross River State Micro Enterprise Development Agency (MEDA), disclosed this during the Manufacturing and MSME Town Hall Meeting held on Sunday at the Dome, Calabar Municipality Garden, Calabar.\n<\/p>\n

Ogban explained that the interventions were deliberately structured to reach businesses across the state\u2019s three senatorial districts to stimulate grassroots economic growth.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 5,350 Cross Riverians have benefited from various enterprise-development and empowerment interventions under the current administration,\u201d Ogban said. \u201cSMEDAN has trained 2,500 participants across the state\u2019s three senatorial districts, while another 2,000 persons have benefited from a separate intervention, with 500 of them accessing grants of N500,000 each.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Evaluating the impact of the financial assistance, the MEDA Chief Executive noted that beneficiaries were making judicious use of the support to scale up operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome of the grant programme is encouraging, as beneficiaries are actively applying the skills and financial support received to expand their businesses,\u201d he added.\n<\/p>\n

Ogban further highlighted that local businesses have accessed low-interest financial facilities and critical administrative reliefs aimed at easing the cost of doing business in the state.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cCross River businesses have benefited from a N200 million MSME intervention, alongside access to single-digit interest loans and N50,000 grants facilitated through SMEDAN and the Bank of Industry (BOI),\u201d Ogban stated.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernor Bassey Otu deserves commendation for providing 1,000 free Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) business registration opportunities, an initiative that has significantly reduced the cost and administrative challenges associated with formalising businesses in our state.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Calling for sustained political and policy synergy between the state and federal governments, Ogban urged entrepreneurs to support continuity in economic governance.<\/p>\n

\u201cSustained collaboration between the Federal and State Governments is essential to consolidate the gains recorded in the MSME sector. I urge our entrepreneurs and stakeholders to support continuity in the implementation of these transformative economic programmes,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Corroborating Ogban\u2019s remarks, the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owan Enoh, emphasized the strategic importance of small businesses to Nigeria\u2019s economic revival. He stated that MSMEs account for nearly 96 per cent of businesses, contribute 40 per cent to the nation\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and generate about 87 percent of national employment.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMSMEs are actually our economy. You all seated here are the economy of Cross River and the economy of Nigeria,\u201d Senator Enoh told participants. \u201cYou need to be very proud of the contributions you continue to make to the economic growth and development of our state and our country.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The Minister announced several upcoming federal industrial initiatives earmarked for Cross River State, including: Electric Bicycle Assembly Plant: An agreement reached with an economic development team for an electric bicycle manufacturing plant, with location talks ongoing with Governor Bassey Otu ahead of a scheduled November 10 meeting.\n<\/p>\n

Allocation of 75 acres of land in Calabar for an automotive-related project, alongside an automotive training centre currently being built by the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC).<\/p>\n

Over 2,000 residents across the 18 Local Government Areas benefiting from federal grant programmes, NITDA mentorship, and digital business development schemes.\n<\/p>\n

Senator Enoh unveiled a document compiled by the Manufacturing and MSME Directorate detailing the achievements of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu since May 2023, urging Cross Riverians to support the President\u2019s re-election in 2027 to sustain the gains.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a directorate, what we have done is to put together a document that captures and indicates a lot of the progress that has been made by Mr President,\u201d Senator Enoh said. \u201cThat document makes the case for the fact that re-electing Mr President is actually what this country is going to benefit from.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The town hall featured presentations by the Special Adviser to the President on Youth, Business and Investment, the Managing Director of NEXIM Bank, and the Director-General of SMEDAN.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIfeoma Okeke-Korieocha<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha is the Aviation Correspondent at BusinessDay Media Limited, publishers of BusinessDay Newspapers.
\n
\nShe is also the Deputy Editor, BusinessDay Weekender Magazine, the Saturday Weekend edition of BusinessDay.
\n
\nShe holds a BSC in Mass Communication from the prestigious University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a Masters degree in Marketing at the University of Lagos.
\n
\nAs the lead writer on the aviation desk, Ifeoma is responsible and in charge of the three weekly aviation and travel pages in BusinessDay and BDSunday. She also overseas and edits all pages of BusinessDay Saturday Weekender.
\n
\nShe has written various investigative, features and news stories in aviation and business related issues and has been severally nominated for award in the category of Aviation Writer of the Year by the Nigeria Media Nite-Out awards; one of the Nigeria\u2019s most prestigious media awards ceremonies.
\n
\nIfeoma is a one-time winner of the
\nprestigious Nigeria Media Merit Award under the ‘Aviation Writer of the Year’ Category.
\n
\nShe is the 2025 Eloy Award winner under the Print Media Journalist category.
\n
\nShe has undergone several journalism trainings by various prestigious organisations.
\n
\nIfeoma is also a fellow of the Female Reporters Leadership Fellowship of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Source: <\/p>\n

Businessday NG<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No fewer than 5,350 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and local entrepreneurs across Cross River State have benefited from direct cash grants, skill acquisition, and capacity-building programmes under ongoing… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}