THIS IS MSME FORUM
Forum of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Business Membership Organization of Nigeria
Following its registration on September 7, 2018 by the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, members of the Board of Trustees of Forum of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Business Membership Organizations of Nigeria, known otherwise as MSME FORUM, paid a courtesy visit to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment in July, 2019, to inform the Ministry about the birth of the organization. They were received on behalf of the Permanent Secretary by Mr. Opaluwa John, a Deputy Director in the Industrial Development Department of the Ministry. Agreeing with the thinking behind the establishment of the organization, Mr. Opaluwa said “it is when you have this kind of leadership forum that boasts of men and women with wealth of experience that can talk to similar operators and make them listen, that you can bring in the public sector,” stating that the MSME FORUM was an idea whose birth was even overdue.
The Deputy Director was right. The idea of the MSME FORUM had been in the pipeline since 2001, when Frederick Norman Foundation (FNF), was still in Nigeria. As reported in the 2001 edition of Bedrock Magazine, the the German Foundation and the Nigerian Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), under the leadership of Dr Albert Olajide Akinyemi, initiated a process that would have given birth to an umbrella body for MSME Associations. Though the spirit was willing, realities on ground then, were unfavorable.