AS Nigeria turns 64 as an independent nation, I celebrate with President Bola Tinubu and every Nigerian who is alive to witness the occasion. We thank God for His goodness towards us as a people. Yes, we may not be where we ought to be yet. Things are indeed tough. But we are tougher. We are stronger. Being alive is always an opportunity to dream and hope for a better tomorrow. May Nigeria be great in our lifetime. Happy Independence Nigeria!

Businesses fail, whether they are conglomerates, micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) or startups. Statistics have established that 80-90 percent of startups will fail within their first two years. For startups, the attrition rate may be understandable. One may blame their failure to the promoters’ lack of experience, inadequate or inappropriate market exposure for the value proposition, bad financial/resource management, inadequacy of capital, manpower, executive greed through bogus compensations, government policies and many other factors. More on this later.

Surprisingly, the reasons for the failure of small businesses are not too dissimilar when it comes to corporate behemoths. How does one explain the collapse of corporate giants like Enron, Worldcom, Arthur Anderson, Compaq, Woolworths, Toys R us, Blockbuster and many like them who were run aground by terrible management? The Nigerian landscape is filled with several examples of banks like Oceanic Bank, Intercontinental Bank, Habib, Skye Bank, that used to be household names but which went into liquidation because of executive recklessness manifested in flawed corporate governance and executive greed.