Counselling and Psychological Strategies for Improved Entrepreneurial Tendencies in the Nigerian Military

Introduction

Career is a term that has been variously defined by different authors as a result of different orientations of the authors. Hence the terms is variously understood. In many instances, the terms career, vocation and occupation are used synonymously. Such a narrow view of career is problematic in that it is aligned only with paid employment. Rather, a career encapsulates the variety of occupational roles which individuals will undertake throughout life. It includes paid and self – employment, the different occupations which person may have over the years and periods of unemployment and unpaid occupations such as that of student, voluntary worker or parent. Arthur, Lawrence and Hall (1989) suggested that a career is the evolving sequence of a person’s work experience over time. The concept of career has broadened to include pre-vocational, vocational and post vocational activities and other life roles and contexts. The above is a slight illumination into an individual’s lifetime engagement. Meanwhile, career roles could manifest in different forms and dimensions to include entrepreneurial activities. The Nigerian military recognized the potential of its personnel and the need for them to have a lifelong fulfilling career (including post retirement) coupled with the fact that most of the personnel, upon retirement are still at the productive age and able to contribute significantly to the economy and development of the nation. Hence the Nigerian military made adequate provision for vocational and entrepreneurial training of its retiring personnel. The aim of this pre-retirement entrepreneurial training is to build, sustain, enhance small business development and create jobs through the retired military personnel as well as to prepare the individuals for resettlement into civil life (Yusuf & Minai, 2016). This training could be said to have positive impact on self-employment and significant growth of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria. However, most of these ventures are often short-lived. This is because entrepreneurship is developmental and involves a lot of intricacies in terms of processes, decision making, competencies and skills which in most situations require professional assistance and making interventions from experts. Therefore, this paper tries to identify some of these challenges. In addition, it highlights counselling as an intervention strategy by professionals to improve entrepreneurial tendencies in the Nigerian military.