GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 is caused by a contagious newly identified virus, and can have an enormous public

health impact with substantial fatal outcomes in high-risk groups and economic and societal

disruption. Therefore, it is important that measures that are appropriate and proportionate to

each phase of the epidemic are immediately put in place to interrupt human-to-human

transmission chains, prevent further spread, reduce the intensity of the epidemic and slow down

the increase in cases. Hit by the Covid-19 slump, followed by social distancing and a nationwide

lockdown, businesses are experiencing major impacts no matter how established they are and

are having to re-look at how they manage and operate their business including re-visitation of

their business plan, to suit daily activities which are confined to online platforms. The study

therefore sought to assess the impact of Covid-19 on entrepreneurs’ businesses in Akwa Ibom

State. The study made use of The Expost-facto survey design. The population of the study

consisted of all entrepreneurs’ businesses in Akwa Ibom State. 30 respondents were obtained as

the sample size through a stratified systematic sampling technique. The instrument used for data

collection was an interview schedule titled ―“CORONAVIRUS DISEASE (COVID 19)

IMPACT ON ENTREPRENEUR‟S BUSINESSES QUESTIONNAIRE” (CDIEBQ). Instrument

reliability was tested using Cronbach reliability test at 0.86 coefficient. The data obtained was

analyzed using the descriptive statistics for the research questions and simple regression for

hypothesis. The result was tested for significance at 0.05 alpha level. The study concluded that

the presence of covid-19 has been identified in Akwa Ibom State and there is significant

influence of covid-19 lockdown effects on entrepreneur’s businesses in Akwa Ibom State. One of

the recommendations made was that during this lockdown period, entrepreneurs must strive to

move with the trend by adopting the use of online platforms such as online banking transactions,

online discount to customers, online after-sales services to still render services to customers.

KEY WORDS: Covid-19, pandemic, lockdown, entrepreneur’s businesses.