Promoters of cooperatives often point to the crucial role they play in rural development. They argue that by bringing individuals together to pool resources to achieve a common goal – whether it’s farmers seeking market access or a group of small businesses running a collective business and sharing profits from the operations – cooperatives help rural households to improve their lives and communities.
In an April 2012 report entitled “Understanding Co-operatives in Nigeria”, EFInA (Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access) made the point that cooperatives “could be a significant force in empowering rural communities, farmers, women and micro entrepreneurs throughout Nigeria”. True indeed, wherever cooperatives have been efficiently run across the country, they have served to lift communities and help individuals achieve what they couldn’t have achieved if they had gone it alone.
That is why the model that the government of Imo State, South-East Nigeria, is experimenting with at the moment has to be commended. Code-named OKOBI, an acronym for One Kindred, One Business Initiative (OKOBI), the Imo model is meant to encourage communities to own businesses as a way of democratizing business ownership in Nigeria, as well as a way of encouraging people to work in groups such as cooperative societies, according to the Chief Economic Adviser to the Governor, Prof. Kenneth Amaeshi.
Earlier this month, the news broke that Governor Hope Uzodimma had mandated the 655 autonomous communities in Imo State to key into the OKOBI programme as a model for employment generation in the locality and food security for the people, assuring the communities of government’s preparedness to ensure that the programme turns out a huge success story in the state.
According to reports, the governor challenged the autonomous communities “to identity a business they can own that the government can support them”.
“The way forward now is to go back to the traditional rulers, the town union President Generals and the stakeholders of different communities and sit together and work out the modalities on what they plan to do and how government will support them,” Prof. Amaeshi told the media at the end of an emergency Exco meeting on 5 August 2024.
He cited the Okpofe Community in Ezinihitte Mbaise Local Government Area of the state, where he said the programme has already taken off and excelled, thus presenting it as an example that other communities can emulate. He did not, however, give details of what the said community has done.
“So far, up to 300 businesses have been identified for potential establishment in the communities of Imo State,” he said, recalling Governor Uzodimma’s emphasis, when he assumed office for a second tenure, on the need to work with communities to identify their needs in the areas of businesses.
If all that has been said about OKOBI is true, then Governor Uzodimma deserves commendation. OKOBI, in my view, tallies with the communal spirit of the Igbo and most, if not all, of Africa, where communities have pooled resources to build schools, do roads, fix electricity, and other infrastructure. Back in the day, women groups ran cottage industries like garri processing plants in rural communities. It is that spirit, I reckon, that the Uzodimma government in Imo is trying to rekindle.
And the government appears ready to help with access to finance. Around April this year, OKOBI announced that it would be helping group-owned businesses in Imo State to access up to N10 million business funding from the Bank of Industry (BOI) through BOI’s RAPID programme. It listed the benefits of the funding to include tenor of up to three years and interest rate of 5 per cent per annum.
On its website, BOI says the objective of its Rural Area Programme on Investment for Development (RAPID) is “to assist communities in rural and economically disadvantaged areas to tap into available resources for the development of enterprises that can provide employment, improve standard of living, contribute to national growth and tame insecurity arising from youth restiveness”.
But OKOBI has not been without challenges. In a recent article “How my encounter with the government changed me!”, Amaeshi, a professor of sustainable finance at the European University Institute, Italy, and Chair in business and sustainable development at the University of Edinburgh, UK, mentions some of the challenges.
“First, people doubt that it could work and give 1001 excuses. Secondly, they complain about money and expect it to be funded by the government. Thirdly, they think it is a political gimmick. Fourthly, if it were to be financed by the government, they selfishly believe they should be the ones to benefit rightly or wrongly from it. When you combine all these, you have a recipe for a toxic problem,” Amaeshi said.
“In all, the critical challenge is trust. People appear not to trust themselves and the government. This apparent lack of trust, in itself, is dangerous. It requires a lot to overcome,” he said.
But, interestingly, the professor appears to have the panacea, first of which, according to him, is transparency.
“People gradually warm up to you when they know you have nothing to gain from the system. Secondly, they need to accept that you have their interests at heart. In other words, it is primarily for their benefit, not yours. Putting people first helps them to see that you mean well. This is the central message of OKOBI, which is beginning to gain momentum in Imo State,” he said.
One can only hope, like the sceptics, that all of this is not political gimmick.
