Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that Cooperatives play a strategic role in implementing the government’s social investment and intervention programmes and ensuring that a large number of people have access to facilities.
Osinbajo made the assertions on Monday when he received a delegation from the Cooperative Federation of Nigeria (CFN) led by its President, Tajudeen Oriyomi Ayeola.
This was disclosed in a statement by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity, Office of the Vice President, Laolu Akande, yesterday.
Osinbajo said cooperatives are an important part of the strategy to ensure that the largest number of Nigerians have access to government programmes.
“The partnership of cooperatives with the government is possibly the only way of doing so in an efficient manner that ensures that government services and programmes get to the right people.
“Cooperatives give their memberships the leverage to be able to take facilities and make sure those facilities are returned. They also have more knowledge of their individual members,” .
He emphasized that, “the rationale for cooperatives even in the 50s remains relevant today.
”When we talk about cooperatives in the Western region and how these were very helpful and even cooperatives across the country became important pillars in the economic development of the country.”
Giving an instance where cooperatives have come in useful, the VP said, ”we thought that cooperatives would be very useful in all the programmes around the Economic Sustainability Plan. One of them is the Family Homes Funds and our plans to build 300,000 social housing units.
“The case for cooperatives is very well made and what we must do as a government is to look for ways of cooperating with the Cooperative Associations in ensuring that we are able to get this moving.”
