NIGERIAN BANKS ARE NOT INTERESTED IN FUNDING REAL SECTOR GROWTH BY M A C ODU I have gone through a lot of experiencing to come to the conclusion imported in the subject matter. I was a young professional and had to be supported by First Bank of Nigeria to grow my practice in the early seventies based on trust and confidence of white banking officials in my practice. Our own folks took charge of banking following indigenization decree and that marked the end of funding of real sector of the economy for growth and development of Nigerian nation. We have had banking crises since then as social responsibility was thrown out in favour of private bankers’ benefits from funding of sectors of the economy. The victim of this trend is the rural sector, which can least provide up-front incentives to bankers for credit that should ordinarily be available to producers of all kinds in a growing economy such as ours. It is now clear that we are our worst enemies in terms of growth and development. Bankers Committee and Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria are invited to contest this issue with me. A major cooperative event took place in April 2013. Four hundred and fifty primary cooperative societies were painstakingly gathered from all the four winds of Imo State to be orientated in cooperative goals as a sure path to development in traditional idiom. The cooperatives are deemed to have represented over ten thousand farmers. Bank of Industry, Bank of Agriculture, Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative Bank, All Commercial Banks, and Central Bank were acquainted with the objective in writing from conception to staging of the summit. Not one of the banks had the courtesy of even replying to solicitation letters made out to their chief executives. This is the tragedy that compels this pointblank accusation that there is deliberate sabotage of Nigerian economy implied in this brazen callousness. Banks are not interested in growth of Nigerian economy. It could be extended to mean that banks are in the firm grips and payroll of advanced economies to ensure that production is stifled in Nigeria in favour of consumption outlets for developed nations of the world. Nigeria will be doomed to perpetual servitude if their plans were to work the way it is now being remotely controlled to favour consumption. Our bankers should be blamed for that condition whenever it becomes reality. Banks were invited to participate in organizing cooperatives in Imo State in order to reduce their risk profiles in funding agricultural and cottage industrial production targeted by over four hundred and fifty cooperative societies spread out in all LGAs of Imo State. The aim was to prepare the primary cooperative societies for disciplined commitment to production and use of capital for growth. It was also to make cooperative unions and associations more bankable. No bank showed up in spite of several meetings and letters soliciting their support months in advance of the event. It is unthinkable that a carnival of that type that should be at the pinnacle of interests of development banks and commercial banks and even Central Bank of Nigeria could not evoke any attention in a government that talks about transformation of the economy into a productive one. Jonathan has some explaining to give rural folks in Imo State. In saner climes, banks would support cooperatives with creative capital since cooperatives lessen their risk element in financing production at the rural base of the economy which should power and sustain urban productivity with raw materials. The entire effort at organizing cooperatives should have been borne by government and banks if there was any connection between policy and programme in governance. Obviously there is none. My two world renowned exponents of development economics, John Kenneth Gailbraith and Lewis Mumford, are congruent in their theses that industrial development should be an outcrop of rural productivity. From here Mumford derived his thesis that cities existed first as containers of goods and services provided by the countryside around it. Today, Abuja is a massive consumption centre that has pulled a thick wad of wool over the eyes of leaders of the problems of the countryside since it is the repository of our commonwealth from where goodies from the productive world are flown at great expense to provide three profligate arms of government with funds for lavishing upon their whims. No one could care a hoot what the bottom of the social pyramid felt like. They Abuja players see food on their table and could not be bothered how it got there. They do not consequently appreciate the importance of cooperatives in any economy. How can I blame them? They found access to resources undeservedly and could not be bothered about how oil has overtaken farming in the annals of Nigeria’s chequered history of waste. The countryside is depopulated of productive youth in favour of cities where industrial production has dropped into inanition of worrying dimensions. Crime of all weird types has become our heritage. Government is to blame. There are over twenty-five banking institutions in Imo State Capital Owerri. All the banks were approached for support for Imo Cooperative Summit 2013 held at Heroes Square Owerri from 25th to 26th April 2013. No bank showed up. The touted empowerment of the organised private sector went up in flames. Paucity of production capital in the rural sector is the main problem of Nigerian economy which has for the period 1966-2013 only received cosmetic treatment. It is now evident that there is no change in attitude to rural majority of farming folk in the Transformation Agenda currently being touted by the Jonathan administration. Obasanjo attempted to give some life to All Farmers Association of Nigeria, AFAN, in his regime from 1999-2007 during which he ensured that AFAN was a signatory to Intervention Funds of the Federal Government. The living reality is that governments politicized hundreds of billions approved in Obasanjo’s ultimate year on the saddle. Governor Ikedi Ohakim dipped his filthy hands into that fund and expropriated it for his whims. Not a dime went to All Farmers Association of Nigeria which was a signatory to that intervention fund. As I write Imo State Government with its touted policy on Agriculture has still not provided any credit to farming folk. Its presence at the summit was perfunctory and worthless to cooperatives in real terms. It was apparent that they placed no value on the entire objective. When they insisted on collecting full value of hire tariff for the venue from the high contracting parties, it became clear that Imo State Government itself is sick. It has no value for cooperatives as a veritable path to both wealth creation and wealth spread, as well as assurance to industrial production. What else can one say of the Nigerian economy? It is doomed on account of myopia of people in power. It is doomed by ignorance of priorities worth pursuing. It is doomed for callousness shown to the real sector by policy makers and programme implementers. It is doomed for a banking system far removed from real sector support proclivities. It is doomed because people in Abuja are vultures waiting for carrion to drop from the countryside so they can have more to share among themselves of resources owned by those who were once humans. The failure of government to support cooperatives will go down in history as the worst calamity that can befall a developing economy.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:36:26 +0000
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