Project Materials

COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND ECONOMICS DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

Chapter one

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Co-operation is a vehicle for widening and enhancing people’s lives, and co-operatives are playing key roles in some of our time’s largest and most important social and economic developments.

Cooperatives are an important part of many communities throughout the world today, and they are adaptable tools that can be used to better serve their members in the future.

Cooperatives around the world are managed democratically, both in theory and structure. The current situation in Nigeria is creating a new atmosphere and providing new prospects for the development of Nigerian cooperatives.

These new conditions benefit both cooperative and multinational businesses. Furthermore to justify its key role is social, economic, and political growth, particularly in industrialised countries like England, known for consumer cooperatives. France is known for credit cooperatives, and the movement is a global phenomenon.

It evolved from a single conventional type of mutual institution. Because of its extensive rote, the institution has gained global acceptance. It has been playing in poor countries.

Cooperatives’ economic success is unavoidable, resulting in higher income and, in turn, higher living standards for members and their fertilisers.

The World Bank and the United Nations have extensively chronicled Nigeria’s increasing poverty. Perhaps a more accurate image might be obtained by examining the conditions of children who have suffered permanent harm as a result of inadequate education, a poor food, and substandard homes.

The rural drivellers’ children have health difficulties. Particularly serve as indicated by the medical doctors who examined children in the country during the last house to house immunization.

The parents of those youngsters are unemployed, some of them are underemployed. Underemployment occurs when workers who are qualified for a job do not have a job to do.

Underemployment arises when productive resources are not used to their full potential; for example, a person sweeping the floor is underemployed. It is possible to have full employment while yet being underemployed.

For example, imagine you have a degree in economics but the only job you can find is pumping petrol. In this scenario, you are employed yet underemployed.

Inflation is another economic issue that has persisted and contributed to poverty. This is a consistent upward increase in the general price level, or average price level for products and services.

This represents a fall in the Naira’s general purchasing power. When the price level rises, the purchasing power of the naira decreases, and when the price level falls, the purchasing power of the naira increases.

The litter money in the hands of rural poor people cannot buy anything since the current situation of inflation is a discipline of hunger and poverty.

Other disadvantages include mean-spirited exploration of humans, falsification of weights and measurements, child labour, unfair competition, and so on.

The cooperative system aims to eliminate the flaws and faults of capitalism. Development and its importance, particularly rural development, cannot be overstated in Nigeria.

In a state where more than half of the population is rural, it becomes even more important to emphasise the rural pleasant because without them, the key to significant and grassroots development in the state cannot be realised.

As a result, rural development, whether undertaken by the national government or through the development of co-operative societies, must take into account the real needs and aspirations of rural people, as well as methods of incorporating them into development programmes through proper mobilisation and empowerment.

Finally, poverty alleviation and programmes (PAP) currently being approved by obansend government. Poverty eradication or alleviation can only be achieved by rural inhabitants copying change by forming controllable organisations such as cooperatives.

These cooperatives have had varied degrees of success in other countries, including England, consumer co-operatives and finance, and the industrial co-operatives movement, to name a few.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The socio-political milieu that has been in the country since 1999, when the current administrations of the CHIEF IKEDI OHAKIM administration took over, is very different from what it was during the early days of the military regime and pure capitalism. Today, the economy is diverse, with both private and state properties.

Nobody in society wants to return to the old regime and subsistence existence. Everyone benefits from sophisticated technology, division of labour, and mass production of a diverse range of goods.

The rights and freedoms of the masses are respected, and government intrusion in other economic organisations such as cooperatives is minimal.

These, among other characteristics, define the modern economy. Cooperative that delivers technology to the masses and allows them to participate in the ceremonies that have an impact on their life.