By Agboola Bayo
Ibadan
A University don, Professor Festus Epetimehin yesterday advised the federal and state governments to effect reform of cooperatives policy frameworks in the country.
Professor Epetimehin stated this at the South West Cooperative Sector Assessment Summit organized by the National Association of Cooperative Consultants (NACC), in Ibadan.
The Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji, Professor said the reform should be in form of legal and regulatory procedures towards ensuring reduction of poverty and unemployment in the society.
He maintained that this would further boost the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country, adding that cooperatives will achieve more in the promotion of SMEs when efforts are intensified to address the challenges associated with it.
“Nigerian governments, at the local, state and national levels, should promote and adopt policies to support Cooperatives to become institutions which, truly enables the people to achieve their own developmental needs,” he said.
Emphasizing in his lecture entitled “Cooperatives as a Vehicle for Sustainable Community Development, Employment Generation and Poverty Alleviation”, the don noted that cooperatives were and must be made vehicles to attack poverty and unemployment through the pooling together and proper investment of the cooperative funds.
Professor Epetimehin then advocated that action plans should be pursued to ensure that cooperatives build strong member-controlled cooperatives, promote good leadership in the cooperatives, promote strong and effective cooperative development support institutions, and also improve cooperatives education and training.
According to him, “the promotion of genuine member participation and member control is a major means that will ensure the resurrection of the cooperatives and give it the capacity to contribute to poverty alleviation and promote membership entrepreneurship ability”.
“Cooperative societies have not only contributed to the development of small scale business but are in themselves small business development through entrepreneurial development funding, provision of entrepreneurship, promotion of establishment of small scale industries, promotion of small holder agriculture.”
