Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has advised Nigerians to leverage cooperatives to be beneficiaries of the federal government’s social investment and intervention programmes, including the 300,000-units housing projects.
In a statement signed by Osinbajo’s Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, the Vice President said cooperatives play a strategic role in implementing the programmes.
“The partnership of cooperatives with 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.
“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, even cooperatives across the country became important pillars in the country’s economic development.
“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 statement read.
Understanding cooperatives
When people voluntarily come together to form an autonomous association to meet their common social and economic objectives, what they have done is a cooperative activity. In other words, cooperatives are people-centred enterprises owned, controlled, and run by and for their members to help one another achieve fulfillment.
What you should know about the housing scheme
BizWatch Nigeria understands that the National Social Housing Programme (NSHP) is the housing component of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) programme, which was designed to deliver affordable housing and millions of jobs for Nigerians.
Under this programme, 300,000 homes would be constructed in all states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with the Family Homes Funds (FHF) as the lead developer, however other Nigerian partnerships and collaborations are welcomed to facilitate the construction of these homes.
