•Kaduna State Governor should turn this experiment into a model for the poor
Financial outlay by the governor of Kaduna State is not about making them flush with money, although that may be the ultimate goal. When Governor Uba Sani announced that his government was opening bank accounts for two million of its citizens, he was tapping into a very important impulse of the poor. He was advancing, among other things, a measure of financial literacy. But here is how the chief executive of Kaduna State put it: “Through our financial inclusion programme, we have opened over two million bank accounts for poor, vulnerable, and underserved persons to enable them to benefit from state and Federal Government social intervention programmes.”
It is significant on two fronts. One, it is happening in a state that was a flashpoint of the EndGovernance protests that led to some tragedies, and it turned out that the boys who caused pockets of mayhem may have been marionettes at the hands of some powerful persons who were at odds with democracy and peace, not only in that state but also across northern Nigeria.
The opening of bank accounts is an act of sensitivity to that episode, and also a signal that his government had heard all the cries of the poor. He himself described the policy as “pro-poor and people-centred.”
Opening bank accounts would be a vacuous policy if the people have no ongoing activity, or else the accounts fall in danger of going dormant. It must therefore be seen in the context of the slew of efforts to soothe the effects of the hardships in the country against the background of the removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the Nigerian currency. Policies such as the handing out of palliatives are important, but the areas that would encourage these account holders will include the government’s soft loans to farmers and small-scale enterprises as well as the distribution of agricultural inputs that include fertilisers and implements. They have to monitor how the “largesse” is being used.
Read Also: Tompolo applauds Kyari at 60, highlights role in restoring Nigeria’s economic prosperity
Two, the northern poor has been an especial pain in the social hierarchy in the country. Statistic after statistic and survey after survey have marked out the northern underclass as vulnerable because most of its poor, especially known as almajiris, have been wasted every year because they do not go to school, and so do not have the ability to move up the social ladder. They grow old as dependents rather than able contributors to society. Rather than use them as tools for progress, they have turned to become cynical levers from a manipulating elite who scramble for more wealth and power. Governor Sani engaged the north a number of times in the course of last year, nudging his colleagues and the somnolent north to pivot its feudal eyes to the benefit of its underclass.
One other factor that can help is the tamping down of violence by bandits. Governor Sani exhaled, “Kaduna has bounced back,” apparently referring to the return of the perennial flashpoint of violence, Birnin Gwari, to peace and commerce.
We expect that those who will get the bank accounts will be from every aspect of the state, so no one makes any hoopla about unfairness. Since the very poor tend to be illiterate, it means the government must work out modality for the beneficiaries to learn financial, at least banking literacy, at a workable level.
There is no way the poor can be part of the economy without banking of sorts. We run a largely informal economy in Nigeria, but the imperative of formalising activities is ever stronger, particularly if the players must benefit from government programmes.
Since this is new at this scale, we look forward to seeing how this experiment will work out as a model for other states.
