Financial Inclusion can be defined as any initiative by the public and private sector to deepen access to financial services for individuals and businesses of all sizes. It is aimed at fixing frictions which prevent people from consumption of financial services.

According to the Global Findex Database 2017, only 40 percent of Nigerians of adult age have an account with a financial institution or a mobile money service provider.

Lack of accessibility to formal banking services, illiteracy on the benefits of financial services, cultural and religious factors such as Islam which forbid non-interest banking are some of the reasons for the high financial exclusion rate  in Nigeria, leaving many to adopt traditional methods of savings such as Esusu in the management of their day to day expenditure.

The following are benefits of formal financial services:

Savings of capital for future purposes: Financial institutions help small and large businesses save their capital. Savings also allows them to enjoy interest on their money in the case of fixed deposit which could be useful in cases of emergency such as during a recession. This opens the door for them to enjoy credit facilities for the banks to boost their businesses.

Access to Credit Facilities: As account owners in banks, the deposit money banks and microfinance banks monitor the financial health of the micro small business owners in order to determine eligibility for loans, and based on this offer finance to expand their business.

Insurance: Microfinance institutions offer micro insurance which helps micro and small businesses mitigate risks inherent in their businesses.

Convenience: With the advent of digital technology, commercial and microfinance institutions offer a convenient and traceable means of conducting financial transactions which the informal finance system lacks.

Helps in Economic Policy Planning: The formal financial system is structured and with the introduction of identity and security management initiatives like the Know Your Customer and Bank Verification Number, it helps the government with data on those financially excluded and poverty rate which can help in developing policies to deepen access to financial services, and lifting millions out of the poor pool.

The Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program (GEEP) is a micro credit initiative of the Federal Government of Nigeria,  and powered by the Bank of Industry, to empower millions of micro enterprises with collateral free and interest free loans, to grow their businesses as they comprise the MSME sector which employs over 60 percent of the nation’s labour force and contributes 76 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, but lack access to finance. Of all bank loans in 2017, only about 0.4 percent was lent to micro enterprises.

On the mode of pay back, the GEEP officer said two options were given to the beneficiaries to make daily payment of N85.00 or N430.00 weekly to the tradermoni account of the federal government in any bank of their choice after two weeks of grace.

“Those who finish the repayment of their first loan on time stand the opportunity to receive higher amount of N15,000 and so on. The federal government has a very big plan for the empowerment of small scale enterprises.

“The programme is for the federal government to empower traders, artisans and it makes it easier for young entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.

“Of course, our targets are micro business SMEs; these are people who typically have zero access to credit. As the government helps them to grow their businesses, their families will benefit and the economy will also benefit”, he added.

Most micro entrepreneurs are non-consumers of financial services  which makes visiting deposit money banks unnecessary since they cannot afford collaterals nor interest rates for their loans and are averse to technology.

The GEEP was designed to fix this friction by delivering last mile microcredit through aggregation construct, leveraging technology and market cooperatives, as the pillars, leading it to a high scalable advantage as over seven million MSMEs in 1,600 markets across the 36states have been enumerated.

Each day over 4,000 GEP agents visit various markets to onboard beneficiaries equipped with proprietary technology that enables full registration and capture of beneficiary data such as biodata, market information, nature of trade, GPS coordinates of trade pint, association membership and other necessary data to determine eligibility for credit. The platform utilizes geo-fencing and mapping to ensure that target beneficiaries at the bottom of the pyramid and most rural parts of the country are reached. Every captured beneficiary is sent to the Bank of Industry in real time for verification, appraisal and credit assessment through over 120 agents and officials operating from a call centre.

Qualified applicants receive money in their bank accounts or mobile wallets which was opened for them during the onboarding process and those of them who are non-consumers of mobile phones are given free phones. Each loan disbursed is booked autonomously on a core banking system which is connected to all commercial banks in the country for beneficiaries to easily enter any bank and make repayments periodically. It has also created a repayment scratch card for recharge targeted at beneficiaries who don’t like patronage of the banking hall which can be purchased in local markets. Upon recharge, it automatically credits their loan account, and upon completion of loan repayments, a subsequent loan offer is made by phone to the beneficiaries.

Using biometrics, Bank Verification Number as a digital collateral, mobile data capture, mobile wallets, over 4,000 agent network in all the 774 local government areas and its state of the art operations monitoring centre where its real time dashboards beam live details of active registrations, disbursement and beneficiary data across all the states and FCT, the GEEP has been able to give loans to 2.5 million Nigerians through its various products Trader Moni which disburses 10,000 naira to petty traders and artisans to boost their trade reaching 1.3 million, Market Moni which gives loans from 50,000 naira to market women across the country with over 350,000 beneficiaries and Farmer Moni which offers farmers in clusters loans from 300,000 naira and over 5,000 farmers have benefited from this scheme.

The Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program should include capacity development to help its beneficiaries in growing their businesses to boost Nigeria’s GDP. It plans to reach 20 million Nigerians through its various initiatives by 2023.

According to a 2019 report by Mc Kinsey, only 28 percent of Nigerians have identities with half of that number lacking digital identities and 70 percent of the citizenry lack any form of identification. By unlocking the potential in digital ID could grow Nigeria’s GDP by 7.1 percent in 2030.

To fix this friction, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) plans to deploy a digital identity system which will capture data of all Nigerian citizens. Considering the fact that Nigerians carry different means of identification, the system will integrate all the multiple identities issued by different public and private institutions.

Lack of unique identity has prevented millions of Nigerians from accessing credit facilities from financial institutions.  Cash is the most preferred means of payment due to lack of a centralized form of identity. Credit as a percentage of GDP is lower in Nigeria compared to its peers on the continent like South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana and Angola. In South Africa, credit cards are mostly used to transact for goods and services while in Kenya, Mpesa the e-payment platform is widely used by all, even alms collectors.

The absence of a credit system prevents Nigerians from accessing goods and services when they need them. Cash based transaction has its inherent risks which include huge processing fees, attacks from armed robbers, etc.

World Bank data reveals a negative credit decline in Nigeria from 22.3 percent in 2009 to 10.95 percent.

This explains the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive to banks to deepen their loan books by 60 percent of consumer deposit. Lenders such as fintechs and deposit money banks are utilizing technology to unlock loans for their customers with credit scoring based on the available data on their financial habits.

 The NIMC should learn from India’s digital identification Aadhaar which enables biometric authentication has covered over 90 percent of its population creating access to finance for its SMEs and rising middle class.

Also a startup Verify Me, a leading database management solutions provider has unveiled a real time ID verification platform which integrates the National Identity Number, Driver’s License No and Bank Verification No. It has studied the industry and global market in line with anti-money laundering compliance for banks and other financial institutions which explains why the Know Your Customer is important and the British General Data Protection Regulation  directive for privacy guidelines and decided to build a system which provides the most convenient solution for Nigerians in adherence to strict compliance rules to promote a culture of data integrity and privacy.

With its platform BVN (bank verification number), NIN (national ID number) and Driver’s License numbers can be linked to harmonize digitized data which becomes available for organizations to meet their throughput demands. 

There are about 70 million Nigerians with various forms of identities ranging from the NIN, Driver’s License No and the BVN. Most of them cannot access financial services ranging from insurance, banking services because they are financial excluded due to lack of identity and Verify Me in collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission has unveiled an enrollment programme for people to pre-register on their platform which will also collect their biometrics so that all their data will be sent to the NIMC for faster processing and availability of their National Identity Numbers.

Verify Me’s decision to not work with the telecommunication operators who are the major repositories for digital data with over 160 million registered subscribers on their networks is because of tier level which is lower level KYC and lack of standards for facial recognition which is part of Verify Me’s capabilities.

It does a lot of Know Your Customer data verification services for Nigerian banks and operates across all the six geopolitical zones except conflict zones and helps in mapping addresses for security purposes.

Another friction which it is helping to fix which is common in Nigeria is people committing offences in a particular location and relocating to new neighborhoods without the residents being aware of their new neighbors. It fixes through creation of a national work history repository for anyone to plug into and access work history which somebody else has reported enabling corporate and domestic employers to access the work history of their employees to know those who have criminal records to avert potential losses.

Verify plans to roll out series of biometric type recognitions and a KYC Marketplace which will offer originators of addresses used for verification a percentage of revenues each time they are used for authentication. It should explore integration of blockchain into its identity management solutions platform for security, transparency and authenticity.

At the ongoing trial of the former pension chairman, Abdulrasheed Maina, in Abuja, there was a sudden halt in the proceedings, orchestrated by the defense counsel’s complain that his client is bleeding.

The defense counsel said that Maina cannot continue with his trial with his health under serious question before the court. He asked for adjournment to receive a report from Nigerian correctional services concerning the health status of his client.

The Nigerian correctional service has asked for a week to turn in Maina health report, and his advocate prayed the court to adjourn the hearing until the report is served. It was a dramatic situation that put the proceedings to a halt, and it was not the first time something like that is happening in a court hearing involving corruption.

On the 7th of November, Maina was brought to court on a wheelchair, after he couldn’t make a court appearance scheduled for the 5th of November. According to the medical report presented to the court, he was seriously ill, and his condition was pitiable even to the confession of the presiding judge. But he is not the only one who has fallen critically ill owing to his graft case.

In 2016, the former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chairman, Bello Haliru Mohammed, appeared in court on a wheelchair. Mohammed was on trial for his role in the alleged $2 billion the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki swindled through arms deal.

Another political figure who was notably brought to court on wheelchair is Olisa Metuh, the former PDP National Publicity Secretary, who was also accused of receiving N400 million from the embattled Sambo Dasuki in 2014, appeared critically ill on a wheelchair.

His case got more dramatic, in his recent court appearance; he came lying motionless on a stretcher.

There is a whole number of them; the former presidential adviser on Niger-Delta, Kingsley Kuku, former Adamawa state governor, Bala Ngilari, former minister of petroleum resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, former minister of aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, and the list goes on.

One question people keep asking in all these instances is: Why do Nigerian public office holders get sick as soon as they are put on trial for corruption?

The answer many have offered is that they do that to incur the sympathy of judges and the general public. While that is true, there is more to it. It takes a lot of lies, manipulations, cynicism and hardheartedness to loot public fund. And the looters go through all these because they believe that the end will justify the means. So when it turned out otherwise, it becomes a heart wrenching problem they didn’t include in the plan in the beginning, and therefore, will find it difficult to handle.

For instance, there’s a list of 23 landed property linked to Maina that the court has ordered its forfeiture. And millions of naira traced to him has also been confiscated by the Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), and the hunt for more goes on.

That has been the case with many of them who were caught up in the act of looting. The (aku na esi obi ike) wealth gives confidence stance is no longer in play because there is nothing to hold on to. The reverberating effect wrecks through the heart and bones of the perpetrator, rendering him incapacitated in a short time, and his survival may depend on what he is able to hide from the government after all, from the proceeds of his loots.

The former governor of Bayelsa State, late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, is a noteworthy case. He embezzled as much as $55 million of public fund and used the proceeds to acquire assets around the world. He acquired luxury houses in California, London, and South Africa, and owned an oil refinery in Ecuador.

It was the kind of wealth his six years as a governor gave him the opportunity to amass, and he was happy and healthy swimming through it until 2005, when he was charged with money laundering in London and the police discovered that he had $3.2 million in cash and in the banks and $15 million real estate holdings there.

That was the beginning of the troubles that would later lead him to his early grave. Two years after his impeachment in 2005, Alamieyeseigha pleaded guilty to failing to declare his assets. The whole corruption saga got him only two years in prison.

In 2013, after he got out of prison, former president Goodluck Jonathan granted him presidential pardon, and once again, he became active in political activities. But he didn’t live long enough to enjoy it. Alamieyeseigha died in 2015 as a man who no longer had anything to be afraid of, apart from the fact that there is nothing left to hold on to from the wealth he illegally acquired. Not even his new political roles could assuage the emptiness that he feels for losing it all.

So it is with the rest of them, the fear of lying, intimidating, manipulating protocols only to lose it all in the end is the deadly disease that suddenly renders corrupt political office holders incapacitated during trials.

In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari flagged off the dry season farming campaign in Kebbi State. The initiative was supported by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s N20 billion Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP). Before 2015, Nigerian farmers were at the mercy of weather. Most needed crops became scarce in dry seasons due to the lack of technique to cultivate them when the weather condition becomes harsh.

Ever since then, the CBN has supported hundreds of farmers through the ABP, providing them with loans to initiate dry season farming after they must have learned the practice.

In 2018, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) visited Northern Nigeria with the dry season farming technique, the aim was to foster a new approach for farming in Nigeria that will boost food production and alleviate hunger.

Food security has been paramount among the issues that the UN is looking for their solutions, and Nigeria’s inability to cultivate enough food has played a big role in the crisis. The factors contributing to the hunger and malnutrition that it has yielded as a result beckons help from beyond borders.

In the aim to curtail the escalating brunt of hunger emanating from poor agricultural produce, the FAO embarked on distribution of crops and grains, to the tune of 247 tons. And there was also fertilizer distribution, 25-kg bag of 1, 966 tons.

The distribution took place between November and December of 2018, as at February 2019, farmers were able to harvest their crops. An estimated 198, 099 tons of vegetables, 825 tons of maize and 9 402 tons of rice were harvested.

The dry season farming technique and the enabling supply that defy the tradition of waiting on the rain gradually became popular, especially among individual farmers in northern Nigeria.

Dry season farming utilizes greenhouses, drip irrigation and fertigation, with reduced pesticides. Greenhouses are waterproof but solar netted structures that produce regulated conditions for vegetable cultivation. In fertigation systems, soluble fertilizer and other essential plant micronutrients and insecticides are mixed with water at intervals for growth enhancement and crop protection.

In the cases where greenhouses are used, vegetable related crops are mainly cultivated. They are used with drip irrigation facilities and vegetables grown in them require minimum pesticides because the nets in the greenhouses protect crops from pests. Drip irrigation is sometimes used in the open farmland. The holes are perforated at the calibrated spacing and water drops into the base of each plant.

It has been recognized as the most efficient use of water for agricultural purposes if juxtaposed with flood, boom or sprinkling irrigation system.

Recently, the tradition of dry season farming using greenhouses or open farming has been gaining ground as more farmers are embracing the practice. But the local farmers need to be guided in crop plantations so that it could be profitable. Earlier in the year, the Brands and Marketing Manager at Dizengolff West Africa, Nigeria’s office, Humphrey Otalor, Advised farmers:

“You can plant all kinds of vegetables but it is better to take advantage of what is not planted off rainy seasons. For example, if everybody is growing tomatoes, if I am a greenhouse farmer, I will grow pepper because a few people are growing it.

“Farmers can grow bell peppers, sweet melons, spicy peppers, cucumbers, and with the drip irrigation on the open field, you can grow watermelons. The small-scale greenhouse occupies a space of 8m x 24m and it is sold for about N1.7 million. It includes the irrigation kits, seeds, bags of soluble fertilizer, a sprayer and installation to enable a farmer to start production immediately. This however, does not include the source of water, for a farmer should dig a well of borehole as a source of regular water supply,” he said.

Last week, 9, 000 farmers enrolled for the 2019/2020 dry season farming in Bauchi State, under the Fadama III project, an initiative supported by the Nigeria Incentive Risk Sharing and Lending (NIRSAL) of CBN. The goal has been to make rice production an unseasonal activity in Nigeria, by closing the intervals of unproductivity that have always resulted in the scarcity of farm produce.

However, the growing embrace of dry season farming in Nigeria has not come without its challenges. For farmers who cultivate perishable crops like tomatoes, watermelon and other fruits, the loss of a huge amount of the produce can be discouraging. For instance, tomato farmers in northern Nigeria report losses of over 40 percent of their yield due to poor storage and processing facilities.

For those among the farmers whose farms were financed under the ABP, it is a misfortune that will affect their relationship with the apex bank. The introduction of dry season farming in Nigeria is a development that its yield will result in food security and employment. However, preservation of crops and farm produce is necessary in sustaining the idea. A provision of sustainable storage system or subsidy of farm yields will alleviate the vulnerability of individual farmers who lack the capacity to preserve their crops.