By Abubakar Zakaria, Abuja
The African Leadership Strategy and Transparency Development Initiative has awarded the Federal Cooperative College Oji-River, Enugu and its Internal Auditor, Okezie Idowu for outstanding performance.
The Executive Director of the Initiative, (a Civil Society Organisation, CSO), Comr Nelson Ossaieze in his remarks at the event in Abuja on Tuesday, said nomination for the award was in recognition of exemplary efforts from the awardees in uplifting society.
Ossaieze underscored the importance of education, civil society and the cooperative sector towards successful transition from underdevelopment to development, explaining the need to transform Cooperative Societies to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as set up by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015.
He said, “Every society that has successfully made the transition from underdevelopment to development, has had to find its own local formula that is best suited to its needs. Whereas America and Britain are key allies in the current world order; both countries have had to go diametrically different routes in their respective journeys to development status.
“Nigeria’s underdevelopment despite our much-acknowledged potential has been driven largely by the fact that we have tried too much for decades to import strategies wholesale from other parts of the world that are not fully adapted to our local circumstances. The centuries-old concept of cooperatives has helped with wealth creation, capital formation and large-scale poverty alleviation.
“While we recognize the mission of the Cooperative College: to provide knowledge, vocational, and entrepreneurial skills necessary for cooperative development, this event will avail us of an opportunity to interact on how transforming Cooperative Societies can help us achieve Sustainable Development Goals: set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly.”
Also speaking, the Internal Auditor, Federal Cooperative College Oji-River, Enugu, Comr. Okezie Idowu who was awarded for Public Servant Steward of the month thanked the Initiative for the recognition, adding that it is a call for more hard work in ensuring that value is given for money spent.
Idowu said that with the current efforts in transforming the cooperative movement, the SDGs will be achieved and the Nigerian economy will boom.
“Such an award is just like saying you have to do more; audit more.
“In several countries all across the world, the cooperative movement has been a major force behind sustainable economic development. If you go to countries like Tanzania, they have a special university for the cooperative movement and of course, Nigeria is tilting towards that.
“Cooperative is all about pulling resources together: whether as farmers, traders, when they come together for a common front the economy will boom in Nigeria.
Adding his voice, the president, Civil Society Groups for Good Government (CSGGG) said the essence of cooperative is to look at life from a collective view.
He congratulated the awardees while urging them not to rest on their oars, but to ensure that more work is done to project the image of the college as it is not located within a noticeable terrain.
“The truth of the matter is that the world is drifting towards cooperative, no man is an Iceland. The essence is to look at life, not in an individualistic point but the point of togetherness; that is what is key.
“The college is far from Abuja; a lot of people do not know that it exists so what civil society is doing is to create awareness with which people can go and find out about the federal college and how they can be part of it.
He therefore advised Nigerians to key into the cooperative movement.
