A prominent Chief of the Niger Delta, Chief Jonathan Alatoru has advocated for the people of Niger Delta to establish cooperative societies to make the best use of its benefits to enhance the wealth of Niger Delta, for poverty to be a thing of the past in the region.
The Okrika Chief who himself is in a cooperative, is a famous business tycoon and had empowered many youths through his personal efforts combined with cooperative society.
Speaking to our reporter in a cooperative seminar recently in Port Harcourt, the outspoken gentle Chief opined that the benefit of cooperative society cannot be over emphasized, pointing out that most of the projects which cannot be completed are given to individuals who had formed cooperatives.
“For instance, if member A of the cooperative society is a bricklayer and member B is a welder, all will benefit from the effort of each other, being that all will canvas for the contract or job and bringing the jobs awarded them together, in a cooperative society.”
He stressed that this means all will benefit from each other’s contribution or effort. Chief Alatoru pointed out that the militants are cooperating in the wrong way. Their coming together to kidnap people should rather be channeled to positive results for themselves and society’s development.
He further hinted that all what cooperative society needs is information to take action to excel, saying that when people come together there is the tendency of eliminating greed, cheating, as each works as a shareholder, leading to a positive end where every member of the cooperative benefits.
Defining cooperative society, the humble chief said, when people come together cooperating on basic common interest and principle, it is very difficult for an individual to claim solitary power or dominance. Cooperative society is therefore coming together of a number of people with common goal or interest with the purpose of achieving progress.
He appealed to the youths and retiring civil servants to constitute themselves into cooperative societies, so that they could benefit from the government as well as various grant groups or individuals or banks.
He finally called on the people of Niger Delta to take the opportunity of cooperative societies, now that they are healthy and strong, before it is too late for them.
Meanwhile, the Rivers State government and the entire business community have been called upon to sponsor cooperative societies in the state. This appeal was made by Larry Goodwill Akintoba Ajiola, a cooperative society coordinator in Port Harcourt, in a cooperative workshop titled, “Pitaaqua Coops Workshop 2012,” organized at the Ministry of Justice conference hall on from April 25- 26, 2012.
Speaking to journalists, Ojiola revealed that the aim of organizing the workshop was to bring all useful stakeholders both from the private and public sector to facilitate the dissemination of useful information that might benefit the entire cooperatives as individuals and as a group.
According to him, “This event gives both the government and members of cooperatives an ample opportunity to buy into the current situation in the nation’s development process. As the name goes, cooperatives are group of people, entrepreneurs, with the aim of coming together as one towards achieving individual objectives collectively; this process is known as cooperation”.
In another statement, he said, in today’s economic development, he strongly believed that only cooperative business model could overcome the contemporary economic challenges, hence he wanted the government of the state to sponsor the cooperatives coordinators to educate its citizens to make the best use of the ample opportunity.
He also disclosed that his company has come to Rivers state to stay as to see that Rivers people make the best of cooperative society, adding that the programme was a pioneer programme to create awareness within the Rivers State populace.
For the youths, he said his company has lots of programmes for them. He therefore appealed to the youths to give him and his company a cooperative attitude. He said the youths are the growing plants, the life-wire of the society, so they needed to be nurtured in the right way.
Appealing to the youths, he said the youths should be less restive and ready to learn, as in that way they would benefit from the package cooperatives have for them.
He urged them to be cooperative in their attitude towards life by thinking of their tomorrow positively, to ward off all forms of vices, by constituting themselves into cooperative to reap gains. ###
