The Federal Government has unveiled a comprehensive economic strategy to raise ₦200 billion in equity capital to establish a proposed Cooperative Bank of Nigeria.
Disclosed on Thursday, 18 June 2026, during the North-West Zonal Engagement of the Ministerial Advocacy Tour in Kaduna, the targeted fiscal intervention is engineered to accelerate grassroots financial inclusion, support agricultural value chains, and empower micro-enterprises nationwide.
The core financial blueprint aims to coordinate and mobilise at least 10,000 cooperative societies across the federation to collectively fund the specialised apex financial institution.
Speaking at the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Hall, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security and Supervising Minister of Cooperative Affairs, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, stated that the bank serves as the foundation for the administration’s Renewed Hope Cooperative Reform and Revamp Programme.
To ensure the institution remains heavily insulated from corporate predatory takeovers, the governance framework explicitly mandates that 65 per cent of equity will be owned by registered cooperative societies and members via the Cooperative Trust and Investment Society of Nigeria.
The remaining equity configuration leaves 30 per cent available to institutional financiers, development partners, and qualified individual investors, while five per cent is legally reserved for workers under an Employee Share Ownership Scheme.
Alongside the banking license push, the Federal Government unveiled a parallel technological plan to digitise the informal trade sector via the National Cooperative Digital Architecture Platform.
This nationwide digital asset will institute a National Cooperative Smart Registry, mandatory Cooperative Verification Numbers (CVN) for groups, and a unique Cooperative Member Identification Number (CoopID) to completely stamp out ghost cooperatives and sanitise intervention delivery.
Validating the federal initiative, the Kaduna State Governor, Malam Uba Sani, represented by the State Commissioner for Agriculture, Hon. Murtala Dabo, revealed that the state has already laid an extensive foundation for the project by successfully opening over 2.5 million formal bank accounts for previously unbanked rural dwellers.
Local stakeholders, including the Provost and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Cooperative College, Kaduna, Dr Mohammed Ibrahim Awwal, warmly endorsed the twin reforms, noting that learning from the structural design flaws of past failed financial models will successfully guarantee long-term regulatory compliance and stable asset wealth creation.
Source: Punch Newsletters
