The urge to put an end to spiralling poverty in Osun State by focusing on empowering the grassroots and the forgotten indigenes of the state both in the urban and rural area has been identified as the major motivating factor for the establishment of Olugbenga Akintola Foundation (OAF) Microfinance initiative which has been reaching out to thousands of indigenes since its existence.
Mr Olugbenga Akintola, an astute architect and a distinguished environmentalist who contributed immensely to the face changing of Lagos State as the head the Lagos State Public Works Corporation(LSPWC) in Lagos for six years during Babatunde Fashola’s regime as the Governor of Lagos State disclosed this to newsmen at the home of the erstwhile Commissioner for Education in the old Oyo State under late Chief Bola Ige and the foremost chieftain of Afenifere, a defunct Yoruba pan African Group who is also one of the founding fathers of the Alliance for Democracy, Pa Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa, in Ilesa at the weekend during a tete-a-tete meeting between him and the Atunse 2018 team of the Alliance for Democracy.
Akintola narrated his encounter with a pap woman somewhere in Ikire whose total gross income from what she sells is less than a thousand naira a day.
ALSO READ: Minimum wage: FG is not prepared ― NLC
Mr Akintola said that the woman told him how she toiled and struggle to raise funds for her petty trading and how asked the woman how much she really needed to boost her petty trading, which according to her, is less than N5,000. In fact, she said that with justN4,000, she will achieve a lot
“I decided right there that if only we can have an establishment that gives as low as N5,000 to about N40,000 we will do a lot in empowering our people at the very small scale level.
“We then carried out an extensive fact-finding exercises across the state on the analysis of the credit demand of artisans, small-scale retailers, food sellers, carpenters, electricians, mechanics etc because these are the movers of the economy and the majority of them turn to daily contribution [esusu] collectors for their needs which is a risky, ineffective and an unsustainable approach hence the need for microcredit.
Eventually, Olugbenga Akintola Foundation (OAF) Microfinance initiative was established for robust economic growth in the state and improve the entrepreneurship ability of low-income earners as we provide them with finance and increase their access to credit and very low interest rates.
This initiative has helped me and my team to gain enormous insight which is most valuable in policy making on how best to tackle poverty in the state and I promised the initiative would continue once we are voted into power in the forthcoming election on the September 22, by the special grace of God.
I’m greatfull to God for using Dr MOMOH to save me from hepatitis b virus. I’ve been carrying this virus for two years because to my best understanding there was no cure, until I met Dr Momoh. I used his herbal medicine as instructed by him, to God be the glory I went for the checkup and discovers the virus was gone. Contact him now via his whatsapp +2349058587788 or +2349068579672, he’s a God sent.