The President of the Ministry of Defence Staff Agricultural Cooperative Society (MODSACS), Mr. Edache Okoh Adigwu, is a Medical Doctor by training with a passion for creatively exploiting the inherent benefits
of using cooperative society window to fight societal nagging poverty level and to uplift the well beings of Nigerians across different strata. In this interview with Journalists in Abuja and as prelude to its forthcoming AGM, he averred that MODSACS, with its 8% interest rate remains the best cooperative society in Nigeria today. Excerpts
Briefly take us down memory lane of the Ministry of Defence Staff Cooperative Society?
Thank you gentle of the press, first, my name is Dr. Edache Okoh Adigwu. I finished from the University of Jos in 2006, specializing in Medicine. This cooperative society actually started in November 2005, with just membership strength of 31, suffice to say that it is an autonomous association of like minds people coming together to solve their problems in terms of need. Globally and locally too, it is the smallest micro finance institution that can pull people out of poverty. It is interesting that at MODSACS, we have the lower, the middle and the higher class people as members. Members pull part of their earnings together which is understandably made available to members through MoU as loan on the basis of a single digit interest rate through a common purse. The money is aggregated as an inflow then at the end f the month when the need arises you take as much as you want and as much as how much you have saved. This cooperative started with an inflow of capital of N91, 500 in 2005, and what we did then because there was IPPIS platform, at the end of the month after agreeing to a particular amount, you pay to the cooperative. But today the government has given us the platform that we can get or deduct money directly from the source. In 2012, membership has risen to more than one thousand (1000), with a monthly inflow of over N11 million and it kept growing to the extent that we have membership strength of more than (1000) and as I speak today, I took over the leadership from the March 21, 2019 and by the 21st of this month we shall be having our Annual General Meeting which will be the first for this executive council (Exco). We came with membership strength of 3,800 but today we have grown to 5,200 active members.
Can we have a glimpse of your financial base?
Concerning the financial inflow putting into cognizance our investment in properties we have hit the N1billion mark. We have an impressive guest house in Jos near School of Accountancy. Today, that guest house is serving both the private and public, we also have a property in Karshi, near Abuja and currently still undergoing development, we are collaborating with the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FBMN). It also gratifying to know that we also have a property in Piakasa which is another big project that is the Cooperative has achieved over the years. In Port Harcourt, South-south, the cooperative has a property and we have started processing the C-of-O. There is also a property that belongs to MODSACS to start in Ede in Osun State, the papers are currently being honed up for accessibility by members there
What exciting news do you have for members at your forthcoming coming AGM slated for 21?
This year’s AGM will be unique even though at a point there was a little crisis in the cooperative but when we came in board we promised about 7 point Agenda, and one of them is confidence building and this was what we took on to let the members know that the cooperative is safe and that it has all the financial foundation to operate. Also, when we came on board, we expect that in our bank account and members now had the confidence that the cooperative is doing well and we also promised to digitalize all our operations and activities and as we speak now members have access to the cooperative on the internet. We also promised our members that we are going to be doing having a very good legal document which is the Constitution, because at sometime our Constitution had some lacuna but that has been corrected. Now we have a workable document constitution for the cooperative. Now that our members will be given on the date of the AGM and then we promised that dividends will increase. As we speak we are going to share a very handsome amount of money to our members as dividends and we also promised members some degree of sensitization awareness and that is being done because when we came in board after the first quarter we round the country to sensitize members and those that are not from the Ministry of Defence can also come and benefit from the Cooperative.
Is MODACS open to people who are not staffers of the ministry or civil servants?
Membership is open to any member of the public, you must necessarily be a staff of the Ministry of Defence before joining the cooperative. Inasmuch as you have a surety we can give you a kicker that is something that can be very useful to you instead of going to the bank to go and be collecting 28% or 29% interest rate as the case may be characterized with hidden charges. Here, there are no hidden charges for members.
What is the cooperative doing differently that is different from others?
We are doing very well and I think I can say confidently that we are the best cooperative that we have in Nigeria today with this laudable projects that we have spread across the country.
What are the procedure for admitting members into the cooperative?
If you are a member and a civil servant and you work with the Ministry of Defence, it is very simple, just pick our membership form of N500 which is non refundable, fill your data and details and you become our member automatically, that means you now have access to get loan from the Cooperative. Members of the para-military can also join and as we speak we have members from Civil Defence, the Military, Airforce as a it is not only for core civil servants but if you are not working in the ministry and if you are a banker or a business person in the private sector and want to join the cooperative why not. That means you have pay every month by hand into the Cooperative account.
How does the cooperate regulates and in case of defaulting members?
We have Executive of 9 members and we have card and 8/56….also a recovering team if they discover that your inflow is not coming and if the fault is coming from the Accountant General’s office we have to get across to the AGF office. There is no need to go to court because of the resolution mechanism that we have in-house. We also have a regulator which is the Regulatory Council and almost all the states have their own council, here at the FCT Council we regulate what we do here and here we have people coming to audit our account before we publish our final result for members to see.
Is the loan mainly centered on agricultural sector?
Yes, not only the agricultural sector, but the Cooperative is not only agricultural also if you have a micro business that you do like SMEs we can grant you loan so long as you can keep to terms within the conditions and terms of the Cooperative we give you the loan and you can do any business outside agriculture but you are aware that we are centered because you and I know that government’s policy on agriculture is very robust now so you can take loan to go into fish, poultry farming etc even while you are still in service because it is good to encourage members to go productive even while they are still active in service. Also members are being discouraged to borrow for school fees and house rents. We encourage members to have a roof and house f their own where they can put their families so that the burden of house rent does not weigh them down.
What are the criteria for accessing the loan and the highest amount that can be borrowed?
This is very simple: As you save you can take with
in your savings, if for instance you have N500,000, you will given the interest rate of just 5% and what that means is that the 5% is N50,000. You will be given the given the N500,000 upfront and you now add N50,000 to it which means that you are paying the Cooperative N550,000 divide by 12 and it is expected that by the end of the month you are paying back to the Cooperative if you collect this month, by next month we cannot deduct from it as it will now be the upper month so you have one month notice outstanding from your salary but if you are not a civil servant and you don’t have access to the IPPIS platform you can pay in your money and you need a surety before you take the loan as high as much you have saved, But if you are taking outside your savings and you have only N500,000, you can access N1 million that is just 7%. There is no commercial bank that can give that kind of interest rate. Nowhere, can you get this in this country. You can therefore start any business of your own and you can pay back easily. We have helped in building capacity for our members. We organize training for our members from time to time as we have institutions that are accredited by government that come to train our members on agriculture and after that we encourage members to take loan within their capacity and we make sure that members cannot take loan that they cannot pay back because the Cooperative must have a way to survive. As you are aware when comes to people’s hand they can decide to play with anyhow. We religiously monitor and follow members to the site so see what they are doing with the loan. We also try as much as possible to know what you engaging on is something that you can take loan for and we will then you the loan and we also dedicate people to encourage you and as the President of this Society I’m into farming activities and I have benefitted tremendously from the loan because right now and even in my field which is medicine, people are now thinking outside the box. We no longer just sit in the hospital dispensing drugs. We all need to put our hands on deck to move the country forward because of the abundant resources that we have. For instance, I’m a proud farmer with expanse of land in Oturkpo in Benue State with about 300 cows, piggery and poultry farm where eggs are being sold. And for members that are good in cassava we also encourage them and government is also encouraging the people to go into farming. Also, if you land that you can develop with CofO, you can come and access the loan. And for those that have retired from the Cooperative and you have being a member for 10 years and you have retired as at when due either by age or service you are entitled to N800,000 free of charge. While the government is preparing your gratuity you get this quickly handy. Very soon we are applying to CBN to see how they can come to even give our members money that is more than what we are giving and for those that are into big farming business they should come through us to CBN we are ready.
What are the challenges that you face?
No doubt there is no organization without its challenges, one that faces us is the IPPIS challenge and others. For instance where there are sudden cases of inflow and deduction from members which one of the challenges that we do have and also some members are smart because they can to the Accountant General’s Office to stop the inflow, but here we have a way of tracing it back because members have a pass book with us your income as it comes monthly is recorded on the pass book through the staff in our secretariat that are constantly on the ground working. Once we noticed that there is any default we quickly to the AGF’s office for correction on the borrowers. Regarding any other challenge, there can unavoidable death and this have become a big issue to the Cooperative. If this happens we look at what you have saved in the Cooperative and with you are owing we can swoop it and also the challenge of identifying the next of kin and in business there must be a window of some minute leakages. However, we must try as much as possible to close the gap and block these leakages. From time to time we do risk assessment and we see what we can proactively to make sure that the Cooperative progress daily.