Listen to this articleOGUN, NIGERIA: Mrs. Kafayat AbdulRasak, 37, a young mother of three was in an abusive marriage and jobless since 2008. Her husband, on whom she relied for food and other household expenses, frequently abused her physically and psychologically while providing little or nothing for her and the children.
Before Kafayat got married, she was running a successful business, selling slippers, but after getting married, her husband persuaded her to sell the business and invest the proceeds into their new family, a decision she regrets daily.
Now, she constantly struggles with depression and feelings of hopelessness further heightened by the fact that her plight was common knowledge around her residence at Olomu street, Ogijo, Ogun State but she only received pity and no help.
These all changed one day in August 2022 while sitting in front of the one room that served as their home and contemplating how best to escape her abusive marriage, Kafayat was approached by a woman and three men who proceeded to ask her a question she felt was out of place.
“If I borrow you money now to start up a business and pay me back in some months, what business would you do? for someone whom I don’t know from anywhere, that sounded strange, worrisome and funny at the same time,” Kafayat recounts.
The group further explained that the loan was interest free and she could get the money without having to provide any collateral. Kafayat was initially skeptical about the offer as she assumed they were some sort of ritualist team, but she told them that the first thing she would do was get food for herself and her three children, and then she would start a slippers business.
“They paid me a transportation fee to transport me and my children back to my grandmother’s house, and later arrived with a 25kg bag of rice, yam, and beans. I received ₦50,000 ($30.45) for my slippers business and they calculated the amount for all the food and recorded it on my registered ID card. I had seven months to repay the capital and an additional five months to pay for the food,” Kafayat told The SolutionsPaper.
With her slippers business operational once again, Kafayat repaid the loan within one year, divorced her husband and put her three children in school, a feat her husband wasn’t able to achieve.
The Woman and Three Men
Mrs. Oluwabukola Sonubi was with other members of the Poverty Alleviation Foundation (PAF) at Olomu Street, Ogijo, Sagamu, Ogun state to visit one of their beneficiaries; Mr Ashafa Ismaila and inspect his point of sale (POS) business when she came across Kafayat.
“We had just visited the village to inspect the progress of Ashafa Ismaila POS business and on our way, I saw Kafayat struggling with her crying baby and almost crying alongside the baby, so i asked the excos i was with and everyone including Ismaila started narrating Kafayat’s story to me,” Mrs. Sonubi recalled.
On their way back, Mrs. Sonubi decided to stop and talk to Kafayat. Luckily her husband was not around and Kafayat was eventually introduced to PAF.
Mrs. Sonubi had always found it easy to support women around her, especially when they approached her with stories of how hard it is for them to survive. But, she noticed that if she continued to give them money, they would always keep begging, hence she came up with the idea to lend them the money and guide them to start a business instead.
She would give them a timeline of six to seven months to pay back with no interest. She piloted this with a few women around her and expanded it to become the PAF in 2019.
Initially, she started off with her personal funds but with the growth of the initiative, PAF now runs itself with the money raised from it’s loan facility.
“If mister A,B and C need a loan, their demand could come at the same time that mister D, E and F is paying off their debt, which solves the problem. We also have goodwill from good Nigerians and former beneficiaries who are now well off. They would return and contribute their quota to the foundation,” Mrs. Sonubi said.
The registration fee is ₦500 ($0.31), and depending on individual circumstances, loans may be granted immediately or after six months of membership with PAF.
Being a member entails depositing five percent of your weekly earnings with the foundation, which can then be withdrawn after 12 months, known as an annual withdrawal.
Currently PAF has 43 zones with 3710 members in total across Ogun and Lagos states, out of which 2378 have paid their loans and commenced weekly savings with PAF, while 1332 are still paying back their loans.
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For Mr. Ashafa Ismaila, a POS operator at Ogijo, Ogun state, the need to expand his business made him approach PAF for support. “I provide food for my family, and what I earned from one POS stand could not sustain me, so I joined the foundation to raise funds to expand my business. I registered and saved 5 percent of my weekly earnings until six months later, when I was approved for the loan and received another POS.”
Ismaila currently manages two POS stations in Ogijo and plans to increase them with the annual withdrawal system and loan facility from PAF.
Mrs. Ikhazuagbe Olajumoke, 62, a retired auxiliary nurse also recalled how two of her sons almost dropped out of school due to lack of funds to pay their school fees until she was informed about PAF by her friend on 29 August, 2021.
“I am a mother of four boys. My first two sons had just graduated from the university at the time and were still struggling to find their feet while the remaining two were still in school. My husband also struggled at the time so it was not easy for him to pay the tuition fees for the two boys,” Mrs. Ikhazuagbe said.
“I could not access loans in banks as I didn’t have my job again. When I registered under the foundation with just ₦500 ($0.31) and narrated my situation to them, they immediately gave me ₦130,000 ($81.56), which was the complete school fees for both of my boys to be paid back little by little with no interest for seven months.”
With the help of her two eldest sons, who would send her the money in piecemeal, Mrs. Ikhazuagbe was able to pay off her debt in six months and continued with the foundation until her two boys graduated.
Roadblocks
PAF appoints four executives to each zone, including the chairperson, secretary, treasurer, and provost. These executives work on a volunteer basis and do not receive any compensation, which can lead to a lack of commitment and a laissez faire attitude.
“Because we are expanding, some of our members appear to forget that this is not a government establishment where they can expect a salary at the end of the month. I started this with personal fund, and because there is no interest, I do not receive any financial benefit from it; therefore, when we raise excos and they expect payment for working to help themselves, where do I get the money?” Mrs. Sonubi said.
When situations like this arise, Mrs. Sonubi and other executives make attempts to talk to the aggrieved person, but if they insist and continue to neglect their duties, they are replaced with more willing volunteers.
Another major challenge that the organization faces is member absenteeism at weekly meetings where they are meant to pay their weekly five percent of either savings or debt repayment.
“We even imposed a fine for absences, but some of them continue to miss meetings. Missing these meetings may result in them failing to pay their weekly 5% savings or debt. They allow it to accumulate, making it difficult for them to pay,” Mrs. Mercy Oladipupo, Ogun state zone 4 secretary told The SolutionsPaper.
The initiative doesn’t have an online presence yet, but Mrs Sonubi says they may establish an online presence towards the end of 2024, in order to reach more people. She stated that the joy and fulfillment she experiences each time she assists these people and returns to see them all well and alive remains her motivation.
Credits
Editing: Precious Ewuji, Chinonso Kenneth
Chidera Eze is a freelance journalist with bias for solutions journalism, a blockchain content writer and a public relations student.