Following the Federal Executive Council, FEC’s, approval, President Bola Tinubu last week Tuesday launched the Consumer Credit Scheme in Abuja. It will be run by the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation, CREDICORP.

According to a statement from the presidential media office, the scheme, which will be implemented in stages, will start with public sector workers or civil servants and later extend to the general public. It is much easier to force compliance with those on government payroll. We hope the Federal Government will quickly extend the scheme to other salary earners in the private sector as well as self-employed Nigerians.

The scheme will enable qualified Nigerians to have access to credit to enable them afford houses, cars, financing for their businesses and other socio-economic activities that make life more abundant as obtains in advanced societies. It will allow Nigerians to live a good life while repaying for their credits gradually over the years.

It will also add new blood to the economy, build the credit-score or creditworthiness of the citizenry, enhance financial education and foster growth and responsibility. The consumer credit scheme, if properly implemented, will increase the quality of life of the citizenry, strengthen social stability and drive down the prevalence of violent crimes.

It will also increase faith in our nation among the citizenry because the help that the ordinary, hapless citizens have never had which lead to poverty (especially the weaponised type), destitution, disease and early death, will be more readily available.

We must warn, however, that a consumer credit scheme, by its name alone, will not change anything. It could end up, as usual, as jobs for the “boys and girls” in government and political circles. We have seen similar government policies which achieved little.

One of the palliative measures that former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, introduced to cushion the bite of his Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP, in the late 1980s was the People’s Bank of Nigeria, PBN, headed by the late Madam Maria Sokenu, with the late Tai Solarin as the Chairman. For effect, Babangida launched it in Ajegunle, Lagos, in October 1989. It was meant to offer almost interest-free loans for the poor.

Also, in March 2019, former Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, promised that the Muhammadu Buhari regime would establish what he called People’s Money Bank, which never materialised. Even the Tinubu regime also announced a Students Loan Scheme only to withdraw it back to the drawing board.

The Consumer Credit Scheme must learn from the failures of its predecessors, including the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s, Anchor Borrowers Programme under Godwin Emefiele, and run a scheme that will work. It must be strongly protected from the “national cake” syndrome which emasculated earlier similar schemes. The banks must be enlisted for its implementation.

This is definitely better than the corrupt cash transfer schemes.