So I spent the morning yesterday visiting project sites in village communities outside of Yola where there are informal banking clusters. These clusters have been in operation at least 3 years, at most 5. This particular 3yr one has 25 women in it. Ave. loan repayment? 100%.
This is the first session for the new cycle. You buy “shares” worth 200 Naira each, and the amount of shares determine how much you can borrow. Highest amount borrowed this year, 63k. Lowest, 16k. Loans used for stuff like buying engines for Agro processing or school fees.
I asked the lady who leads this savings cluster what she’d do if anyone defaults on a loan. She laughs & says it’s impossible. There’s fines & penalties, but they’ve never had to use them. as their lives are so linked, nobody wants to be the one defaulting on everyone else’s $
This for me tells us the importance of being able to create networks of trust. In this case, it has unlocked access to finance in a way that formal banking systems won’t do for this population. It has also allowed for other means of adding value, like access to pricing info
There’s also access to other social goods. For ex, these women are able to also lobby for and access family planning to convince unwilling traditional leaders or unconvinced husbands.
This all made me think of a few questions that I struggle with.
1. It’s easier (not easy o, easier!) to create trust networks across poorer populations than higher income ones, but these poorer folks are easily bought and therefore cannot influence political outcomes. How do we then create trust networks among higher income pops?
This is why #EndSars really blew my mind tbh. The networks of trust built while in motion enabled the movement. Leaderless movements require ridiculous levels of trust in far more people than those with leaders. But... can that particular approach scale to other issues?
2. These Trust networks... I won’t say they break down when you widen the constituency beyond their immediate community, but they definitely become harder to maintain. For one thing, leadership squabbles come up and issues w/access to tech and literacy come up.
For context, in the above example, 3/25 women can read and write, and keep records. Easier to trust 3 people you know than 30. I’ve seen these issues overcome in Uganda, but they’re delicate. However being able to nurture these networks to growth is 🔑
All politics is local, but so is everything else. But our ability to think beyond our immediate locality to form coalitions is what I think of as our enduring challenge today. As we learned with #EndSARS , we are at our most powerful when we are nothing like our govt.
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I think that one of the reasons many Nigerian marriages are a sham is because we have made giving a shit about someone sound like the worst thing. I get it, people can be shitty. But I think it also stops people from being as emotionally invested as they should.
It’s a wonder how much of our actions is driven by the logic of “it’s going to end anyway, so let me not be the idiot that got fooled by this person.” We end up doing awful things and hurting people because at least we get to control that.
So I want to talk about something that’s bothered me since I read about it. It’s about the 13yo boy in Kano sentenced to 10yrs in prison for blasphemy.
Like a lot of us, I read it and it saddened me, but i was determined to unlook. There’s so much in this country to get one down, and in a lot of instances we have to choose between the paralysis of helpless despair and the stoicism of propelling onwards with our lives.
However, the larger systemic things that militate against us as Nigerians manifest themselves also in small ways. Indeed, the endless killings in different parts of the country and the ease with which we condemn young lives to death or cruel sentences are one and the same.
Dinner prep. This has been marinading for 24hrs. Time to get some color on it before I put it in the oven to braise.
Meat browned, then sautéed some onions and garlic, hella fresh thyme, brown sugar. Then added some stock and, um, Guinness. Now, to braise in the oven for ~2hrs.
Tossed some cucumbers in salt, now letting it drain. I’m experimenting with this cucumber salad idea I came across the other day. #saratuseats
Tons of garlic and ginger, ata rodo, Basil, scent leaf in groundnut oil. I usually don’t make my own chili oil, but here we are. Let it get hot, then I turned the heat all the way down. #saratuseats
Rice wine vinegar, soy, peanut butter, chili powder, a little sugar. Then added the cucumbers I’d left draining a while ago. So pretty.