By Dele Sobowale
It is another election year; and suddenly, “free” money is being given at every convenient gathering. Givers, usually politically exposed individuals, call it empowerment; their paid megaphones in the media hail the altruism and, naturally expect widespread gratitude. Those of us, who have experienced this sort of grand deception before, know the truth from our history.
The flow of funds will stop after the elections. The First Lady’s recent N50,000 grants to petty traders, party workers, has sparked a necessary controversy for the wrong reasons. Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s reference to the possibility of starting a self-sustaining akara and kulikuli enterprise has overshadowed the real economic and social imports of the gesture itself.
“We are trying to give hope, and to start the akara business doesn’t take a lot of money. To start roasting corn, or somebody even said kulikuli, doesn’t take much….” – First Lady of Nigeria, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu
The First Lady was half-right and half-wrong in making such a broad assertion regarding how much aggregate economic development can be generated by occasional acts of politically-motivated grants called empowerment. There is sufficient evidence that thousands of great multi-national enterprises the world has ever seen were started on “shoe strings” in somebody’s backyard or garage.
