“Growth is only growth when we grow together,” – Abhijit Naskar
The United Alliance African Grant (UAAG), a vital component of the United African States (UAS) Human and Infrastructural Development Project, was birthed on March 9, 2023 through an official broadcast by the Grant’s Country-Director (CD), Dr. Ken Nwakanma, inviting duly qualified non-governmental organisations, co-operative societies and other allied associations to subscribe for financial grant intended to be disbursed to teeming Nigerians and Africans doubling as members of these respective organisations and societies.
For almost a decade, since dawn of the country’s first public financial grant scheme, Social Exchange Market (SEM) administered by Mr. Donald Olorunkeyede in 2015, together with several others like it; Nigerians have had to grapple painfully with failed financial grant subscriptions that appear juicy at the first instance, promising afterwards, on hope of very high profitability but usually return hopeless, ultimately, because their processing is typically exhaustive in nature, logistics billing quite extortive with the eventual outcome devastatingly yielding non-disbursement for reasons related but not limited to greed, avarice, insincerity, ignorance, and above all, insensitivity to finally end Nigerians’ and Africans’ agonising plight of cashless poverty, material deprivation, social lag and entrepreneurial underachievement.
To stem this ugly tide, bring the much-needed succour to the country’s financial grant, subscribers and ecosystem, considering past failed and bitter grant subscription experiences, the Federal Government currently headed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not leaving any stone unturned. This exposition aptly considers the President’s working tactics on the enforcement of Grantnomics as far as the UAAG Project is concerned and its implications for timely disbursement of the overdue UAAG grant to financial grant subscribers in Nigeria and other African nations.
Echoing the command of grantnomics to Nigeria’s, Africa’s 2024 budgetary equation “We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.” – Neal Maxwell
Grantnomics, which encapsulates the sourcing of unloaned and non-repayable (external) monetary financing from International Donor Organizations (IDOs), typical of the World Donor Council (WDC), Ford and MacArthur Foundations etc, for direct disbursement to financial grant subscribers, distribution to needy applicants and delivery to teeming beneficiaries, is an emergent concept in the contemporary economic functionality and consciousness of nations with huge irreversible potential of eradicating poverty, decimating fiscal inflation, industrial depression and pecuniary recession, thus, swinging nations to lasting economic viability and entrepreneurial prosperity.
Usually, national budgetary expenditures in modern day Nigeria are part-funded through loans sourced from international loaners like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), developed countries and development partners which oftentimes is conditioned on stiff repayment terms like servicing accompanied by high repayment interests rates that make national loan-taking almost unwarranted.
However, through Grantnomics hinged on the great wings of UAAG Project, progressive administration of President Tinubu is now ever willing to change the usual budgetary mantra by funding Nigeria’s 2024 budget differently, hence, adopt a better and less-costly approach because his government, so far, boldly supported the involvement of a Federal Government committee saddled with the herculean task of supervising the entire operations of UAAG’s grant disbursement on the prospect that in record time to come, potential beneficiaries (subscribers) of this great UAAG Grant Scheme will be disbursed to, through allotment of direct individual paychecks and banks’ credit alerts via their personal commercial bank accounts already captured on UAAG’s online digital App throughout the entire stake-holding.
Crystallizing grant mobilisation efforts of great grant Icons
“Never respect men merely for their riches, but rather for their philanthropy; we do not value the sun for its height, but for its use.” – Gamaliel Bailey
Two star personalities indispensable to the success story of the UAAG planned disbursement are the ate Sir (Prof.) Abraham Braimah and the late Ms. Beatrice Mbua Odudu (DSP, rtd, a.k.a Great Mama Rita).
This is so because Braimah contributed immensely in conceptualising the United African States (UAS) initiative that further delivered the UAAG Scheme to Nigerians and Africans. Afterwards, Odudu joined Braimah via appendage made possible through the countless philanthropic gestures of her non-governmental organisations, St. Rita Heroes Lifeline and Beatrice Odudu Foundations.
Through their generous, kind and combined evergreen grantnomics effort, Nigerians will eventually get a breath of financial relief because post-colonial Nigerian administration and leadership inherited a depraved national payroll system that deliberately hides lump monetary sums away, from civil servants and private-sector workers (except for paltry monthly salary and cash flow that can barely serve them to a month-end), all, in a seemingly funny bid to have them work 35 years without any access to start-up cash that can have them set-up their personal businesses, become financially stable and independent, afterwards, quit their respective government duty posts and work desks.
To further worsen this situation, this brutal capitalistic structure didn’t spare young school leavers and graduates by ensuring that they too, don’t get an(y) instant access to start-up capital upon graduation, consequent on which, government jobs can become alluring to take and if possible, the only available option.
While this strategy worked to a considerably extent, the backlash is that it also stunted Nigeria’s socio-economic growth and industrial development. To address and end this brutal capitalistic, anti-developmental arrangement; Braimah and Odudu during their lifetime in, Nigeria, with UAAG Grant Mantra, had intention to end the seemingly cruel intergenerational transfer of mass poverty, nationalised underdevelopment and regional underachievement.
With the administration of Tinubu spear-heading the grantnomics liberation of Nigerians through the UAAG Grant Disbursement show, certainly, the pre-humous grant mobilisation efforts of Braimah and Odudu will crystallise far sooner than ever envisaged and bring the much desired succor and happiness to Nigerians nationwide.
Lasisi , a Public Affairs Analyst and Social Commentator wrote from Minna, Niger State.
