CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Cooperation is rooted in the tendency to live together and assist one another. It is a positive action geared towards making life worth living and beneficial to the citizenry. When Cooperation becomes firm and strong, it elicits peace, safety and progression (Abba, 2013). It engenders robust consideration for the interests of the members of a given Association and consequently emphasizes a great deal on the social wellbeing of virtually all members in cooperation . Cooperation is a phenomenon that denotes any form of working together voluntarily by persons or individuals to achieve common goals . To narrow it down, Cooperative refers to the activities of an association of persons with similar social, cultural and economic needs who willingly came together satisfy these needs in solidarity. In other words, it came into existence as a result of reactions against capitalism, competition and injustice that are associated with them. It is purely service-delivery .
Significantly, cooperative members are noted to pull their resources together for the satisfaction of their members’ identified needs. It is therefore, the best way to tackle the perennial economic problem of a developing country like Nigeria where a great percentage of people like below poverty line. This is probably what informed the Federal Government to formulate a policy guideline in 1979 that at least 25% of Nigerians should become members of Cooperative Societies . Okechukwu (2001) stated that the Danish people saw in the cooperative easier way of improving their national economy, especially after the war with Germany and their humiliating defeat which contributed to national poverty. They went into promoting economic interest of their people . The Swedish people embraced cooperation because of the need to also improve the economic interest of their citizens. Everybody was made to participate in one form of chosen economic activity or the other .
The origin of cooperation could be traced to the period of industrial revolution in Great Britain which gave rise to associations like the Chartist Movement, Corn Mill, Banking Societies and several others. Despite the fact that some of these associations failed in their struggles, their coming together left a legacy to be remembered; and it consequently attracted attention in the history book. Government, on its part, made some laws to guide against poverty. A formidable and first successful cooperative society came into existence in 1884. It was known as the Rochadale Equitable Pioneers. It was made up of 28 weavers which included 27 men and a woman. In subsequent years, other associations sprang up all over Europe, particularly in France, Germany, Denmark, etc. The success story of these societies or association, which then flourished, was attributed to the efforts of the Rochadale and others to fashion out rules, regulation and guidelines for cooperatives which were eventually known as the Cooperative Principles. Another interesting aspect of the origin of cooperatives in Europe was the emergence of men of good will, the philanthropists, who took it upon themselves to use their human and material resources as well as their wealth to champion the cause of cooperatives.
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