UNGA79: Access to finance key to Nigeria’s poverty eradication, says First Bank CEO Alebiosu
The Managing Director and CEO of First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Olusegun Alebiosu, shared his insights on critical global issues at the 79th UN General Assembly, declaring that access to finance is crucial for eradicating poverty and promoting economic development, especially in remote areas.
Alebiosu in an interview with ARISE NEWS, identified three pressing concerns: rising poverty and inequality, climate change and gender inequality, saying that poverty is often a symptom of lack of access and resources.
According to him, “Poverty, in whichever form you see them, are all symptoms of something. Most times, poverty comes from lack of access and lack of resources. To eradicate poverty, the most important factor of production is finance. So whichever way you look at it, the easiest way to get out of poverty is access to finance.”
“In the course of the global leadership summit, I’ve been able to learn several things: innovative financing, sustainable financing, and also artificial intelligence and implications for humanity for technology, and so many other things that will shape the future”, he said.
He also said, “It’s unfortunate that most times we don’t plan for the future; we run into it, but other people are planning for the future and how the future should be shaped today.”
“Technology has always acted as a real differentiator across the world. If you check in the last ten years, money has been made in IT, and if you don’t have human resources to actually get to that level, you will fall behind.”
“The global south has not been able to do so. The global north has been able to win; apart from India, which is able to fight back, the entire global south has not been able to raise up to it, and that income gap is wide.”
“What could be tackled easily is financial inclusion and how that would support poverty alleviation. Looking at us, we have the largest agency network in Nigeria, employing many people, many of them women, and we have seen how access to finance can help people even in remote locations to advance their economic interests”, he added
He further elaborated on the impact of financial support, saying “Looking at the capital synchronisation and interpretation process, if you have a cooperative society in a rural community and they are empowered with loans for them to be able to trade, if you carry out that experiment over a 10-year period, you can compare that community to the next community where they don’t have that kind of financial leverage.
“The difference you are going to see would be economic development, empowerment over education, and in the other community, when they don’t have that, you will see endemic poverty which would be very glaring because commerce on its own promotes economic development.”
“At First Bank, we further entrench ourselves into the fabric of society. We want to live in the heart and mind of Nigerians, and that’s where First Bank supports economic development”, said Alebiosu.
