Staff Cooperative Societies as Agents of Self-Reliance in Housing: Evidence From Tertiary Institutions in Oyo State, Nigeria

This paper explores the role of these cooperatives as agents of self-reliance, looks at trends of government assistance, housing finance supply, and how cooperatives have helped their members. Based on cross-sectional survey data, 2,178 cooperative members in 9 public tertiary institutions within Oyo State are used to analyze by use of descriptive statistics, chi-square tests and multiple linear regression. The findings become even more vivid: 85.5% of the participants indicated that they did not obtain any direct government help, with cooperative loans becoming the key source of housing finance among 82.3% of the members. Mortgage institutions that were formal, on the other hand, did not reach any of the respondents. The regression analysis verified that government policies have an effect on cooperative operations (F = 18.672, p < 0.00 1), but most of the time, they act as barriers and not facilitating factors. The facts lead to one inescapable conclusion: staff cooperative societies are now an indispensable self-reliant housing system that is successful in compensating government failure in programmes and mortgage market lock out. To add to these grassroots achievements, the research proposal suggests that it is necessary to form a Cooperative Housing Development Fund, that the serviced land should be provided to cooperatives, and that these organizations should be formally defined as the key partners in the National Housing Policy.