POOR MANAGEMENT, A STUMBLING STONE OF CONSUMER COOPERATIVES DEVELOPMENT

POOR MANAGEMENT, A STUMBLING STONE OF CONSUMER COOPERATIVES DEVELOPMENT

LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
The chapter reviewed the related literature available for this study. The review was divided into cooperative management view and the political leaders view. Generally, by viewing the history of cooperative world over, one finds out that cooperative movements witnessed an increasing problem of managements.
These include both the internal administrative management and the management between the government and cooperatives. Management according to Agwu Akpala (1990) can now be defined as the process of combining and utilizing, or allocating an organization’s inputs (men, materials and money) by planning, organizing, directing and controlling for the purpose of producing outputs (goods and services or what every the objects
are) desired by customers so that the organizational objectives are accomplished. From the above, the management of consumer shop is vested in the hand of its voicers and members.

2.2 Cooperative Views
“In his book” Hand book for secretaries of cooperatives Okowo (1991) said “management of cooperative business on behalf of the members, and in accordance with the decision taken at the meetings, means looking at every detail with them; save skill and energy, as private traders, to give to the business.”
From the above, one can realize that the management of cooperatives is in the hand of members choosen at their general meetings to guide the other members in carrying out the policy agreed at the general meetings. So, the members need a person to run their organization between the meetings. General
meeting usually holds once or twice in a year. While the management committee meeting usually holds once or twice in every month. In his paper published in new Nigerian News paper (on Tuesday 4th December 1990) titled (potential contribution of cooperative towards rural development), at national seminal
on integrated rural development policy in Nigeria, Ibrahim, the Director of School of social and rural development, Kaduna stated that “the union should be allowed to employ their managers and discipline them accordingly, this will ensure proper financial management and control of the union activities by the members. It will also oer
the committee members a better chance in having free and open discussion with the management.”
From the above, the contributor said; that the management of cooperative societies should be le
in the hand of its members in order to have collective ideas among themselves. They should be allowed to employ good managers of their choice and discipline them whenever necessary. This will ensure proper
management of their business. In a paper presented at the cooperatives international day, titled managerial and cooperative education huge factor in the success of cooperative business, Suleiman (1992) said: “management is a universal concept applied to all human organizations, profit or no profit small scale,
medium or large scale business.” Management defined as the process by which people, technology, tasks and other resources are combined and coordinated so as to effectively
achieve organizational objectives. It could be permitted to note that management of cooperative organization s vested in the hand of management committee. This comprise the chairman, secretary and the treasurer.
Suleiman from his paper noted that the task of management committee is not easy. The most important among them is decision making. The nature of their decision will determine the success or otherwise of cooperative organizations. Business itself is a risk and since cooperative undertakes business of various
type, their operations are equally risky. Leadership generally involves the guideline, the direction of group acting by one or more persons, the performance of certain tasks. And it is certainly some one’s responsibility to ensure that the tasks are accomplished. The performance of these services, whether by one man or several persons, constitutes leadership.

POOR MANAGEMENT, A STUMBLING STONE OF CONSUMER COOPERATIVES DEVELOPMENT