The union's published rules
Operational terms
These are the eight operational terms of Requiza Cooperative Union. They are the rules the union has undertaken to run on: what a share costs, how savings are kept, when a member may borrow, and when money comes back. Under each term is a plain note on what it means for a member in practice.
How to read this page
The numbered text of each term is the union's own rule, tightened only for grammar. It is set in the larger type. Below it, ruled off in brass, is the gloss — an explanation written for members, which tells you what the term means when you are the one handing over the money. The gloss explains the term. It never adds to it.
Where a term fixes a figure, the figure is printed with the condition that goes with it. A rate on its own is a promise; a rate with its condition is a term, and only terms are printed here.
Where the union has not published a detail — the interest it charges on a loan, the minimum on the Special Investment Package — this page says so plainly instead of filling the gap. Ask the union office for those in writing, and keep the reply.
| Term | The figure it fixes |
|---|---|
| One · Share capital | ₦1,000 |
| Two · Minimum subscription | 100 shares |
| Three · The quarterly stream | 20 / 80 |
| Four · Capture of savings | Online |
| Five · The savings term | 12 months · 30% |
| Six · Loans | 3 months |
| Seven · Dividends | 31 December |
| Eight · Special Investment Package | 15% a quarter |
The money page works through the same eight terms with the arithmetic done and a section on what could go wrong. Savings, loans and dividends.
The instrument
The eight operational terms
Numbered, in the order the union publishes them. Each term stands on its own; several of them work together, and where they do, the gloss says which.
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Term 01
Share capital
The value of one ordinary share of the union is one thousand naira (₦1,000).
What this means for a member
A share is a unit of ownership in what the union builds, and it costs ₦1,000. It is not a savings deposit. Your weekly savings and your shares are two different things: savings are your money held by the union and they carry the interest in term five; a share is a stake in a business and what it returns depends on how that business trades.
Shares are whole units. There is no half share, so any subscription is a multiple of ₦1,000.
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Term 02
Minimum subscription
The minimum subscription of a member on any project of the union is one hundred (100) ordinary shares, being one hundred thousand naira (₦100,000).
What this means for a member
If you want a stake in a project the union opens, ₦100,000 is the smallest holding that gets you in. You may subscribe more, in multiples of ₦1,000.
You do not need ₦100,000 to be a member. The union's own membership checklist asks three things of you: that you have registered, that you have an Android phone, and that you will be an active saver. The 100-share minimum is the entry to a project, not the entry to the union.
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Term 03
The quarterly stream of income
Every quarter the union opens a new stream of income. The equity in each new stream is funded twenty per cent (20%) by the cooperative and eighty per cent (80%) by the members who subscribe to it.
What this means for a member
Four times a year there is a new business to buy into. The union puts in one naira for every four the members put in, which means members own the larger part of each stream — and carry the larger part of the result, in a good year and a bad one alike.
When a stream is opened, ask three questions before you subscribe: what does it trade in, what does the whole project cost, and when is it expected to earn. The union announces each project when it opens it; no project is named in these terms.
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Term 04
Capture of savings
All members' savings are captured online. A member may save daily, weekly or monthly.
What this means for a member
Every naira you hand over should appear in a record you can see. Your cluster's financial secretary enters the week's savings — and any loan, loan repayment or investment — and your back office shows the entry. Choose the rhythm that matches how you earn: daily if you trade daily, weekly if you are paid weekly, monthly if you draw a salary.
Check the record. If money you paid is not in it within the week, raise it at the Saturday meeting before you pay again. A savings scheme you cannot audit is not a savings scheme, and this term is what gives you the right to look.
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Term 05
The savings term and the interest on it
A member's savings must run uninterrupted for twelve (12) months before withdrawal. The savings are returned to the member with thirty per cent (30%) annual interest at the end of the member's financial year.
What this means for a member
This is the union's central bargain and both halves of it matter. Twelve months, without a break, is what earns the 30%. The word to watch is uninterrupted: it does not ask you to save a large amount, it asks you not to miss.
So set your figure at an amount you can still pay in a bad month. ₦1,000 every week for a year beats ₦10,000 a week for three months and nothing after. And do not put money here that you may need in the middle of the year — it is held for the full twelve months.
The union's financial year ends on 31 December. If you join partway through the year, ask your cluster financial secretary in writing which date your own savings year ends on, and keep the answer.
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Term 06
Loans
A loan is available to an active member after three (3) months of consistent savings.
What this means for a member
Thirteen Saturdays of saving without a break, and you may ask. Active means what it says on your member record: registered, saving, and not interrupted. The union lends to members who have shown they can keep a schedule, because the money being lent is other members' savings.
Taking a loan does not pause your savings. If you stop saving while you repay, you have interrupted the twelve months in term five, and the interest and the dividend go with it.
This term fixes when you may borrow. It does not fix the interest the union charges, the most a member may borrow, the repayment period, whether a guarantor is needed, or what happens on default — and the union has not published those. Get them in writing before you sign anything.
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Term 07
Dividends
Dividends are earned from the businesses the union trades in and are distributed at the end of the financial year, 31 December, to members whose savings have been active and uninterrupted for twelve (12) months.
What this means for a member
A dividend is your share of what the union's businesses actually earned in the year. It is not a fixed rate, and no percentage for it is published in advance — in a strong year it is larger, in a weak year it is smaller, and in a year where the businesses earn nothing there is nothing to distribute. Anybody who quotes you a guaranteed dividend figure is not quoting this term.
Note that the qualification is the same twelve uninterrupted months as term five. Break the savings and you lose both the interest and the dividend for that year. Holding shares alone does not qualify you, and neither does the Special Investment Package.
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Term 08
The Special Investment Package
The union's Special Investment Package returns fifteen per cent (15%) quarterly.
What this means for a member
This is a separate arrangement from weekly savings, and it is important not to read the two as one. Money placed in the package is not your savings: it does not build the twelve uninterrupted months, it does not earn the 30% in term five, and on its own it does not qualify you for the dividend in term seven.
Fifteen per cent in a quarter is a high return by any measure, anywhere. Before you put money in, ask what trade produces it, what the minimum is, how long the money is held, whether the capital comes back and what happens in a quarter where that trade loses money. The union has not published those details. Until it does, and in writing, treat the package as an arrangement whose terms you have not been given.
Being straight about it
What these eight terms do not settle
An honest instrument is judged as much by what it leaves open as by what it fixes. These are the things a careful member will want and the terms do not yet answer.
None of them is hidden from you: they are simply not published, and this page would rather print the gap than invent a figure to fill it. Ask the union office for each one you need, ask for it in writing, and keep the reply with your membership papers.
Not fixed by these terms
- The interest the union charges on a loan.
- The most a member may borrow, the repayment period, and what follows a default.
- The minimum for the Special Investment Package, how long it holds money, and whether the capital comes back.
- Any fee, levy or registration charge a member may be asked for.
- The dividend rate for a given year — which cannot be fixed in advance, because it depends on how the businesses traded.
- How a member leaves the union, and what they take with them when they do.
The instrument on the record
- Instrument
- The operational terms of Requiza Cooperative Union
- Terms
- Eight
- Adopted
- To be published
- Approved by
- To be published
- Signed copy held at
- To be published
- Registration
- To be published
- Financial year
- Ends 31 December
- Questions
- requizacooperative@gmail.com
A closing note
Read these before you commit money
The eight terms above are the union's published rules. They are what Requiza Cooperative Union has undertaken to do, and they are the only thing on this website that anybody in the union is entitled to promise you.
They are not guaranteed by any government, and savings held under them are not covered by any deposit-protection scheme. The interest and the dividend are paid out of what the union's businesses earn, and businesses have bad years as well as good ones. A published term is a rule the union has set itself — a serious thing, and not the same thing as a guarantee.
So read them slowly, and read the money page beside them, where the same terms are worked through with the arithmetic done and the risks set out. If a person recruiting you offers you something these eight terms do not contain — a bonus for bringing people in, a doubling, a guaranteed dividend — that offer is not the union's. Write to the office and report it.
Keep your own record
Keep the reply to every question you ask the office, keep your entries in your back office, and check the cluster record each Saturday against what you actually paid. The union's terms give you the right to look. Use it every week, not once a year.
If these terms change
This page carries whatever the union has published. If a term is amended, the amended wording belongs here, dated, and members should be told at the cluster meeting. Ask at the Saturday meeting whether the copy you are reading is the current one.