CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
A robust economic growth cannot be achieved without putting in place well focused programme to reduce poverty through empowering the people by increasing their access to factors of production.
  The latent capacity of the poor for entrepreneurship would be significantly enhanced through the provision of Federal Mortgage services to enable them engage in economic activities and be more self-reliant, increase employment opportunities, enhance household income and create wealth. Micro-financing has existed for years before the introduction of conventional banking in Nigeria and the later part of nineteenth century. (Ekot, 2008)
  The traditional Nigerian society has a system of group savings and assistance to one another. The practice was that a group of people who had needs for some form of capital or lump sum to execute a particular project which they could not raise adequate savings on their own, usually come together to form a savings group. The group may be named after the leader who is usually the initiator of the venture. The traditional Federal Mortgage institutions provide access to credit for the rural and urban low-income earners. These are mainly the informal self-help groups such as Isusu,women association like one obtainable during popular August meetings, Umu–ada progressive women association. Other providers of Federal Mortgage services include savings collectors and co-operatives. (CBN brief, 2005)
The unwillingness and inability of the formal financial institutions is to provide financial services to the urban and rural poor, coupled with unsustainability of government sponsored development financial schemes, contributed to the increase in number of private sector led micro finance in Nigeria. Thus, before the emergence
