Why isn’t credit a fundamental human right?

Last weekend we marked World Consumer Rights Day. I reflect on some of the seminal moments in recent history in which people demanded their rights. I remember the African anti-colonial movements of the 1950s, the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and the Arab Spring of the 2010s. Surely millions of people did not march—even at the risk of death—just to have their rights “acknowledged.” They marched for what rights can do, i.e., enforce their freedom to live a dignified life. A dignified life requires access to basic, decent experiences (such as a respectable home and community, reliable energy, mobility, education, connectivity, and healthcare). If a dignified life is central to our humanity, then access to credit—essential for many to activate such a life—should be considered a fundamental human right.

Now, let’s talk about Nigeria: a nation brimming with potential, yet shackled by a financial system that leaves most people out in the heat. The numbers don’t lie: only about 3 percent of Nigerian workers have accessed any formal consumer credit in the past year. To achieve the “visible impact” of consumer credit seen in the BRICS countries, Nigeria’s consumer credit sector would need to reach 50 percent of our GDP—that is, a staggering ₦176 trillion. We are not close; the current gap stands at ₦141.3 trillion. Multiples of the required capital already circulate within Nigeria’s financial system—or could be mobilised with minimal effort—but consumer credit remains out of reach for millions. This is not due to a lack of funds, but rather because trust in the system is broken.

This is more than a policy problem—it is also a problem of innovation. As argued by Clay Christensen and his coauthors (Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon) in The Prosperity Paradox, true prosperity is not about pushing resources; it is about creating markets. It is about applying market-creating innovation to make a product or service widely accessible to a large swath of previous non-consumers, thereby growing the industry and—consequently—attracting (pulling) the right infrastructure, regulation, and ecosystems to accelerate and sustain it.

In our application of the prosperity model, credit plays two roles:

First, credit is a product. Like any product, it needs market-creating innovation to reach those who have been left out. A few innovations that come to mind include mobile nano loans, instant credit decisions embedded at points of purchase (including in e-commerce), “buy now, pay later” options for basic goods, the simple digitisation of records from local savings groups to attract more loan capital, and tailored products for underserved groups (such as women and youth) designed specifically for their contexts. These are not just loans; they’re lifelines. We must accelerate the work of our innovators solving these. Innovations are also critical in the securitisation of loans—for example, by developing alternative forms of collateral and improving collections infrastructure. We should fully democratise the CBN’s movable collateral registry and global standing instruction (GSI) so that every kind of ethical lender can use it. We should also consider what additional assets people can pledge ethically—e.g., digital assets, agricultural output, perhaps even legally quantifiable labour—to engender more trust.

Second, credit is a market-creating innovation in itself. It unlocks access to products and services across other industries, thereby converting millions of previous non-consumers of those products. It would fully democratise access to solar home systems, opening the door for a million first-time consumers of constant, clean alternative energy. It brings another million people into the digital economy as first-time owners of laptops and smartphones through credit (our current smartphone penetration is less than 30%). It is the antidote to transportation poverty, enabling millions of others to purchase vehicles of all types. It facilitates access to improved or brand-new homes. And for each of these industries—solar, electronics, mobility, construction, and furniture—the benefits multiply: industries thrive, and jobs are created.

This “dual efficacy of credit” makes it an incredibly powerful tool for self-actualisation and a dignified life. There is therefore no reason why consumer credit—on an individual level—should not be treated with the same gravity as a fundamental human right.

On this World Consumer Rights Day, I re-subscribe to the rights to life, to liberty, and to self-actualisation. For most people in a modern economy, self-actualisation starts with credit.

Uzoma Nwagba is the Managing Director/CEO of the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation, a development finance institution of the Federal Government of Nigeria. He is a passionate advocate for personal empowerment, a global Dwight Eisenhower Fellow and Desmond Tutu Fellow, with a long track record driving impact at the intersection of technology and finance.