For some time now, there has been a growing concern on how the ordinary man and woman in the town and rural communities of Africa can raise capital to start some micro-business and, thus, reduce poverty, and improve his or her standard of living. Within the period covered by this paper, successive governments and financial institutions have tried to address this challenge with little or no success. However, specifically for capital formation among the Igbo of southeast Nigeria, there exist traditional institutions through which the people raised resources to attend to their community and individual needs. These include, among others, Contribution Clubs, Family and Extended Family Pools, Age Grade Associations, Title Taking/Societies, Pawning, Inheritance, Land/Economic Trees Pledging, Imachi Nkwu and other Fruit Trees, Ilu – Elulu (Keeping Custody of Domestic Animal) and Ili – Ichi (Burial of Umbilical Cord). Consequently, this paper surveys those aspects of the traditional economic institutions that have become changed, transformed, or modified. Both internal and external forces have affected the traditional institutions for capital formation among the Igbo of southeast Nigeria, mostly by the later. This has caused the indigenous finance institutions to become altered from their original states. The paper concludes that in spite of the changes and modifications that had occurred overtime, the indigenous finance institutions have continued to exist. The descriptive and analytical methods were adopted in writing this paper. The period covered is 1914 to 2014.
Keywords: Capital Formation, Change, Igbo, Indigenous, Institutions
