Every matter in this nation always develops an inexplicable complication. What other nations do effortlessly will mostly degenerate into such a proportion of conflicts that one wonders whether we are humans or some undefinable terrestrial creatures for want of an appropriate definition. Just the simple exercise of redesigning our currency has degenerated into a serious national calamity that has claimed innocent lives of persons killed in cold blood in the course of escalated violence. Private and public properties had been destroyed. In the two weeks of conflicts, businesses had been shut down; some persons had lost means of livelihood, which they may never recover from by the time the hullabaloo is over.
It is usually difficult for anyone to wrap his/her head around our national issues. Countries around the world change their currencies without any upheaval. Great countries and those who, by all definitions, are not as big as Nigeria redesigned their currencies without heaven falling. Ghana did not just redesign its cedis but actually redenominated the cedis by the removal of two digits from its value, yet no upheaval was reported.
Why is the Nigerian system always falling short of national and international expectations on virtually every issue? What justification is there in withdrawing x billion of currency from circulation without a commensurate amount being returned into the system? How do our managers just wake up to demand from the system at any level what they have not made provision for?
It makes ordinary folks think that our leaders think with their anus instead of their heads, which is the possible reason the outcomes always stink. Before this currency redesign imbroglio, it is public knowledge that virtually all the Deposit Money Banks lost a greater percentage of their IT personnel to the Japa syndrome such that glitches have become common place in various electronic transactions with the banks. How do the Central Bank Governor and his team think the same banks could perform magic overnight by providing e-banking services for the teeming population of Nigerians that will not be able to access the cash required for their daily existence? How does Mr Emefiele think everybody will become bankable overnight just by a federal fiat?
It appears sadly, however, that our thinkers simply formulate policies without adequate data that support their decision. How many Nigerians do not have bank accounts in real-time, not to talk about persons who have no means of ever operating in the virtual space that a cashless policy the type that the Central Bank of Nigeria is pursuing at this critical time of our national life requires? I was out recently and witnessed major supermarkets rejecting the old naira notes while a number of e-transactions were also failing. I equally stopped over at my usual spot to buy bottled groundnuts. I asked the semi-literate woman if I could transfer the money to her for two bottles of her groundnut. The woman, without hesitation, responded that she had no bank account. I had to pay cash if I wanted the groundnuts. The question that came to my mind was, what is the number of Nigerians in the category of this woman in the reckoning of Mr Emefiele and his cashless policy advocates?
It may be necessary to ask – who is CBN serving? Ordinary Nigerians or politicians. What will this grandstanding do to ameliorate the suffering of the masses? If anyone cares to check, there is none of those politicians or their immediate family members on the streets either fighting or queuing up at ATM machines waiting for the unavailable naira. So, what is the point? Equally noteworthy, most elites are not mortally wounded by the scarcity of naira notes. They can comfortably sit in their homes or offices and carry on with their normal transactions through other means. These elites don’t even use cash as such from time, so Mr Emefiele’s regulations will not adversely affect them. But the same cannot be said of the ordinary Nigerian whose livelihood depends on raw cash before this time. The hapless groundnut seller that I met recently, on a good day, would have about twenty bottles of groundnut on her stall, but that day she had less than five bottles. This would be because those who wanted to buy did not have cash, and she could not take transfers because she had no bank account. In order to get cash, the woman may be forced to sell below her profit margin. Well, this will justify the CBN postulation of ‘reduction in inflation’. One natural consequence of this is that if this impasse is not resolved soon, that hardworking woman and her household will most likely turn to begging.
The subject of ‘sabotage by the banks’ looks too simplistic because virtually all the banks as of today are under lock and key. For about two weeks, these banks have been losing revenues with attendant spiralling effects on other businesses that rely on them for sustenance. Could they have had cash hidden in their vaults and still shut down their business premises for this long?
The United States redesigned her currency from time to time, yet, there is no noise or public uproar. In 2003, the twenty-dollar bill was redesigned; in 2004, the fifty-dollar bill was redesigned; in 2006, the ten-dollar bill was redesigned; in 2008, the five-dollar was redesigned; and in 2013, the hundred-dollar bill was redesigned. To date, both the old notes and the new are legal tender. The only caveat is that the banks don’t pay out the old notes any longer, but businesses and banks still receive the notes. Information gathered from the website of their Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the agency responsible for the design and printing of American currency, maintained that ‘note designs are typically made public six to eight months ahead of time for global education and cash handler education purposes’. If America will engage its public for eight months before releasing the new note, shouldn’t Nigeria do it for more than one year, considering the level of our technology and infrastructure? The United States Treasury equally maintained that ‘the United States has never recalled its currency and will not do so now…. Old notes will not be recalled or devalued. The United States always honours its currency at its full-face value, no matter how old’. Why is our own different?
All players in this macabre dance should realise that our currency is one of our instruments of national pride. The noise generated at this time demeans that pride. The facts that people had lost their lives, businesses damaged, properties burnt, and the general upheaval nationwide are enough for key persons involved in the administration of this project to know they have failed the public and would have resigned in countries where the people count, and the rule of law is sacrosanct. But Nigeria is a different ball game altogether. National pride is often secondary to personal interests, and the rule of law is a function of who is involved. The same constitution that jailed the man who stole fifty thousand naira, is the one that allowed the oga that stole one hundred billion naira to sleep in his house and be chauffeur driven by government-paid staff.
Mr Emefiele and his team at Central Bank, with the presidential hardliners at Aso Rock, should please think of the masses at the butt of their monetary policies and relax this hardship. It is only common sense to expect a new baby to crawl before running. This kind of cashless policy and the system of our own naira redesign projects are too sophisticated and draconian for us now, as they are heaping untold hardship on ordinary Nigerians. The intended party among the ruling class will not personally suffer the hardship. Enough of using hapless Nigerians as cannon fodders in the game of power.
Dr Oluwasegun Omidiora.
