#Features

New Naira notes flood Owanbe parties despite scarcity in banks, ATMs

By Saheed Ibrahim

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Nigerians love their Owanbe parties replete with aso ebi and gele of different grades, assorted drinks and exotic dishes. A good music is also not left out of the package.

A good music will guarantee the loosening of the purse strings as jolly people spray the celebrant and the musician.

Spraying of money can become very dramatic depending on how the person spraying the money feels. Some would be throwing money in the air and into gatherings. They usually get their kicks out of watching people scampering to pick up as many as they could of the naira notes on the ground.

Some would be spilling it on  the celebrants’ heads as if they were bathing them with the notes while others would paste the money on their foreheads or chests.

When some spray money, they don’t allow friends of the celebrant to pick the money.

They step and dance on it as if to give out a message that they have money at their beck and call.

Although, the Nigerian constitution goes against the practice of spraying and mutilation of the Naira, yet no one had been recorded to have been arrested by the police for spraying money at parties.

This form of merriment has not abated even as the disbursement of the redesigned N200, N500, and N1,000 notes commenced on December 15, 2022.  Since then, only a sizeable number of Nigerians can be said to have been able to touch the three redesigned notes, despite the Central Bank of Nigeria setting January 31 as the deadline for old notes to be regarded as legal tenders.

 Some days away from the deadline, the old versions of the redesigned notes are still very much in circulation as the new ones are rarely found at the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) or withdrawn from the counters of commercial banks.

One would have expected that the new notes would be widely circulated and used by Nigerians with the old versions becoming shadows of themselves by now but reality showed otherwise. Despite this development, investigation by The Hope has shown that the new notes are being traded, all thanks to some bank managers. The commercial bank managers are in symbiotic partnership with naira hawkers. At certain social gatherings, the highly scarce new notes become what the elite spray on celebrants and musicians. At a popular award-giving ceremony in Ilorin late December in 2022, the major notes sprayed at the event were the new notes. It was barely eight days after the disbursement of the scarce notes.

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At weddings, burial ceremonies, and social gatherings with highly influential people as organisers or in attendance, the new notes are being frivolously sprayed. At a recent ceremony in Ondo state, naira hawkers conspicuously displayed the notes for those who needed them to spray. The hawkers came with a Point of Sale (PoS) machine for those who wished to pay via their ATM cards. Naira hawkers exchange old notes for N3,000 extra on every N10,000 while new notes range between N4,000 to N5,000 at events. One of the socialites that patronised the hawkers, Seun Collins said she paid N15,000 to get N10,000 new notes.

A bank manager, who oversees the operations of one of the oldest banks in Nigeria, confirmed the involvement of the CBN officials in the current scarcity of the new notes. “It is not that we do not receive the new notes but we are hardly allowed to keep them. You can receive notes worth millions today and some CBN staff will come and collect almost everything the next day. “I was given N5million worth of the new notes and the second day, one of my staff just came that some CBN officials were around and demanded N3million of the N5million I received,” he revealed.

When asked if there was nothing the managers could do to prevent such from the CBN staff, he said, “What can you do? They are the ones that sent the money to you in the first place and it is not a new thing to us managers.” Speaking on the relationship with naira hawkers, he explained that it has been a long-term relationship between the two parties. “Of course, some of us do that. The thing is, people demand new notes, the ones we call mint, especially for parties and occasions.

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“Nigerians love spraying money and nobody wants to spray dirty money. In the real sense, the demand for mints led to the supply being a business. Even sometimes, if you do not want to give the money out, you will receive calls from different individuals. What can you do? You just have to yield and keep your job. This is how bank managers trade the mints with naira hawkers and some individuals that  demand for them”.

Another Manager at one of the new generation banks revealed that the new notes were sent directly to certain influential people on demand while commercial bank managers also connive with naira hawkers to trade the notes. She explained that “some of the new notes are posted directly from the CBN for  specific personalities. The money cannot be picked by the person from the CBN but it will be posted to a bank with specific instructions. All the recipients need to do is visit the bank and write a cheque with the exact amount of the money posted.

“I remember when a top personality had an event. He was to celebrate his wife’s mother’s burial and needed new notes to spray. The money was posted to my bank directly from CBN and he came the second day to pick it up. “Second, any top CBN staff can influence some of the money to be posted on request to their networks. It is easier for them to do that. The third way is by commercial bank managers. Some of them have a business connection with naira hawkers. So, they sell the ‘mints’ (new notes) to the hawkers at a certain rate while the hawkers sell at parties at their preferred rates.

A few days ago, a PoS operator around Alagbaka, Akure told our correspondent that she had to tip one of the commercial banks to get the redesigned notes from a bank in the area. We observed that other customers withdrawing cash from banks in the area mostly got old notes.

Given this, the best way to curtail the excesses of CBN officials, bank managers, and naira hawkers as regards ‘mints’ and also end naira hawking is to further criminalise and aggressively implement laws prohibiting the illegal trade. Sections 20 and 21 of the CBN Act of 2017 outlaw any action by anyone who hawks, sprays, squeezes, dances on, or writes on the Naira. The penalty for culprits caught flouting such a law risk a jail term of six months or payment of N50, 000 fine.

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As soon as the CBN announced a plan to redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes, there were agitations from different corners concerning the short notice given and the motive behind the new monetary policy. The CBN announced on October 26, 2022, that the disbursement of the redesigned notes will commence on December 15, 2022, giving less than two months’ notice for Nigerians to embrace the new reality. The short notice and lack of proper education on the new notes for Nigeria are responsible for the rejection of the new notes in some quarters. Most Nigerians expected to have new notes with new and special designs; only for us to see re-colouration, rather than redesign.

The first antagonism against the CBN’s proposal came from the Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, who claimed the apex bank did not consult her ministry. One who had expected the CBN and the Finance Ministry to work hand-in-hand, even though the former is an independent organisation from the latter but their operations are channelled towards the economic development of the country.  A human right activist, Femi Falana also claimed that the decision to redesign the naira notes was illegal, citing section 59 of Nigeria’s constitution that the CBN must get the endorsement of the National Assembly before money spent on redesigning the new notes, which was not covered in the 2022 budget, was touched.

The only approval the CBN got was from President Muhammadu Buhari. These have led to the motive of the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele being questioned, considering Emefiele being disqualified from contesting the 2023 presidential election primaries of the All Progressive Congress (APC). Many have claimed that the CBN Governor redesigned the naira notes and initiated the new cashless policy as a way of getting back at the political superpowers in the country for his disqualification from the presidential race.  

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