The tales of woe that has accompanied the cash scarcity induced by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s naira redesign policy seem not to be abating, with citizens still struggling to access cash for basic purchases. This is in spite of last week’s Supreme Court judgement. Gboyega Alaka captures some of the unpleasant stories and the predicament of traders.

To say it has been journey through hell for Nigerians since the self-inflicted naira notes scarcity occasioned by the CBN naira redesign policy, is to put it mildly.

Many Nigerians would actually say outright that this is one experience no-one in living memory has ever had, imagined or saw coming. Everyone was has been hard hit; from the shop owners, to the hawkers on the streets, to the traders in markets, even beggars and service men/boys at restaurants, who benefit from loose change.

With it have also come casualties of sorts.

A woman at a polling unit in Igando area of Lagos State, while celebrating the result of her unit’s poll, right after Saturday February 25 presidential election, which went the way of her preferred candidate, spoke of how an elderly man collapsed and died before her very eyes, while waiting on a queue to collect five thousand naira from an ATM machine.

The man, she narrated, had lamented the huge margin taken off his money the last time he patronised a POS operators, had come to the bank, having heard the machine was dispensing money.

Another, narrating her personal story, said her children had to make do with garri without sugar, so much that one of them started vomiting in the middle of the night and she had to rush him to the hospital.

At the hospital, a private facility, she narrated how she had to undergo another battle of sourcing cash to pay before the doctors properly attended to her boy.

“Transfer was not going and they insisted on payment before service. In the end, I had to go back home to my neighbours who mopped up all the cash they had. We were still not able to raise the exact deposit the hospital was asking for, but they collected it and commenced treatment on compassionate ground.”

She finished by saying: “Government should just bring back our naira now that the presidential elections are over. Shebi they said it is to stop vote buying.”

John Adesanmi, who works as a bus conductor on Egbeda-Ikotun axis of Lagos could not hold back curses, which he rained on the Central Bank governor, Godwin Emefiele and President Muhammadu Buhari. His grouse, he said, was that his aged mother, whom he transfers five thousand naira to every week to feed, had not been able to access the last two tranches that he sent to her. Consequently, the old woman with her grand-daughter who stays with her in their village in Gbongan, Osun State, has had to be battling with hunger for two weeks.

“What kind of government policy is this that would not allow people to have access to their money?” He queried.

Traders lament cash obstacles, poor sales

Aside the human casualty angle, traders have also been lamenting their predicament.

According to Kingsley Onyebuchi, who sells garri, rice and other grains in Ikotun market, the cash scarcity has really hampered business transactions, especially since the local traders still rely on cash for basic transactions. As a result, he told this reporter that sales have dropped drastically; but he is as helpless as his customers who cannot access cash to buy from him.

Yes, he has managed to make some sales through transfer, but said there are people, who for some reasons, are not able to do transfers, either because transfers are not going or because they are totally ignorant of the process or have no bank account.

“For those who don’t have cash and cannot do transfer, I have had to turn them back. Of course that has seriously affected my sales, but what else can one do? Sell to them on mere promises? Most of the customers, I don’t even know their homes; so how do I recover my money if I sell to them on credit and they’re not honest enough to come and pay back? It is better to turn customers back than sell and never get paid. Besides, nobody expected the problem to last this long,” he said.

Asked if he has resumed collecting the old naira notes as directed by the Supreme Court, Onyebuchi said he needed to get directive from his boss. For now, his answer is, no.

The story isn’t much different with Saheed Eleran, who sells beef next to Onyebuchi.

“The quantity of meat I sell has reduced drastically since the naira problem started. I have been surviving on transfers, but I’m sure you’re aware that transfers fail a lot these days.

“Sometimes a customer makes a transfer and it takes hours before it gets credited to my account. On such occasion, the customer has to wait. That also means that we spend hours attending to just one customer. Cumulatively, that affects the day’s sales and we’re forced to take unsold meat to the cold room.

“To tell you the truth, I actually prefer cash; so I tell customers to go and get cash from POS operators,” Saheed said.

When reminded of the exorbitant charges of POS operators, Saheed said “If they don’t give me cash, I will have to spend the same amount of money to buy cash when I need it. So it goes both ways. Yes, I sell meat, but I also need cash to buy pepper, oil to cook and garri to go with it. Would you believe I once used three thousand naira to collect the ten thousand naira a customer paid after buying meat of same amount? That means I lost three thousand naira.

“At the abattoir, where we get our meat supply, they always insist on cash, even if you’re buying up to N300,000 worth. They tell you the Fulani cattle sellers also insist on cash. Why then should I not insist on cash sometimes?

As this discussion wound down, Saheed’s customer, who gave her name as Juliet, was having a ‘battle’ with him over mode of payment, with Saheed insisting it had to be cash and Juliet pleading to pay by transfer.

In the end, Juliet parted with her ‘last’ cash of three thousand but blamed herself for letting Saheed know she had the cash on her.

“Now, I will have to go source for cash at the crazy POS rates again to buy pepper and other little stuff to cook the meat. To tell the truth, I have suffered due to this cash problem. Sometimes we go hungry because we can’t get cash to buy food. Sometimes, our kids cry endlessly because we can’t provide them with the little things that matter to them, things we’ve always provided them and which they can’t understand why suddenly we’re saying we don’t have cash to provide for them.

“Just yesterday, a POS operator charged me N1,200 on N5,000; and it was with so much pleading. The most annoying thing about this naira scarcity thing is the fact that one has to buy money at very high prices. Money that I worked for o.”

I use N20,000 to buy N100,000 cash – Ibrahim, yam seller

‘To think this naira problem will persist till this time, despite the masses cry to government, is in itself surprising. How do they expect us to sell our products in a country where people rely on cash for transactions? We are suffering, help us tell the government.”

The above were the opening words of Ibrahim Ajani who sells yam in Ikotun market.

“On a normal day, this whole space would be filled with yam tubers, but what can you see? Usually when we offload huge trucks, everywhere will be filled tubers of yam, from which we would supply other retailers around, but what we have is not even enough for us to sell. You can see how scanty everywhere is. It is all we could afford to raise cash to buy. The money we use in buying cash in the farms is extremely high. Imagine having to buy one hundred thousand naira with twenty thousand naira? And to think that we have to make purchases sometimes of up to seven million naira. Now calculate that at the rate of N20,000 on every N100,000. The yam farmers don’t collect transfer. It’s cash or nothing. This has also caused the prices of yam to go up; because we have to add the extra money we spent buying cash. I mean, you buy N100,000 worth of yam, and the POS operator charges N20, 000. That brings the prize to N120,000. As a result, a tuber of yam that should go for N1,200, now goes for N1,500. That also means that a customer who wants to buy five tubers of yam for her family, now buys two or three at most.”

naira scarcity

Ajani continued: “Our government should just have rethink about this policy. If it’s the old money we have to be spending, they should let us know. Now we operate by transfers and by using POS (he pointed at three POS machines lying on some tubers of yam), but the problem is that transfers can be complicated. Sometimes, the POS also declines payment. On such occasion, we lose that business. The other day, I transferred N100,000 to a woman; as we speak, it has not dropped in her account. She even called to tell me that she has been to the bank and they said the money was yet to be credited to her account. On another occasion, a customer purchased tubers of yam worth N10,000. She made the transfer right in my presence and even gave me her number in case it didn’t drop. That is weeks ago, but as we speak, it has not been credited to my account. I have had to let go, having called her several times and she insisting that she had been debited.”

On the Supreme Court judgement and if he had begun collecting the old notes, Ajani said, “To say the truth, I have only collected it once. And that is because nobody around us is collecting it. I am for collecting it, but that fear is there. If we start collecting it, business would begin to flow again and everybody would be okay. But what if we collect and are not able to spend it.”

As for Chidinma Okereke of GM Foods, who sells sacks of garri nearby, she will only start collecting the old notes when President Muhammadu Buhari says so in a broadcast.

“I cannot collect money that I would not be able to spend. But if I see President Buhari announce it and I see banks issuing it from their ATM, then I will start collecting it. Not even the CBN governor; Emefiele’s announcement can make me collect the old notes.”

On how she has managed to remain in business with the whole naira palaver, Okereke said, “No be small thing o. Take a look at my shed, it’s almost empty. Is that how to remain in business? We have no cash to buy garri; we have to buy money at crazy prices to make our purchases from my suppliers in Delta State and Benin, because the women don’t collect transfers. They don’t want to hear ‘no cash’. At our luckiest, we use N15,000 to buy N100,000 cash. Imagine that. Sometimes we even use N20, 000. And that is why garri prices have gone up. We have to add it up.”

Cashless compliant fruit seller

For Frank Stephen, who hawks apples and grapes on a wheelbarrow, however, not even Emefiele and his naira redesign policy would stop him from doing business.

Even before the now unpopular policy, Stephen already operates his fruit retail business using a POS machine. As a result, the situation hasn’t been as telling on him as it has been on several other retailers.

“That is not to say the problem hasn’t affected me, because the network sometimes gets jammed, which slows business a lot. Sometimes payments are declined, and what that means is that the customer is not able to buy. I want to sell, he wants to buy, but transaction can’t take place. How bad can things get?

“I used to sell three cartons of apple a day, but now, I only manage to sell one carton, and with much stress and uncertainty.”

Asked if he has started collecting the old naira notes since the Supreme Court judgement, Stephen said, “Yes, I collect it, it is Nigeria’s money, it is legal tender, so long as the Supreme Court has spoken.”

(The Nation)

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