Uwankaa (This World..)

With the absolute confusion we are in now, is Nigeria ready to be a cashless society? My last post ‘WHAT A DAY THAT WAS!’ detailed events that made 3^rd February, 2023, a very bad day for me. And things have not gotten better. On 6^th February I went to my bank again. I was told that no new notes could be drawn. And the crowd at the ATM gallery outside was intimidating. I did not bother.

So I went to Zenith bank to transfer money for a redecoration job. Their premises were fenced off with high iron rod barrier. So, many customers were jostling to get in. I beckoned to one of the security guards within and told him I wanted to make a transfer. He said, ‘Zenith to Zenith transfer only, internet problems’. So I went to the Zenith bank across the bridge. It also had iron rod fencing. The security said, ‘sorry, no internet, transfer is not possible’.

I then decided to shop at nearby Shoprite. The salesgirl tallied the items in my trolley, took my ATM card but the POS issued a ‘declined’ receipt. She used another POS with the same result! Both were Sterling bank receipts.

I said, ‘It means I can’t buy anything.’

Sir, make a phone transfer.’

I tried but ‘’try later’’ was the repeated result. More internet problems! I turned to leave but instinctively looked at my phone. I had five alerts! Three were debits and two were credit reversals. Each indicated twenty three thousand naira.

In answer to my query the girl said, ‘don’t worry, sir. The bank will reverse it.’

“How do you know?’

They usually do, sir.’

‘I want to see the manager.’

His office was in the room nearby.

I went in and said, ‘sir, you people have my twenty three thousand naira. I was debited thrice. Only two were reversed.’

After some argument I accepted his ‘please have patience, sir. They will normally reverse the charge within twenty four hours. If it is not reversed please come back’. So I went home. I decided to give them forty eight hours.

So, forty eight hours later, on the 8^th, since I still had no money, I first went to the 4^th Avenue Access bank branch. There was a crowd around the ATMs. I stood wondering how to approach the gallery.

Then a young lady said, ‘there’s a senior citizens’ queue’. So I went to join the queue. Of the four ATM points only one was dispensing money. The blue-clad security guard by it had given numbered paper slips to the other people. Five of them would use the ATM in alternate order with two senior citizens. It was a struggle. I leaned on my walking stick as my feet hurt. After about forty minutes I reached the ATM. My Access bank card allowed me ten thousand naira. Holders of other bank cards got five thousand.

So off I went to Zenith on 2^nd Avenue to transfer money to the painter. But it was under lock and key. So was the one across the bridge.     

As the debit had not been reversed I went to Shoprite. I tendered my ‘declined’ receipts to the manger, this time a woman. She scanned them and returned them. She told me this was a bank to bank affair. Reversal would take five days. So I left. If need be I would return next week.

Is Nigeria ready to be a cashless society? I don’t think so. Zenith bank and Access bank, two of the largest and best are hobbled by internet problems. Why would other banks be exempt? It means the internet service providers are not coping with such sudden pressure. Without an efficient internet service how could we go cashless? Furthermore, statistics say only about half our population have bank accounts. The others put their money under their pillows, in their boxes or wherever. Furthermore, one of the major religions frowns at earning interest on money. So why put money in banks? And many citizens do not have smart phones for transactions.

But the powers that be have decided that we must go cashless and have set a deadline. They are replacing the three largest denominations of our money with redesigned new notes. The old notes must be returned to the banks by a certain date. But where are the new notes? On 13^th February, after wasting time at Access bank all I could get was three thousand naira!

People are angry. Some are starving. Why should it be difficult for people to withdraw their own money from banks? Some people are resorting to violence. ATMs are being vandalized. People are taking out their anger on bank staff. A sorry video is on the social media. A female bank manager has been dragged out of her car and rough handled by some youth. Her brief case and other possessions are being seized from the car. The car tyres are being removed. The youth carrying one tyre is shouting, ‘since you won’t give me my money I will sell this tyre and get some money for food!’ Unfortunately this car thing is happening in Igbo land. Yes, no half measures in Igbo land.

Even if you give us ten years to change currency there will be problems. The level of illiteracy is high. But this exchange should at least have started one year ago. But it appears our rulers suddenly had a brain wave. They had been told some politicians had amassed billions of naira to buy votes during the elections commencing on 25^th February. Our leader said he wants the best candidate to be the next president. He did not want the votes bought. He wants the stashed old notes back in the banks. He would release the new money in trickles. That way nobody would have large quantities of the new notes to buy votes. But Governors of his own party are going to court to stop his idea!

What our leaders refuse to acknowledge is that the society is steeped in corruption. Yes, our politicians have stashed the old money to buy votes. They are going to court to stop the money change. But they have a fall-back position. They own the banks! And the bank managers hold back a large chunk of the new notes from the Central Bank for them. And the people groan under hardship – no money for the expensive fuel, none for food or anything. They can’t withdraw their own money!

 So the whole country is in turmoil. This country is very good at making simple things difficult. To change money is now an impossible task for us. Everything that can possibly go wrong has gone wrong.

So the answer to my own question is that we should forget this knee-jerk decision to change money. Or it should be extended for at least a year. Our president should forget his dream of a lasting positive legacy of enthroning an honest president. The presidency is already bought. And Nigeria keeps stumbling on.

2^nd February, 2023, was a day I can never forget. Before then I had been agonizing over my next post for weeks. I had wanted to express my sadness on the state of Nigeria. Should the title be, ‘They Have Killed Nigeria’, or, ‘How To Run A Country Aground’? Simply put, everything that could possibly go wrong here seems to have gone wrong! I may still write that post.

Well, that morning, I needed to get money from my bank. We are still a cash economy, not yet the cashless one we are dreaming of. Our rulers were, over a very short time, trying to force everybody to key into their cashless economic policy. Large denomination notes above one hundred naira were being replaced by new notes. And the banks were not paying out new notes. And the lower denomination notes were hardly available. And the deadline for paying in the old large denomination notes was eight days away. There was simply chaos and panic. To make matters worse worse there was scarcity of petrol.

I needed to buy petrol, cooking gas and other things. Government approved petrol pump price was one hundred and forty-five naira per litre before the recent increase to one hundred and eighty-five naira. What a laugh. Some days ago when I last purchased petrol the queue at the station selling at government price was nearly a mile long! The other station open near where I live was selling at three hundred and fifteen naira and there was a short queue!

Not wanting to spend two days on the queue I bought at the other one. Crafty buggers! They were only collecting cash. They had a young lady doing business with her POS on standby. So you buy cash from her and pay for your petrol. In a corny way everybody was happy. The POS girl made her money, the station had their cash and I was relieved to have some petrol for my over-flogged generator!

When I got to my nearest branch bank, Access, it was deserted. The lone security guard said, ‘sorry, sir, no work here today. Try the new branch on 2^nd Avenue or the 4^th Avenue branch.’ I was shocked. But off to 2^nd Avenue I went with my car bouncing up and down on the potholed road. I did not need to drive into the branch premises. There was a mammoth crowd under where the bold ATM sign was displayed above on the wall. So I was jolted up and down in my car over the potholes all the way to the 4^th Avenue Branch. Last time the security guard there had taken permission for this senior citizen to jump the ATM queue. I had thought, what a nice man!

At the ATM gallery there was a large crowd! And I was told no money was being dispensed. They were all gathered, this time not queuing, in anticipation of the machines being fed with cash. The security guard suggested, ‘try inside the bank, sir’. Inside there was another crowd. One of the girls behind the counter said, ‘sorry, sir, no new notes’. I saw an older woman within the staff area and beckoned to her. She came and answered my query, ‘sir, if you have patience the girl will give you some money.’

I was relieved when the girl said, ‘sir, have a seat. Let me finish with this military man.’ Yes, she had been attending to a man in army uniform. Luckily there was, surprisingly, one vacant seat. I gladly sat in it. Then I realized that the man next to me carrying a toddler had also come with his wife. Apparently she had left her seat for something. I also sensed it when a lady coming towards me turned away, perhaps noticing that a very senior citizen had occupied her seat. But I sat there for fully thirty minutes and the military man was still there!

Then I walked to the counter. The girl said,’ I have not forgotten you.’

I replied, ‘I know. But I have been here for a long time. Should I go home?’ Then the military man left.

The girl turned to me. She said, ‘give me your ATM card.’

I was relieved and gave it to her. She inserted it in the POS, typed in some things and gave me back my card. I was shocked when she said, ‘what I have for you is two thousand naira in fifty naira notes.’ And she brought out the wad to give me. I hesitated to take the money. Inside me I was fuming, having wasted over two hours of my time all I can get from my bank is two thousand naira in fifty naira notes. I took the money in disgust and left. Outside, the crowd at the ATM was still there. But I found out they were now dispensing money. How much? Five thousand naira maximum. I went home dejected ruing what was happening to me and wondering what would become of our country.

Now for any reader who knows nothing about the naira I would relate the money to dollars. These days you can hardly get dollars from the bank. You buy at the black market rate of eight hundred naira to one dollar! In effect I had spent my whole morning collecting two dollars fifty cents equivalent of my money from my bank! And the people at the ATM, rich or the poor, spent their whole morning only to get the equivalent of six dollars and twenty-five cents of their money. May the Almighty help us. Amen.

Months ago some foreign governments including the USA and Britain alerted their citizens residing in our capital, Abuja, of danger. The USA is said to have even sent some Embassy staff home and shut down some services. They had been issuing alerts over the years. They declare named states in Nigeria unsafe and warn their citizens to be careful about travelling there. We accepted these warnings as what more advanced countries that care about their citizens should do. Also our government never complained about the advisories. We long suffering citizens just went about our daily activities unbothered.

But this time there was a highest level security meeting after which our government read a stern rebuttal on television. It said that these foreign governments were raising unwarranted false alarm and destabilizing Nigeria. It insisted that Abuja is safe. It asked citizens to go about their normal daily lives as the security situation is under control. These foreign governments should go and deal with the many problems in their own countries.

 We citizens do not know what the real situation is. But the average citizen may believe that these more advanced nations must have seen what Nigeria may not have seen. On the other hand others would ask where the evidence for the alarm is.

Later I watched retired General Ibrahim Haruna on television spitting fire and brimstone on the foreign countries. Obviously as a former army general he benefitted immensely from government. Also as a former minister he reaped more benefits. So he has a right to be fanatically more nationalistic than I am. He asked these foreign governments to go and attend to the problems in their own countries. In his view our security agencies are in control. He accused the foreign countries of many other bad things. But those do not concern this post. But he made and repeated an assertion. ‘We are not at war!’ Abuja is safe.

That assertion is why I am writing this post. And I say, ‘No, General – we are at war! Do you live in Nigeria with us?’ We Nigerians have, since 2009, been at war. It began when a policeman shot dead a sect leader called Yusuf who was under arrest. Yusuf’s sect transformed into Boko Haram and started a war in the North East. They began killing other citizens. Their name and doctrine is Boko Haram, ‘no, to western education!’ The stupidity of it is that everything they are using to persecute their war is a product of western education! These include the guns, vehicles, the petrol bombs, the watches on their wrists, even clothes. At one stage Boko Haram was in control of many local governments in Borno state. The whole world remembers the kidnapped Chibok girls and, later, the Dapchi girls and Leah Sharibu.

Following Boko Haram came the Islamic State for West Africa, ISWAP. They fought the Boko Haram and eventually killed their leader and have taken over their own territory. They too began operating in the north-east. And as the years have gone by both groups have spread their activities to the north-west and north-central. They control territories as far south as Niger state. They collect taxes from citizens in the areas they have taken over. A state governor admitted that he is no longer in control of parts of his state.

In the north-west bandits surfaced, kidnapping for ransom and killing people. They are now active in many parts of the country. The famous Abuja-Kaduna train passenger kidnap of several months ago remains vivid in citizens’ minds. Millions of naira was paid as ransom for those citizens that survived it. Another train kidnap has just happened in Edo state. The Owo church massacre happened in the west which is not spared. The Lagos-Ibadan expressway has witnessed many kidnappings.

In the south-east a formerly flag-waving Indigenous Peoples of Biafra declared Mondays sit-at-home. And that was a call for all sorts of bad people to crawl out of their holes. And IPOB cancelling the sit-at-home order became meaningless. The harm was already done. Some other characters jumped on the bandwagon to declare whatever days they wanted to be sit-at-home days. People remain at home on Mondays for fear of losing their lives. Criminals, the unknown gun men, shoot security agents and other citizens at will. And trigger happy security agents waste lives of young people and call them IPOB members. The south-east states had joined the war.

In Nigeria, life is cheap. The government and the politicians in power and the security agencies are supposed to be protecting us. But people die like flies. Terrorists and bandits force villagers to farm for them. The villagers get ordered to hand over their wives and daughters for sex to remain alive. Both bandits and terrorists collect taxes from villages they have taken over as governments within our government.

Each day you switch on the television or read a newspaper or watch the social media on your phone. You will be regaled with all the terrible happenings – kidnappings, ritual murders, cult wars, police brutality. Fulani bandits were brought in from the Sahel to help a political party win the 2015 elections. But they refused to leave even after having been paid for their services. Now the borders are open for more to come in to the killing fields of Nigeria. They, like animals, occupy our forests from where they commit crimes. Those citizens who have the opportunity are running away from Nigeria. Our best brains are leaving.

General, do you live in Nigeria with us? Okay, I understand! As a retired this and that you obviously live in your own castle. It is protected by the military and the police. If you venture out you go in a convoy. No, General, we are at war and it is getting fiercer by the day. Who will rescue us helpless citizens?     

We had intended to stay about six weeks in the killing zone. But we laid low for nearly six months. Those weeks gave me the opportunity to observe my home town and the people. Many of those living at home are impoverished. They include old folk whose children have gone to larger towns within or outside Igbo land to earn a living. These old people mostly indulge in subsistence farming, just eking out a living.

Many of these ‘abroad’ children remember their old parents who suffered bringing them up and send them money for upkeep. Some come and see them once in a while. For others who ‘hustle’ just to stay alive looking after their parents at home is not part of their agenda. Some others living at home include school children and school leavers, artisans like electricians, welders and bricklayers. Of course there are those for whom ‘home is home’. They will stay under any circumstances. Affluence is noticeable here and there where citizens living in large towns like Enugu, Awka, Lagos and even overseas have built modern houses not just for themselves but for their parents. They remit money to their parents. Some visit once in a while and paint the town red.

 It is surprising that many of our youth shun farm work. This is left mainly for the aged. But some youth earn money trimming palm trees and cutting down oil palm heads in many cases to supplement their school fees. Some others gather around and drink palm wine or illicitly brewed hot drinks almost the whole day.

There are many non indigenes mainly from Ebonyi. They have taken over farm work from our youth and charge lots of money. They have also brought bad behavior including stealing and house breaking, sometimes teaming up with some of our youth. This has prompted some villages into registering non indigenes.

 On Thursdays and Fridays the ominous sounds of gun shots, the famous nkponana, or bangers announce the days’ burials. The sirens of ambulances blaring early in the morning announce the arrival of the dead to their homes for burial. We have seven villages and several small towns around and burials are virtually every week. If it is not this village it is that. Burial is big business and a lot of money is spent. And people who attend such burials get well fed. We attended one or two.

In the churches, the worshippers are mainly women, young and aged. Some of the men stay home, or attend to their shrines and idols. It seems the churches which came and virtually forced us to move away from our customs and traditions are losing quite a few people. Now there are many ezemuos and ezenwanyis, ‘kings of spirits’ and ‘queens of spirits’. Many of these are youths. And in many cases, money is the target. And the churches are no longer only the Catholics and the Anglicans. All sorts of new generation churches are misusing their loudspeakers spreading their gospels.

On Mondays most people stay home or go to their farms, obeying the sit-at-home order by unknown enemies of the society. You would not hear any car on the main road. Those who know their ways about sneak around on motorcycles. Yes, IPOB rescinded its Monday sit-at-home order, but miscreants, kidnappers and other weird characters have seized the opportunity to cause mayhem. Fortunately, during my six weeks stay, there was only one incident when some armed ruffians invaded a drinking parlour one night and stole phones and cash from some people.

But elsewhere the story seems different. Three miles up the road is Oko, a Polytechnic town. A professor and his wife were gunned down there. And on social media we saw pictures of a character wearing all sorts of charms gunned down by police and lying by his car in the same Oko. There students who engage in secret cult and other antisocial activities are active. We also hear of killings in distant parts of my state bordering Imo. There was also the sad story of a gentleman Estate Surveyor, Gab Oforma, who was killed on his way to or from his Port Harcourt base. Gab had done me a great favour years ago. His firm had accepted to sell my book, Property Management Practice, in the middle to late nineties. That was when the powers that be in my former firm, Knight Frank & Rutley (Nigeria), now Knight Frank, forbade their Branch Manager selling it. May his soul rest in peace.

 On the more pleasant side I have a mango tree standing just outside my boundary wall. The fruit had been brought by my wife from Lagos and planted years ago. It usually fruited in February producing the tastiest mangoes I ever ate in April into late May. As a diabetic, at first, I was very careful and ate a little. But as the fruit on the tree began finishing I ate more. The corn or maize season followed and I really indulged myself. Then a lot of feasting followed when I organized the funeral rites for Oge, my adopted daughter, featured in my book of short stories on Amazon, Bitter Sweet (My Daughter And The Shrines). I had a cow slaughtered and this diabetic forgot the rules and ate myself silly. On the day we were to leave for Lagos I did not really know where I was and just managed to bundle myself into the car bound for the Asaba airport. During the next fortnight in Lagos I was very sick with diabetes. I am happy that I survived it.