Yesterday, I made a post talking about the present state of my country’s economy. I talked about how the prices of things had gone up and then the cash to pay for them was unavailable. Any transaction you were to make that did not involve your ATM card or a mobile transfer, you’ll have trouble seeing it through. I had a chat with someone earlier today concerning the same topic and I got to realize something that has been eluding most of us. This is probably because we are too embittered having to suffer despite having money, or maybe it’s because we have to use our money to buy our own money in our country. Either way, it is understandable why we have not been able to come to this fact. About two years ago (I think), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) decided to go all digital with the naira. They decided to create E-Naira. It’s a digital currency that holds the same value as its physical counterpart. It can be used as a form of exchange and it has a fixed value. This E-naira comes with its own wallet, and it will be run expressly by the CBN. But then, this particular development was coming on the heels of their crackdown on the crypto world in the Nigerian space. Cryptocurrency trading had been banned in Nigeria following the 2020 EndSARS protest. The protest had been funded using crypto, and because crypto gives anonymity it was difficult to pinpoint anyone at all. And soon after, crypto was declared illegal. The majority of the trading apps stopped working in Nigeria, people began to panic-sell so they would get their money back. For any transaction at all that remotely resembled a crypto transaction, the person’s bank account would be frozen immediately and they would have to report to the bank. A lot of people who relied on crypto for their daily bread suffered as a result of this new policy. But eventually, they got back to their feet. A lot of people thought the real reason this was done is because crypto is decentralized. Only you have access to your money. The world can see how much you have, everyone can know your worth but they can’t touch a penny. But with fiat, every kobo you make will be recorded. And they can also use it to monitor you. They can decide to freeze or clear out your account or slash the money in there. They are the government after all. Safe to say, no one liked this new policy. But what were we to do? We moved on. And now, not too long after, this same bank brought its own form of crypto and expected us to embrace it. A lot of people ignored it, many people didn’t care. As long as they had fiat, they were okay. And then, another thing the government was looking to do was improve digital banking. They wanted more people to make more transfers, and use their cards more often than they had to use cash. It was said that about three trillion naira worth of cash was circulating in the country. There was just so much cash available it was hard to make the switch to digital. And that was when they got the bright idea to make us a new currency. In with the old, out with the new! They gave us a deadline to submit our old notes, making everyone deposit everything they had. And when the time came for new notes to be dispensed, both old and new notes became scarce. Now, I’m of the opinion that this is a tactic for them to force Nigerians into a cashless lifestyle, and as a result embrace the E-naira. Now, a lot of traders that are serious about selling are now printing their account details so that customers can easily make transfers from their phones. Many people are now going digital as a result. This would have been a good thing, and it's bad because it was too rushed! This was something that they could have easily phased in. Maybe they would have a strategic plan that would span a year, letting the old notes trickle in slowly while they put out the new notes at the rate they wanted. They are trying to achieve something this big in just a matter of weeks, and everyone is suffering as a result. For now, we are a country where some businesses can never survive with digital banking. From commercial transport to petty traders. Are you going to use mobile transfer to pay your bus fare? Or will you use your card to pay for a sachet of water when you buy on the road under the hot sun? Given time, I am sure these are issues that can be resolved easily, but for now we still very much need the cash. They tried to force us to grow at a rate that was unnatural for us. I know that in the long run, this would be of more benefit to the economy, with less cash flying around and people more accustomed to digital banking. But for now, they are simply putting us through hell. And it is tiring. I am tired, everyone is tired. I sincerely hope that people will adapt to this digital way fast, so we can all cope. Because I personally, I’m not against paying for services and products with my card. But most businesses don’t operate like that. And the more that operate that way, the faster we will get out of this mess they’ve put us in.
Pixabay
D'Vaughn Bell
Ismail Seghosime
Mikhail Nilov
Monstera
All we can do is wait for this phase to pass because that's what will happen. It's a phase and it'll soon pass.
Hopefully, it is just a phase. We'll see how it all goes.
Thank you for reading.
Announcing a deadline without any proper preparation seems very ridiculous but suspicious to me.
And in the case of crypto, it seems governments are moving in a circle and after a certain time, they are doing the same process again.
Yeah... they just want to have total control over the people. That's the main reason.
Thank you for reading.
I think that only can bring disaster for a country, nothing else.
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