Category: Editorial

•CBN’s Naira re-make and cashless policy has trashed cash-at-hand and crashed transfer platforms

The Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), the private-sector participant-observer and cross-sectoral think-tank, just gave a damning verdict on the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) currency redesign/cashless policy: Nigerian banks are not IT-robust enough to cope.

That logically explains the cash fiasco in the land.  But the same CBN, responsible for the debacle in the first instance, treats these same banks, and their Naira crunch, as some elephant in the room it would rather not honestly address.  That is grossly unfair.

By that rushed twin-policy (many insist a cashless economy and Naira redesign are not bad policies per se), the apex bank has trashed the cash that powers the economy now. Yet, it also virtually crashed the designed platform to propel the economy into its dream cashless destination.  A double jeopardy never came so costly!

Still, the NESG verdict offers a fresh window to look into the root cause of the fiasco and after, proffer redemptive solutions.

The basic problem is clear: scarcity, driven by an inordinate hurry to implement what otherwise could have been a progressive and inclusive banking policy, which should have dragged a good chunk of the vast informal economy into the banking sector.

From unofficial figures being bandied, CBN may have printed far less cash than it had mopped up.  Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State, has alleged that CBN printed only N400 billion (up from his initial claim of N300 billion) to replace the N2 trillion in old notes it had vacuum-cleaned.  

Even if CBN were to hardly press its cashless policy, replacing N2 trillion with N1 trillion in new bills would have addressed the acute crash crunch.  Citizens chasing N1 trillion for N2 trillion deposited would have faced far less crunch than the present case of chasing N400 billion — a N600 billion deficit!

On this charge, the CBN has been funereally silent.  It ought to have given out the exact amount in new bills it had pushed out.  Perhaps it lost its voice because it misrepresented (for whatever reason) the capacity of the Nigerian Minting and Security Printing Company (Mint) to get out the required amount of cash at such a tight and close deadline?  Remember: one of the presidential preconditions was that not a sheaf of the new bills should be printed abroad!

Without prejudice to CBN’s defence, it would appear fair and legitimate to hold that this acute scarcity of cash resulted from the Mint’s lack of capacity — except the CBN rebuts such with rigorous facts and solid figures.

What all that has caused has been avoidable disaster for nano, small and medium-scale ventures.  While these ventures that crawl all over the land define the economy, the big giants aren’t sitting pretty either, in the acute but needless cash scarcity.

That is why NESG is projecting that the GDP, no thanks to the crisis, would take a hit. That is not great news: the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) just announced the Nigerian GDP contracted from 3.4 per cent in third quarter 2022 to 3.1 per cent in fourth-quarter 2022.

Even then, GDP is cold statistics, no matter how costly.  It can never equate ruined businesses, disrupted living and shredded economic cycles which would take time to fix, even after the apex of the crisis. That is the ultimate socio-economic loss, which can neither be explained nor justified.

But perhaps the ultimate victim might yet be the CBN ultimate dream: cashless economy. By prematurely exposing Nigeria’s fledgling FinTech to a needless crush — and crash — CBN has inadvertently lowered the general confidence in banks, as vibrant engine rooms of Nigeria’s cashless economy.  

How would citizens who have dutifully deposited hard-earned money, yet sweat and pine with little hope of getting their deposits in new Naira bills, ever trust the banks again?  

How would the huge informal sector be attracted to formal banking, if all the banks have to offer is eternal hiccups and gobbledegook stories of why customers can’t access their cash?

How would common folks go cashless in daily transactions when the present crisis has thrown a big doubt on the doughiness of FinTech to carry the weight?

Which is why the NESG urged the CBN to mount an enlightenment blitz over the benefits of the Naira redesign and the future economic imperative of going cashless.  

To sound credible, however, the apex bank must admit its avoidable flaws: it printed too little new notes; and the panic crush caused the crash of payment platforms.  Too many were simply doing too many cash transfers at the same time.

•Lagos State govt’s decision to feed the vulnerable due to cash crisis is worthy of emulation

It would appear that those public officers who take a rigid stand on the current Naira swap crisis, insisting that the deadline for the old N200, N500 and N1000 to cease to be legal tender remains fixed and inflexible are unaware of the suffering and agony millions of Nigerians have been plunged into by this Ill-conceived and poorly implemented policy. Not even the daily sight of thousands of Nigerians queuing for hours in banking halls and ATM points, wasting precious man hours, straining their health and getting emotionally worked up appears enough to convince the architects of the policy that there is something fundamentally wrong with the implementation.

What naturally angers most people is that they cannot access their own money kept in several bank accounts even when they have to procure necessities or need cash to meet unanticipated emergencies. This has led to bizarre incidents such as customers stripping themselves virtually naked in banking halls, others threatening to commit suicide while ATM machines have been vandalised and banking halls burnt in a number of states where the situation has degenerated to violence.

There is no doubt the avoidable Naira shortage crisis has compounded the hardship and worsened the poverty being endured by majority of Nigerians as a result of the protracted fuel crisis that has inexplicably lingered since December last year. One public officer who has responded with remarkable and commendable empathy and compassion to this unfortunate situation is the Lagos State governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu. Barely days into the Naira shortage crisis, and with the hardship increasingly biting hard daily, the governor announced a number of measures to cushion the effect on the poorest and most vulnerable members of the society.

One of the measures taken by the Lagos State governor was to reduce by half till the crisis is resolved, fares on all Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) vehicles, publicly owned ferry services, Lagride vehicles, Last Mile buses and all other transportation services being provided by the Lagos State government. He also announced that food packs would be distributed free to the poorest members of the society most affected by the cash scarcity crisis.

True to Sanwo-Olu’s word, the state government last week commenced the distribution of the free food packs to hundreds of recipients who had assembled at the Adeyemi Bero Auditorium at the state secretariat at a ceremony presided over by the deputy governor, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, who stood in for the governor. According to Hamzat, “We are doing this to alleviate the pains and sufferings of Lagosians. What’s inside the boxes are various items for the consumption of the vulnerable in our society”.

The proactive steps taken by the state government on the matter is indeed understandable. As the country’s commercial nerve-centre, Lagos certainly has the largest number of bank branches in the country. A far higher number of persons are also likely to be affected by the crisis in the state. A lesson of the last #EndSARS demonstrations is also that when mass actions degenerate to violence, Lagos is always the most badly hit. The state lost over two trillion Naira worth of public and private property during the #EndSARS crisis.

It is noteworthy that the Lagos State government has said that the distribution of the palliatives will be continual and that it would be reaching people through religious centres, non-governmental organisations and other distribution channels. It will be impracticable to ask all vulnerable persons to converge on the state secretariat daily to receive the items. The government has a responsibility to ensure that the palliatives get into the hands of those for whom they are meant and are not cornered by civil servants or politicians.

We must also avoid a scenario witnessed during the #EndSARS crisis when items meant for the poor during the Coronavirus pandemic were kept in warehouses and looted by angry mobs. Even as the legal squabbles over the Naira swap policy continue, it is important that other states emulate Lagos and take steps to mitigate the sufferings of the poor due to the unavailability of cash.

• Nigeria’s 2023 momentous polls begin tomorrow

At last, the 2023 Nigerian elections are here. Tomorrow (Friday) the electorate will file out to vote in national elections involving the presidency and all seats in the National Assembly (NASS), comprising the Senate and House of Representatives. And, on March 11, it will be time for state elections involving 28 state governorships and house of assembly seats in the 36 states of the federation. Eight governorships are off the general election cycle.

By all accounts, the 2023 polls constitute a huge project. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has a record of 93,469,008 eligible voters for the elections where a total of 15,309 candidates are seeking 1,491 offices on offer across the country. There are 18 candidates seeking the presidency, 1,101 contenders for the 109 Senate seats and 3,122 candidates for the 360 House of Representatives seats. The state elections on will feature 837 candidates seeking the 28 governorship offices on offer, and 10,231 candidates running for a total of 993 state assembly seats nationwide. The elections will hold in 176,846 polling units across the country and will involve nearly 1.4million election officials, out of which more than 200,000 are members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Earlier on this week, INEC said it had registered 1.5million agents of the 18 political parties participating in the polls. There will be more than 500,000 security operatives manning the elections, out of which the Police are deploying some 311,000 personnel.

The 2023 elections will be the seventh consecutive poll to be held in 24 years of uninterrupted democracy in Nigeria. A defining feature of this election is the safe net of legal framework available for use of technology by the electoral umpire. INEC will be using the Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), a handheld device that will verify and authenticate voters who show up for the election, using either fingerprint or facial capture. The BVAS will also be used to scan and electronically transmit election results in real time from polling units to the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal that the electoral body has assured would be accessible to any interested member of the public. The IReV portal will enable the public to view polling unit election result sheets as they are uploaded on election day.

By the electoral body’s rules, polling units will open from 8:30a.m. and will so remain till 2:30p.m. for voters to join the queue. That is to say any voter who is on queue by 2:30p.m. will be eligible to vote, no matter the time of the day and how long the queue may be. The balloting system is the open-secret ballot. Voters will be required to present their Permanent Voter Card (PVC) to polling unit officials to get accredited with BVAS for the election, after which they will be handed the ballot paper to proceed to the voting cubicle and thumbprint their choice, and thereafter return to drop their folded ballot paper in the transparent ballot box placed in open view of all. It is at the conclusion of voting that the presiding official will sort the ballot papers, announce the scores by respective political party, complete the necessary INEC form that will then be scanned and uploaded to the IReV portal.

There are at least two critical benchmarks on which the poll will be assessed. INEC will be on test to see whether it lives up to its own regulations in timely opening of polling units, seamlessness of its processes, including functionality of BVAS, and the conduct of its officials at the polling units. In the build-up to the elections, the electoral body red-flagged the challenge of currency scarcity presently wracking the nation and sought special attention from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) whose ill-conceived naira redesign policy created the currency scarcity. The efficiency of election processes will show if the electoral body got a handle on that challenge.

Another critical benchmark will be the security of the election environment and how security operatives conduct themselves in ensuring the safety of voters and other lawful players in the environment without impeding poll processes. This is especially so in areas hobbled by wildcat insecurity. Security agents are required neither to bear arms near the polling units nor interfere with the polling proceedings, even as they keep miscreants at bay. How effectively this is done will facilitate timely conclusion of respective race and ensure overall integrity of the polls.

For the elections to play out satisfactorily, political actors must be at their best behaviour and hold their supporters in check. Voters too have civic responsibility to turn out in large numbers to make their choices. But the burden of history rests more heavily on INEC and the security establishment on how they meet wide expectations of free, fair, credible and peaceful polls. 

• The place to fight is not the court but the legislature

The right to vote can get complicated. We have noted that many Nigerians do not earn the right to vote if they do not go to the area of registration. Not only that, it means that they can be Nigerians and not be eligible to vote even if they are in the country, even in the same state and even the same town. They can be in the same town and not earn the right to vote if they are in the wrong part of town. It is the way of democracy. Rights have not only to exist they have to be exercised by the right persons, with the right designations, in the right place and the right time.

Perhaps, that consideration impelled schools, in a narrow, wrong-headed decision, to ask students to return home to vote.

Recently, the decision by a court to deny Nigerians in diaspora the right to vote only highlighted the intricacy of voting rights in a democracy. Nigerians outside the country sued the Federal Government and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and asked the court to stop the 2023 elections unless the citizens in the diaspora had their place in the polling booths.

They are citizens and over the age of 18, but according to the law, they are not qualified to elect a public official not because of who they are but because of where they are. That was the verdict of Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo to Nigerians in diaspora at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

The judge noted that the plaintiffs, Chikwe Nkemnacho and Kenneth Azubuike, had put the cart before the horse and were doing the wrong thing by seeking the judiciary for a solution that belonged elsewhere. He urged them to lobby for an enabling law first.

“The court does not enact laws. It cannot also expand the law in order to accommodate an issue before it no matter how sympathetic or humanitarian the cause or situation is. It only interprets and expounds the laws, and, it is the law as stated before in this judgment, that when interpreting the provisions of a statute, the court must not ascribe meanings to clear, plain and unambiguous provisions in order to make such provisions conform to the court’s view of their meanings or what they ought to be,” Justice Ekwo added.

This is the basic point. Nigerians in diaspora do not have to vote because they are Nigerians, just as Nigerians of age do not have to vote just because they reside in Nigeria. This law requirements, according to sections 77(2) and 117(2) as cited by Justice Ekwo, refer to minimum age, which is 18, citizenship, which is Nigerian, and residence, which is in Nigeria.

Nigeria may be the most populous black nation on earth but some black and African countries with fewer citizens already have structure that enable their citizens outside to vote. They include Namibia, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Togo and South Africa. The whole world watch how voting does not clock out in the United States until the diaspora, especially the military votes, are documented.

Hence Justice Ekwo made a point: “What this case has revealed is that there is a lacuna in the existing law with respect to the right of Nigerians in diaspora to vote in elections in Nigeria. The lacuna here is not such that the court can fill by pronouncement or by importing statutory provisions from anywhere.”

The law should inspire those in the diaspora to join Nigerians at home to advance their logic to lawmakers. But first they have to convince the nation on how it will work by considering such matters as how to configure the time zones, and the peculiar Nigerian suspicions about who is still a Nigerian and whether they can manipulate the count.

• The Supreme Courts decision upholds the legality of N500 and N1000 banknotes 

Supreme Court has stood with suffering Nigerians as it put off the matter if the legal tender of the N500 and 1000 notes to March 3. Its interim order stands and so exposes the impunity of the federal government. The Buhari Administration and the Central Bank will do well to comply.

It consolidated the cases filed by 10 states on the currency swap imbroglio. Last Wednesday, Justice John Okoro, the head of the seven-man panel exclaimed: “We are hearing this matter today. We don’t intend to keep this matter longer… whether they obey it or not.” More states have joined the three original plaintiffs, and the matter has been further adjourned to March 3, for judgment.

Justice Okoro was reacting to counsel to Lagos State, Moyosore Onigbanjo, SAN, praying the court to prohibit the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, from defending the suit, arguing that “the issue of contempt supersedes issue of jurisdiction.” Justice Okoro replied: “you are not a stranger to this country. We don’t want a situation where the judiciary will be a scapegoat. We refuse to be the scapegoat.” The Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are facing contempt proceeding, for disobeying the order made by the apex court. 

While awaiting the judgment of the court as promised, it is sad that the Federal Government continues to treat the clear ruling of the apex court with contempt. Without equivocation, the Supreme Court on February 8 made a restraining order of injunction against the February 10 deadline for swapping the old naira notes with new ones, which still stands. The Supreme Court said so, on February 15, following the complaint of Abdulkakeem Mustapha, SAN, counsel to Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states, on the life of the interim injunction.

On February 8, the apex court made “an order of interim injunction restraining the Federal Government of Nigeria, either by itself or acting through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and/or commercial banks, its agents, agencies, corporations, ministries, parastatals, organisations or through any person or persons (natural and artificial) howsoever, from suspending or determining or ending on the 10th of February 2023 the timeframe within which the now older versions of 200, 500 and 1000 denomination of the naira may no longer be legal tender, pending the hearing and determination of the plaintiffs/applicants’ motion on notice for interlocutory injunction.”

It is sad that despite the clear pronouncement of the Supreme Court, the Federal Government, the CBN and its other agents have failed to obey the order. In what some have interpreted as sitting on appeal over the Supreme Court’s ruling, President Muhammadu Buhari, in a broadcast the next day, insisted that the old 500 and 1,000 naira notes cease to be legal tender, while the N200 old note would be in use until April 10.

The three original plaintiffs have since taken steps to bring contempt proceedings against the Federal Government and the CBN. Other states that have joined as plaintiffs are: Lagos, Ondo, Ekiti, Kano, Sokoto, Ogun, Cross River, Rivers, and the latest, Abia. There are also the states of Edo and Bayelsa which have joined as respondents with the Federal Government. While the legal fireworks are going on, the suffering of the masses are increasing in geometrical proportion. Many innocent citizens have lost their lives, and properties worth billions of naira destroyed. 

The rage on the streets is justified, even though we appeal to Nigerians not to take laws into their hands. We are surprised that despite experiences across the world on time frame for currency demonetisation programme, the CBN misguided the Buhari regime to use a fire brigade approach on this matter. Again, despite Nigeria being a federation, the Federal Government refused to take the sub-national governments into confidence in making the policy; and to listen to their reports of monumental human suffering because of the poor handling.

• Only enforcement of standards, not reactive measures, can bring sanity to our schools

Slowly but steadily, the Nigerian public school system that began to deteriorate in the military era has continued along that line. This has attracted the attention of investors, including educationists, who have been coming in ostensibly to improve on standards. And, when the private sector gets involved in such business, with little or no government intervention, profit becomes the main focus. The tiers of government that used to keep an eye on standards in schools appear to have lost grip of their constitutional roles in the sector and today, Nigeria is not only battling with a falling standard of education, but with a dying public education system.

The effects of this can be seen in the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, which is one of the global highest at more than 20million. Not only are the private schools out of the reach of most parents, the care that students get in some of these schools is below par. Many of them now operate at the whims and caprices of their proprietors. Most of the private schools operate below standards. Sadder is the fact that many of these schools operate largely unchecked and unsanctioned.

This, in fact, is why we are now having all manner of scandals, including rape, physical assaults and even deaths in some of the highbrow private schools, especially in Lagos and Abuja in the last few years.  Governments have left undone so many things they ought to have done.

The most recent report of the death of 12-year-old  Whitney Adeniran on February 9 during the Chrisland schools’ inter-house sports in Lagos has again added to the scandals recorded in the school in the last few years. The school has had one of its personnel sexually violate a minor. Mercifully, he has since been jailed. Last year, some students of the school were involved in a sex scandal during a trip to the United Arab Emirates.

Lagos State government ordered the school shut after the latest death of the student. This again confirms our fear that governments have become reactive rather than pro-active through enforcing rules that should make schools safer. In 2021, another 12-year-old, Sylvester Oromoni, died under unclear circumstances at Dowen College in Lagos; the school was closed down but not much has been heard of the case.

We accept that accidents happen but organised institutions and the state must take measures to prevent such tragedies as much as possible. There are supervisory institutions whose jobs are to make sure that measures are taken to protect children in schools but somehow, in the litany of tragedies, no prosecution of erring officials. This seems to embolden other offenders.  We expect that schools, whether private or public, exist primarily to educate and nurture children. In doing so, there are basic safety measures that must be in place.

In the case of Whitney Adeniran, even though the parents are awaiting the autopsy to ascertain the real cause of her death, we believe that both the school and other schools must invest more in first aid/ambulance treatment facilities with competent personnel that can offer life-saving aids, to reduce the casualties in either school accidents or even other natural ailments. We have had cases of asthmatic students dying during attacks due to poor management.

Beyond the domestic statutory roles of governments, there are United Nations Treaties and Acts that are aimed towards protecting children. It amounts to violating the rights of children for governments to fail to enforce laws that ought to protect children, whether in private or public schools. It is not enough to order school closure

each time there is a tragic incident, it is better to prevent such incidents before they happen. Governments must therefore set standards and make sure rules are obeyed by everyone. Getting education must not be a route to death or any form of endangered existence for any child. Governments must do the needful.

The Whitney case must be thoroughly investigated and any act of negligence punished according to the law, as a deterrent. Chrisland School’s management must re-evaluate its administrative style. This is one tragedy too many for a school more than four decades old.