It is no news that the new naira notes are here and here to stay. How ever ‘colourful’ they seem, it is with so much skepticism the average Nigerian citizen is willing to accept them. Barely a few weeks out and the entire country is thrown into a frenzy; all in a bid to procure the new notes before the stipulated deadline.
It is with unashamed confidence that many business owners refuse the old naira notes as a means of transaction. They would rather operate using online transaction platforms. This has forced many into backlog of debts.
Where banks on the one hand are slow in disbursing these new notes– or probably circumnavigating them elsewhere– the automated teller machines work at will, dispensing both the new and old naira notes at intervals. It makes one wonder where those who spray bales of the new notes at parties get them from. It has even got to the extent that ‘money-changers’ would almost ask for one-third of whatever amount one wishes to change to the new notes just to get them.
POS merchants are not spared the ridicule of customers who refuse to collect the old naira notes saying they want ‘owo aro’ (dyed money). Students are sometimes made to go hungry as vendors, who in the light of the previously intended deadline, shunned collection of the old naira notes. This act only resulted in quarrel and arguments.
One even did of recent. A man who had just finished his lunch, moved to pay for it. Only to be turned down because of his old naira notes. He opened his bag and displayed the 100k notes he had received few moments ago from the bank. He requested the attendants either escort him to the bank for change of notes or accept the one with him.
Funnily enough, it has not been too long ago when it surfaced that a family rejected a bride price because it was paid using the old naira notes; ‘wetin new notes no go cause?’
It is hilarious what people go through to get these notes; but it is also a thing of concern when it could have been made a lot easier by making more than enough and or better still, easily accessible to all and sundry.
As of now, the miracle of extension is a relief to all the jitteriness. Hopefully, in the coming days, these new notes will grow from being strangers in the pockets of the average Nigerian.
