Naija News

opinion

You don't have to be an economist to know that Central Bank of Nigeria
governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi's decision to convert some naira notes
into coins and introduce a 5,000 naira note is both unwise and out of
touch.

As many people have already persuasively argued, there is neither
economic sense nor common sense in Sanusi's plan to unleash his
unneeded N5, 000 notes on us. The only thing I can point to as the
motive force for the policy is that it helps corrupt politicians and
their cronies in the private sector to physicallysteal and move about
with large sums of money without being noticed. Hundreds of millions
of naira, even billions, can easily be packed in bags without
attracting curious stares from poor, starving people.

For the minimum-wage-earning cleaner at the Federal Secretariat--and
elsewhere in the country--higher naira notes do no more than deflate
his already tattered ego. His N18, 000 monthly pay would now be
reduced to two worthless 5,000 notes plus 8 pieces of one thousand
naira notes.

So higher denominations only serve the physical and psychological
needs of the super-rich. Maybe that's a cheap emotional argument to
make, although I do think that our emotions are an important part of
our humanity.

But I simply can't wrap my head around the logic behind Sanusi's plan
to convert 5, 10, and 20 naira notes into coins. Historically, in
Nigeria, once a naira note has been converted to a coin, its notional
value automatically depreciates. You don't need any training in
economics to know this. All you need is a self-training in common
sense. If Sanusi's plan succeeds, I can bet my bottom dollar that
sweets and biscuits and bubble gum and other traditionally low-priced
stuff would cost N50 instead of N5. The cost of the lowest-priced
items in Nigeria's informal economy is often pegged to the lowest
denominated note. That means the conversion of 5, 10, and 20 naira
notes will create artificial inflation in the national economy.

Nigerians famously hatecoins and avoid them like a plague--and for
good reasons. Coins are notoriously cumbersome to carry; their
annoying sounds draw needless attention to you. Most importantly, the
structure and operation of the Nigerian economy don't encourage the
use of coins. In America, for instance, people have countless uses for
coins: Coins are used to buy soft drinks and bottled water from
vending machines. Coins are used to get trolleys or carts at airports.
Coins are used to pay car parking fees. Coins are used to wash clothes
in coin laundries. And so on and so forth. Tell me: what use have
coins in Nigeria other than being irritating burdens?

So the resentment that ordinary, struggling Nigerians feel toward
coins isn't entirely pointless. It has basis in the reality of our
everyday existence, which out-of-touch bureaucrats like Sanusi are
clueless about.

Sadly, Sanusi is now fast assuming notoriety as one of the most
insensitive, out-of-touch bureaucrats to ever walk Nigeria's corridors
of power. For instance, early this year, in the course of an Internet
spat with a Nigerian activist during the "fuel subsidy" protests,
Sanusi protested that it is diesel, not petrol, that powers generators
and that Nigerians should stop whining about how the increase in the
pump price of petrol would deprive them of electricity.

This was what I wrote on my Facebook page at the time: "How many
people's generators are diesel-powered here? The last time I was in
Nigeria, I used petrol to power mine. I didn't get the memo that
generators now use diesel. How more out-of-touch can a man get?"

When Sanusi's attention was brought to the fact that only "subsidized"
and privileged "big men" like him use diesel-powered generators, he
backed down and apologized. But I found it remarkably telling that
until early this year Sanusi had no freaking clue that the majority of
Nigerians use petrol-powered generators to get electricity for
themselves.Yet it is people like this who make policies that affect
the lives of the vast majority of our people who are desperately poor.
Why won't there be a vast disconnect between policies and people when
the people who make the policies live in a vastly different world from
the rest of us?

And this man whines like aspoiltbrat when people call attention to his
sheltered, feudal upbringing. Well, it is because his upbringing has a
direct, deleterious bearing on the kinds of thoughtless, insensitive,
and anti-poor policies he regularly supports or churns out since he
became Central Bank governor.

Sanusi's case is particularly sad because he had deceived a whole lot
of us into thinking that he was "one of us," into thinking that he had
committed "class suicide." He deployed his admirable analytical and
oratorical skills to lull us into an undeserved sense of ease with
him. But it's now obvious that he is one sneaky, conniving
petit-bourgeois opportunist who masqueraded for long as a defender of
the poor. Now his mask is off.

Like in the unjustified fuel price increase that he and a gang of
other conscienceless Jonathan administration thugs rammed down our
throats, Sanusi may yet succeed in inflicting strains on the everyday
Nigerian through his misguided monetary policy, but he should be
reminded that when people are pushed to their elastic limit, they will
react. The "Occupy Nigeria" protests bear an eloquent testimony to
that fact.

The Jonathan we now know

Reuben Abati's piece titled "The Jonathan they don't know" is a
classic specimen of how NOT to do PR. If President Jonathan approved
of the piece before it was released to the public, then our president
is even more clueless than people think he is. If he didn't, well, he
knows what to do.

The number one rule in PR intervention is that you don't give currency
to injurious rumors about you or your principal by repeating them.
That is precisely what Abati did in the piece. After reading Abati's
piece, I came away with the distinct impression that President
Jonathan is indeed-as many people had said in hushed tones-an
indolent, provincial, clueless, gluttonous, kain-kain-guzzling man.

If he is not anywhere close to this description, the presidential
spokesman wouldn't even bother to respond to them. As the late British
journalist Claud Cockburn memorably said, "Never believe anything
until it's officially denied."