Like everyone else, Joel Abiodun queued for cash at the gate of one of Nigeria’s top-tier banks for eight hours, while Mercy Uzordike spent five hours waiting at an Automated Teller Machine (ATM).
In a bid to beat the queues, Abiodun and Uzordike arrived there before 5 am but it was to no avail. Shortly after 12pm, Abiodun was told “no more cash for withdrawal” by a bank official, while the ATM stopped dispensing cash when Uzordike was just a few metres away from the machine.
“I’m in desperate need of cash; the old notes are no longer acceptable in the markets. I can’t buy food provisions for my kids. The cost of living is soaring and we can’t even access the few cash to feed,” said Uzordike, who was on the verge of tears.
Abiodun, a gateman in a private residence in Ajao estate, in Lagos, described the situation as worrisome.
He offloaded old notes into his bank account ahead of the deadline which was later extended to February 10.
But days after the deadline, only a few banks were distributing the new notes, leaving many Nigerians, who are extremely poor and have no bank accounts, without access to cash.
“I will do anything to have the new naira notes. I’m not a politician; I just want to survive,” Abiodun said.
The rising misery facing many Nigerians such Abiodun and Uzordike means less is needed by power-seeking politicians today to buy votes in a country where at least 133 million people are suffering from “multi-dimensional poverty”, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Bismarck Rewane, CEO of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, said the current cash crunch could worsen electorates’ vulnerability to vote-buying.
“Electorate could easily compromise votes as the scramble for new naira notes increases,” Rewane said in his presentation at this month’s edition of the Lagos Business School Breakfast Meeting. “Politicians to pay less as they offer scarce new naira notes to electorates.”
“This naira policy has actually increased the possibility of vote buying. With scarcity, and politicians having lots of cash, people can now be bought for fewer cash amounts than before the policy was introduced,” Charles Omole, national security adviser to the Office of the Speaker, House of Representatives, said.
Rinu Oduala, a human rights advocate and founder of Savvy Reach, a business that specialises in digital marketing, said the scarcity of naira would help politicians buy votes.
“If citizens see anyone giving them money on Election Day, they are more prone to collect it. Most of the new naira notes are already in the hands of politicians anyway,” Oduala tweeted.
Although vote buying is not new to Nigeria’s politics, findings by BusinessDay showed the practice has dogged its elections for decades and has evolved from enticing impoverished voters with stockfish and bags of rice in the First Republic to the now widely used cash handouts.
Inibehe Effiong, a human rights lawyer and board member of the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy, said vote buying would not play a significant role in the forthcoming elections.
“The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System has made the hijacking of ballot papers outdated. Corrupt politicians are now relying on violence and vote buying to subvert the electoral process,” Effiong said via his Twitter handle.
Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on February 14, accused some politicians of hoarding the redesigned naira notes.
He said the mop-up of notes by politicians has contributed to the lengthy queues at banking halls and ATMs as citizens struggle to lay their hands on the new notes.
“The CBN has also noticed that some politicians are buying the new notes and storing them for political purposes,” Emefiele said while briefing the diplomatic community on recent monetary policy decisions of the apex bank
In most cities across the country, the naira shortage has led to long waits at supermarkets and gas stations as electronic payments often take hours to complete.
This development has led to chaos across the country. On Monday, Ogun State witnessed a new twist in the series of protests against the scarcity of new naira notes.
Videos shared on Twitter showed many residents watching as two banks, Keystone and Union, were set ablaze with some youths holding planks in protest.
“We are protesting because we are dying. We don’t have cash. We cannot access cash,” one of the protesters said in one of the videos.
Read also: Amidst naira scarcity, CBN deliver cash to doorsteps in Kano
It was gathered that the violence broke out as early as 8am on Monday as a result of the alleged stoppage of the banks’ operations, with ATMs reportedly not dispensing cash since last week.
With bonfires, the protesters barricaded the Sagamu-Benin Expressway, preventing human and vehicular movements.
Economists say naira scarcity, alongside the double-digit inflation rate, the rising cost of living, and record unemployment rate are creating an irresistible situation for vote buying.
“It is very easy for politicians to lure people who are struggling with hunger, unemployment and limited cash with vote buying,” Titus Olubiyi, an economist and the convener of Convention for Equal Rights, a non-governmental group, said.
Nigeria has also suffered two recessions in the eight years of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency, a situation worsened by incessant fuel scarcity, poor electricity and rising insecurity.
On Saturday, voters will pick a new president to succeed President Buhari, who cannot run after serving the two terms allowed by the constitution. Members of the Senate and House of Representatives will also be elected.
