By Muyiwa Adetiba

I do not know where Chief Femi Fani-Kayode got his information that one of the leading Presidential contenders had a meeting with some Generals to plan something unsavory from. I hope for his sake that it is from a credible source and not from some beer parlour. He is a politician who has been in the game for a while and knows that the line between factual news and fake news is razor thin in this age of the social media – he has in fact, often played on that line.

He is also a spokesman for another leading contender and might want to use the chaos of the present times to unsettle his leader’s rival. But he is a lawyer who should know the value of evidence and the weight of words so I do not expect him to give too much credence to beer-parlour talks. I say this because beer parlours, lounges and just about anywhere two or three people are gathered these days, are full of insinuations and various conspiracy theories and it takes a person who is not given to undue emotions and wild imaginations to navigate the tenuous lines between facts and fiction.

These theories range from a so-called manipulation of fuel and money for the advantage of a favoured candidate, to the restiveness of some ‘gallant soldiers’ who are planning to save the country from itself, to separatist agitators who are determined that the elections will not hold, to the offer of an ‘Interim National Government’, to Federal Government ‘deciding’ to freeze people’s money in some banks in order to service its huge debts.

Form my experience, a conspiracy theory develops a ring of credibility when there is a lack of transparency around an issue. For example, certain developments and policies around this time, if we are going to be honest with ourselves, raise more than an eyebrow. The increase in violence around INEC offices and police stations is one. But more unsettling is the sheer coincidence, if it is indeed a coincidence, between the scarcity of money and the scarcity of fuel at the same time.

I find it difficult to believe that any government which desires to leave a positive legacy would shoot itself on the foot virtually on the eve of leaving office. To induce a recession that will affect your own people more in a fragile economy like Nigeria’s is to me, the worst form of an ‘own goal’. This is why conspiracy theorists believe there must be an agenda because conspiracy theories build on opaque, exaggerated, unexplained and even distorted sets of facts and actions to arrive at their conclusions.

This why the conspiracy theory around the notion of an Interim National Government is not testing the credulity of the people as much as it would have because it had happened before. It also started as a rumour after an election that was later declared ‘inconclusive’. We know how many years it took us to get back to the starting block.    

After months of infantile blame-games, it took NNPC just about a week to ease the fuel scarcity in parts of the country. All it did was increase supply to counter demand. If this continues for another week, people would stop hoarding fuel and buy just what they need for the journey. It would result in people not tying money they can’t afford down on fuel. They would also start spending less time at petrol stations and more time in their places of work with the resultant increase in productivity.

CBN can use this template. The Apex bank can ease the tension in the land in an instant by funding the banks with new notes if it has them, or old notes if it doesn’t. Doing it today might delay an almost certain recession and avert a threatening unrest. But Mr Emefiele seems determined to carry his policy to a logical conclusion no matter the cost to the nation – even after the directives of the Council of States and the Supreme Court. The blame on banks, wealthy politicians and even P.O.S operators as saboteurs is simply ridiculous. People would capitalize on shortages whenever they can. It is simple economics. You cannot mop up over two trillion old notes while supplying less than a trillion new notes and not expect shortages.

I believe things would ease after the elections should there be one after all these contrived obstacles. I have no facts to prove this, neither have I seen a crystal ball. Just commonsense. Politicians would release money into the system by spending lavishly on elections. Let no one deceive you, politicians all over the world spend money during elections including those who claim not to give ‘shishi’. It goes with the territory. Polling units, which are in their thousands, have to be manned by loyalists. I also believe CBN would release more money into the system having tried to satisfy its closely guarded objectives.

But some banks should also be prepared for a run because it is likely to happen. Again, I have no crystal ball to predict this except to add up the figures in the public space. One thing that has been damaged by this whole exercise is trust. It will take quite some time for it to come back. If one of the objectives of this exercise is to reduce cash transactions and encourage people to put money in the banks, then it has sabotaged itself.

Putting your hard-earned money in a bank presumes it will be safe – and available on request. Neither is certain at the moment. You can hardly blame me if from now on, I decide to keep my meagre pension under the pillow where I can have access whenever I want. Or at best, keep a sizeable amount in my closet ‘for emergencies’. Just as you can hardly blame traders who simply go back to the good old days of cash transactions. A system that suddenly and without any warning, denies you of your money and thereby starves you and family of food and necessities is not a system you are going to trust soon; or wholeheartedly again. At least not without a form of insurance against a future occurrence. Once bitten twice shy they say.

P.S. The President’s address came as I was about to press the ‘send’ button. My initial reaction is that it will not ease the frustration and pain of the people unless CBN loads every ATM machine with the approved 200 Naira old notes immediately. I hope I am wrong – for the sake of the poor and the hungry.