Nigeria’s mystery of three queues

A few years from now, historians will beam their searchlights on an uncommon phenomenon taking place in Nigeria currently: the mystery of three queues, to proffer explanations whether they were a coincidence or not. In virtually all towns and cities in Nigeria right now, you are either queuing for petrol (we call it fuel) or the redesigned naira notes, or you have joined a queue to collect your PVC.

Historians will try to establish whether there is any correlation among the three queues. They will need social, economic and political historians among them to be able to analyse the phenomenon in ways that capture the real reasons for the confluence of these queues at a given point in time, the point being the year 2023.

Talking about the time dimension to these chaotic lines, one fact emerges clearly: these queues have links to our nation’s past, which has refused to go, despite how much we try to dislike it. They have to do with our past which has more or less swallowed our present and cast a shadow of doubt over the future. They represent all that is wrong with us as a nation.

Take the petrol queues, for instance. They are the representation of a collective failure by successive administrations to get right the pricing of a product that has a pervasive influence on our everyday life. We have watched in utter dismay the display of incompetence by officials of government to deal with an industry that is infested with hawks.  That explains why we as a nation have failed to price our petrol with the objective of being able to cover costs and hence ensure the sustainability of supply over time.

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The queues remind us that we have all along failed to lay a foundation that sustains productivity, knowing that economies improve when factors are fully deployed in the productive processes. Instead, our oil industry has been one marked by rent-seeking, where people become rich overnight by just standing between the suppliers and consumers of petroleum products, demanding and collecting rent for adding nothing to production.

Nigeria’s oil industry has produced perhaps the largest number of millionaires than any country but many of them cannot point to any value they have added to that industry and the economy. This is the spirit that has ruled this industry, and because those responsible benefit from it, they do not want to see an end to it.

If you are at the PVC collection arena, then you are one of those who are stretching out their hands to reach out to a future that beckons on us all. But the reality is that everyone there has a different interpretation of the past, as reflected by the petrol queues. Some are there to collect their PVCs so they can vote to ensure a continuation of the present. It is their choice. Others are there to collect their voters’ cards so they can vote for a change, whichever way they define that change. It is also their choice, defined by their perception of reality.

It is this determination on both sides, between those who want to vote for the status quo to remain and those who want a change that led to the rise in the number of registered voters to 96.2 million, up from 84 million, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission. That represents an increase of about 14.5 per cent, quite significant to be ignored as a factor in analysing the queues at PVC collection centres. If the voters’ register grew by this margin, then there must be something of interest to the newcomers, especially given the fact that 71 per cent of them are youths. Out of this, as many as 8.7 million are said to be aged between 18 and 34 years.

Between these two queues is the one at the ATMs. It represents, again, all that is wrong with us when it comes to policy making. Nigerians can be seen falling over each other as they try to withdraw money from banks’ ATMs. This is because a currency redesign has ended up visiting upon people hardship that many cannot explain the reason. It has become a blame game, with the CBN blaming the banks for hoarding the new currency notes, while the banks in turn accuse the regulator of instructing them to hold onto the new notes.

Who do we believe? But Nigerians know the notes have travelled between the central bank and the lenders’ strong room, but where most of them end up is a mystery.  The apex bank is so sure it has given out the new notes that it has threatened to visit the banks’ vaults to ascertain what is in there. Nigerians have come to know somehow that these notes are not going as both the banks and the regulator, the CBN, want to make them to believe.

It is almost clear now that, as in the case of petrol queues, the new naira notes are not in circulation as they should be because of rent-seekers. They are not available at the ATMs, which the Central Bank says it has instructed the banks to load with the new notes. Instead, what we hear are stories of bank officials being compromised, as some of them have seen the naira exchange as an opportunity to extract rent from hapless Nigerians.

Not even the 10-day extension is of much help. In some places, bank customers have been told that they should only deposit the old notes but cannot receive the new notes until Feb. 10. How does this fit into CBN’s avowed stance on the circulation of the redesigned notes?

Consequently, Nigeria right now has an economy that is without currency in some parts. So, where are the new notes? Have they been cornered by a few people, who have been able to hijack the new notes? How can this be?

As it is common now for people to ask their neighbours, colleagues and others, may I ask you: which of these queues have you been to today?

Somebody said, with excitement: “Finally I have got my PVC, after many attempts of negative response. One attempt may not be enough to overcome certain challenges, but many attempts could bring a positive result.”