I am not talking about monthly family and extended family stipends. I am talking about hundreds of daily requests from all over the country - every request thinking it is the only request you have received for the day; every request ever so much urgent than other requests; every request carrying a hint that your being a public figure comes with the added responsibility of being a dispenser of welfare and guarantor of social safety nets in a situation where the state does not care about her own side of the social contract; every request introducing you to the tableau of human tragedies that social media "forming" by citizens masks; every request coming with the assumption that you are "well off" and can help; every request forgetting your own enormous obligations and the fact that you are always financially over-extended.
From Abakaliki to Zungeru via Abeokuta, requests for financial aid pour in from youth whose future has been completely mortgaged by the politicians that they can kill for and die supporting on social media. You do a personal daily triage and zoom in on requests related to education and health: "Sir, I will drop out at 300 level if you don't help with my school fees"; "Sir, I will lose a year if you don't help with funds for my final project."; "Sir, my leg will be amputated without that operation."
After your triage, you start a painstaking process of verification. At my level, I have no money to just rush to a 419. Verification takes time and resources. I once had to phone a Vice Chancellor, a Dean, and an HOD to confirm the situation of one desperate undergraduate. He had no idea that I know the hierarchy in his University. Is he your student? Is he registered? Is he in 300-level? Is he as indigent as he claims? Is he in danger of dropping out? Has he been in any disciplinary situation? Any of his friends I could talk to discreetly?
Then I check their social media accounts to see what they have been up to. My latest case has checked out thus far. I have verified every claim. Fortunately for him, I know people he doesn't know I know... Yes, he is indigent and needs urgent financial aid for his project. A brilliant project I must add. He is genuine.
My only problem? I was due to wire the funds directly to his account on Tuesday or so. That was my rude introduction to Nigeria's latest economic madness: the Central Bank has banned all money transfer operators except Western Union, MoneyGram, and Ria! It basically means you can no longer wire money directly to bank accounts in Nigeria!
I will come back to this tragedy later but let us check in with the indigent student who should have received an alert on Tuesday. He obviously did not receive an alert because I have not been able to credit his bank account. Has he checked in with me yet? No. He has spent the last 48 hours on Facebook and Twitter doing Adeboye and beards and marrying and cooking. Whether he is for Adeboye or against him is immaterial. I'm just surprised by the space and time the subject has consumed in his life - given what he is expecting from Canada to save his University education. Now I wake up to his latest preoccupation. He is into Aisha Buhari in the US with abandon. Again, whether he is for Aisha Buhari or Ayo Fayose is of no moment with me.
My problem is he still hasn't remembered to check with me, consumed as he is by Enoch Adeboye and Aisha Buhari - two super rich and super-elitist members of the 1%. Perhaps, later today or tomorrow, he will finally remember that he still hasn't received his expected financial aid. He will then put one leg on top of another leg and come to my gmail with one sorrowful email or phone me weeping like he did last week.
How can the life and activities of two members of the 1% eat up so much space in your life at such a critical time? If anything at all should eat up space in your life, it should be the stupidity of the latest policy of Aisha Buhari's husband and his Central Bank Governor. How can a country in recession, technical or real, choose this particular moment to clamp down on remittances from abroad?
How can any African country clamp down on remittances at this point in time? Walahi, the babalawo that is doing President Buhari and Godwin Emefiele died last year. Were he still alive, we would have gone to beg and appease him. And citizens who are going to be the hardest hit by this sudden shrink in diaspora remittances are so distracted by members of the 1% they haven't even realized what is hitting them. At least one citizen's final year project is now hanging in the balance and he has spent the last two days on Enoch Adeboye and Aisha Buhari. WorldRemit gave me the best rates.
The three operators that Nigeria is creating monopoly and less competition for do not do direct wires to bank accounts in Nigeria from Canada. Western Union does not do direct online transfers to individuals in Nigeria. I would now have to get into my car and drive to a Wesyern Union outlet to send money at a more expensive rate than what I was getting from WorldRemit. It means I am less inclined to waste my own gas and time here to drive to an outlet to go and send money at a more expensive rate. Do you get the picture now? Do you understand why Buhari's economic policy should be your headache and not the itinerary of his wife or the marriage counseling services of a septuagenarian?
Here is how CNN sees it:
"the sudden move has created immediate backlash because it affects a large volume of money. Remittances to Nigeria totaled about $20.8 billion in 2015, according to data from Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development."
"WorldRemit is an online money transfer service that launched in Nigeria 2011 and one of the companies affected by the edict. It released a statement calling the new rules "draconian" and noted that the new policy would leave only three companies able to function: Western Union, MoneyGram and Ria. Those companies have physical operations on the ground in Nigeria."
"This move is arbitrary, inexplicable and hugely detrimental to the Nigerian diaspora, who rely on hundreds of money transfer companies and banks, providing them with choice, convenience and competitive pricing," said WorldRemit founder and CEO Ismail Ahmed."
"Ahmed said while Western Union used to control 78% of the
transfers to Nigeria, now it controls less than 20%.
Ahmed, whose company says it sends 40,000 money transfers to Nigeria each month, also laments the lack of clarity surrounding the change."
"This is the first time in my 20 years of experience that a regulator is saying if you want to send money to Nigeria, you have to physically come to Nigeria and set up a company," Ahmed said. "On Monday evening, Nigeria simply shut down transfers. The banks told us they couldn't process our transfers. The country was one of the most competitive markets until Monday."
"He added, "This is extreme. It's going to be quite explosive among the Nigerian diaspora."CNN has contacted the Central Bank but has not received a reply."
I spent yesterday disturbing Kelechi Deca about this matter. The undergraduate on whose account I am doing wahala is into Adeboye and Aisha. And I don't know him from Adam. I have never met him. And I'm doing joro jara joro because of him while he is too distracted to even notice what is going on. Dipo Famakinwa was right in worrying about the priorities of our youth recently.
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