Sad, As Naira Swap Threatens The Survival Of Petty Traders In Nigeria’s Retail Sector (OPINION)

By Isaac Asabor

There is no denying the fact that since the leadership of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), under the auspices of the federal government decided to toe the somewhat slippery path of redesigning the high-value currency notes that cut across N200, N500, and N1000 in the bid to withdraw the old notes from circulation that not a few numbers of small traders that operate within the retail sector of the economy are been threatened as the emerging Naira crunch is distorting the commercial activities of buying and selling on consumer market landscape.

The reason for the foregoing cannot be farfetched as most of the small traders cannot easily source funds to restock their goods, while those that were privileged enough to source funds from the banks and ubiquitous POS operators pay bribes and commissions on such funds through their noses, and worse still hardly make an appreciable level of turnover of the restocked goods as the newly designed banknotes are not enough in circulation for their customers to pay for items purchased from them. The foregoing, no doubt, illustrates the graphic picture of the quagmire in which small traders are enmeshed in since the CBN and the federal government embarked on the journey of the Naira Swap.

The move, according to the Governor of the apex bank, Mr. Godwin Ifeanyi Emefiele, is been taken to literarily purge the monetary system of black money stockpiled away from the banks by some unscrupulous Nigerians, with a veiled reference to some over-ambitious politicians.

In a similar vein, indications show that the move is been taken to entrench a digital economy and to reduce the ‘Cash’ payment culture. Without a doubt, the somewhat hasty decision and implementation of the monetary policy have disrupted the ease with which petty traders transact business with their customers.

It is no more news that since the wheel of the implementation of the policy began to spin that hundreds of customers have by each passing day been waiting in long queues in front of banks and ATMs for money. Without sounding exaggerative in this context, the entire social life of both buyers and sellers across consumer markets is been disrupted. Even at that, many poor daily wage workers have been left with no job and income as cash-strapped owners have been unable to pay their daily wages because of less cash, even as the situation evidently cast a pall on Nigeria’s once busy consumer markets being demonstrated in street trading.

Without a doubt, the tenacity of Nigeria as a nation and Nigerians as a people is now being sorely tested as the country goes through a sour experience where the joy of a once bubbling sphere of commerce is being canceled out by a severe cash shortage that is making life difficult for millions of buyers and sellers, even as presidential and general elections loom on the horizon.

Though one cannot in this piece rule out the fact that the CBN has been pushing for a cashless economy before now as demonstrated through the launch of the e-Naira. Despite this, the apex bank can be said to be swimming against the monetary tide as it is crystal clear that its efforts are bereft of incentives. Be that as it may, the foregoing view cannot be pooh-poohed easily when the essential infrastructure and banking access that is required is still not in place in the country.

Against the foregoing backdrop, it is well known that not a few Nigerians, particularly the consumer segment of the population and petty traders in this context, daily complain of bad service networks of virtually all the commercial banks with branches spread across the country.

It is sad to say that how to address the obvious challenges that characterize mobile banking is barely mentioned since the apex bank began to push for a cashless economy.  Some of the challenges cut across the lack of continuous supply of electricity; inadequacy of available bandwidth and connectivity for smooth e-transactions; shortage of point-of-sale machines and associated telecom infrastructure for secure payments, and given the fact that only a small minority of the population have smartphones; even as most petty traders are not savvy enough to adapt to the sophistication that android phones are made of.

Again, who says the system will not engender fraudulent and unscrupulous buyers and sellers across consumer markets thus making it to be tantamount to robbing the poor as the costs of digital payment, are borne by consumers even when they are charged to producers or vendors? This writer has witnessed a scenario where a buyer transferred N900 to a petty trader at Sunday Market, Ogba in Lagos, but disagreement ensued between them as the seller insisted that the buyer must transfer an extra N200 to the payment as he will pay the commission to the POS operator by the time he wants to withdraw the money.

Given the foregoing, it is germane to say that since the poor typically make small purchases, and cannot afford to buy or store purchases made in bulk, they would suffer more from this and end up paying a non-negligible amount for the transaction alone.

For the sake of clarity at this juncture, it is expedient to make reference to a feature article titled, “Petty traders count losses as naira scarcity bites harder”, published in the online edition of the Punch newspaper of February 19, 2023.  While recalling responses gathered from petty traders, the writer stated the response of one of the traders he parleyed with thus: “I have an account o, but I don’t want transfers. I know what I have seen in the hands of these Yahoo boys (Internet fraudsters). They will tell you they have transferred the funds and will show you the debit alert from their end but the money will not enter yours.

“They have done it to me thrice here. I went to my bank and they told me that no money was transferred into my account. Since then, I don’t have any business with customers who want transfers,” she said.

An older woman who sold similar wares adjacent to hers, obviously listening to our conversation, said, “Dem (yahoo boys) don do am to me here like four times. My own be say I even see the alert for my own phone but na fake! That is why I no dey collect transfer again at all.”