Taking into consideration the millions of Naira “sprayed” weekly during revelries in Nigeria, it’s hard to believe that there is a law banning the abuse of the Naira in any form. On Monday the 28th of May 2007, his last day of work before leaving office, OBJ assented to a law known as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act 2006.
The law which is still in the statute books forbids all manner of abuse of the Naira and states that “Spraying” or dancing on the Naira during social occasions or otherwise shall constitute an abuse of the Naira and is punishable under law. It also states that hawking, selling or otherwise trading in the Naira note is an offence.
Indeed, Nigeria is the only country in the world where its own currency is for sale within its borders! Section 21 of the Act states that the penalty for the flouting the law is imprisonment for a term of not less than six months or a fine not less than N50,000 or both fine and imprisonment. It’s a sad reflection of our national ethos that this law against the abuse of the Naira hasn’t had any noticeable effect on the habit of spraying money. A decade after the law was passed, law enforcement agents have yet to apprehended or punish a single Nigerian for “spraying” or dancing on a naira note during social occasions. Nigerians love parties in which the abuse of the Naira is prominent and applauded.
In spite of the pervasive poverty in the land, events such as funerals, and weddings, the birth of a new child, the completion of a new building, or the purchase of a new car, all involve parties at which crisp Naira notes are sold and bought only to be sprayed on the floor and danced upon. Every week on TV, society programs show the Nigeria elite in full debauched self-indulgent mode throwing currency around. Those who spray mostly ill-gotten Naira at typical elite “Owambe” parties tend to be serving politicians, monarchs, business moguls and media magnates who should normally have been expected to know better. But paradoxically it’s not only the elite. Even relatively poor Nigerians ape the rich by spraying money they can ill afford.
Indeed, Nigerians in all the economic strata openly defy the law or pretended as if it doesn’t exist. The culture is resilient because the police aren’t enforcing Sections 20 and 21 of the CBN Act of 2006. The fact is that none of our legendary corrupt policemen should ever be expected to arrest anyone spraying Naira, they would rather simply arrange for their own share of the money! Unsurprisingly, the police have no hesitation in arresting those hawking the money who tend to be poor people. In March this year twelve vendors of Naira notes were arrested in a joint raid by officials of the CBN and Operatives of Lagos State Police Force. The litmus test of any law lies in its acceptance by society and its enforceability. Taking into consideration the disdain with which Nigerians are ignoring the anti-abuse of the Naira campaign and breaking the law against such abuse of the national currency, the law has become a “dead” law, similar to the law on bigamy.
It’s pertinent to ask where the culture of spraying came from? Before colonization, Nigerians didn’t spend bank notes and it’s difficult to imagine that back then people were stoned with cowries in the name of spraying! The first bank notes were not issued until 1958. These were denominated in pounds, shillings and pence. In 1973 the Naira and Kobo denominated decimal currency replaced the Nigerian pounds, shillings and pence modelled on the British currency.
Therefore, it makes no sense to claim that spraying was a pre-colonial and pre-independence practice. What’s more, the culture was definitely not copied from our colonial masters because the British don’t engage in spraying. It’s a locally invented pattern of behaviour, described as just one of those wholly Nigerian traits resulting from our unwarranted arrogance and over-bloated egos. It’s a Nigerian substitute for sophistication.
Although gift giving is an enshrined tenet of every recognized religion and social culture which should be practiced and encouraged, spraying money is simply a means of showing off, pure and simple. Spurred by the oil revenues that flowed in the 1960’s and 1970s spraying and showing off cash quickly turned into a sport. Popular juju musician King Sunny Ade has tried to defend spraying by declaring that it is part of Nigerian tradition and culture.
This is only to be expected bearing in mind his interest in the matter. He gave a lecture on the history of how an older generation of Nigerians gave away cowries at parties, and demanded that government reviews the law banning the spraying of Naira. Sunny Ade is right about culture, but the culture that should concern us all isn’t the culture of old, but that of our contemporary way of life.
The Naira will continue to be sprayed because it is a symptom of the average Nigerian’s love of exhibitionism. Spraying money has become part of culture because Nigerians worship money and those who have it no matter how they came about it. Corruption thrives because people need excess cash to spray in public. What Nigeria needs is complete value re-orientation to regard the spraying of money as an indecent, offensive, illegal and unwarranted act. It’s disgraceful that we continue to subject our official currency to such disrespect when so many Nigerians are living in penury and short of cash.
The Naira is part of our identity as a nation state yet we take no pride in it. In as much as Nigerians like to blame government for everything, all of us as individuals need to contribute our quota to make a change. This is one area in which truthfully change begins with us rather than them.
