Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s unwanted 5000 naira notes/ The Jonathan we now know Written by Farooq Kperogi

You don’t have to be an economist to know that Central Bank of
Nigeria governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s decision to convert
some naira notes into coins and introduce a 5,000 naira note is
both unwise and out of touch.
As many people have already persuasively argued, there is
neither economic sense nor common sense in Sanusi’s plan to
unleash his unneeded N5, 000 notes on us. The only thing I can
point to as the motive force for the policy is that it helps corrupt
politicians and their cronies in the private sector to physicallysteal
and move about with large sums of money without being noticed.
Hundreds of millions of naira, even billions, can easily be packed
in bags without attracting curious stares from poor, starving
people.
For the minimum-wage-earning cleaner at the Federal Secretariat
—and elsewhere in the country—higher naira notes do no more
than deflate his already tattered ego. His N18, 000 monthly pay
would now be reduced to two worthless 5,000 notes plus 8
pieces of one thousand naira notes.
So higher denominations only serve the physical and
psychological needs of the super-rich. Maybe that’s a cheap
emotional argument to make, although I do think that our
emotions are an important part of our humanity.
But I simply can’t wrap my head around the logic behind Sanusi’s
plan to convert 5, 10, and 20 naira notes into coins. Historically,
in Nigeria, once a naira note has been converted to a coin, its
notional value automatically depreciates. You don’t need any
training in economics to know this. All you need is a self-training
in common sense. If Sanusi’s plan succeeds, I can bet my bottom
dollar that sweets and biscuits and bubble gum and other
traditionally low-priced stuff would cost N50 instead of N5. The
cost of the lowest-priced items in Nigeria’s informal economy is
often pegged to the lowest denominated note. That means the
conversion of 5, 10, and 20 naira notes will create artificial
inflation in the national economy.
Nigerians famously hatecoins and avoid them like a plague—and
for good reasons. Coins are notoriously cumbersome to carry;
their annoying sounds draw needless attention to you. Most
importantly, the structure and operation of the Nigerian economy
don’t encourage the use of coins. In America, for instance,
people have countless uses for coins: Coins are used to buy soft
drinks and bottled water from vending machines. Coins are used
to get trolleys or carts at airports. Coins are used to pay car
parking fees. Coins are used to wash clothes in coin laundries.
And so on and so forth. Tell me: what use have coins in Nigeria
other than being irritating burdens?
So the resentment that ordinary, struggling Nigerians feel toward
coins isn’t entirely pointless. It has basis in the reality of our
everyday existence, which out-of-touch bureaucrats like Sanusi
are clueless about.
Sadly, Sanusi is now fast assuming notoriety as one of the most
insensitive, out-of-touch bureaucrats to ever walk Nigeria’s
corridors of power. For instance, early this year, in the course of
an Internet spat with a Nigerian activist during the “fuel subsidy”
protests, Sanusi protested that it is diesel, not petrol, that powers
generators and that Nigerians should stop whining about how the
increase in the pump price of petrol would deprive them of
electricity.
This was what I wrote on my Facebook page at the time: “How
many people’s generators are diesel-powered here? The last time
I was in Nigeria, I used petrol to power mine. I didn’t get the
memo that generators now use diesel. How more out-of-touch
can a man get?”
When Sanusi’s attention was brought to the fact that only
“subsidized” and privileged “big men” like him use diesel-powered
generators, he backed down and apologized. But I found it
remarkably telling that until early this year Sanusi had no
freaking clue that the majority of Nigerians use petrol-powered
generators to get electricity for themselves.Yet it is people like
this who make policies that affect the lives of the vast majority of
our people who are desperately poor. Why won’t there be a vast
disconnect between policies and people when the people who
make the policies live in a vastly different world from the rest of
us?
And this man whines like aspoiltbrat when people call attention
to his sheltered, feudal upbringing. Well, it is because his
upbringing has a direct, deleterious bearing on the kinds of
thoughtless, insensitive, and anti-poor policies he regularly
supports or churns out since he became Central Bank governor.
Sanusi’s case is particularly sad because he had deceived a whole
lot of us into thinking that he was “one of us,” into thinking that
he had committed “class suicide.” He deployed his admirable
analytical and oratorical skills to lull us into an undeserved sense
of ease with him. But it’s now obvious that he is one sneaky,
conniving petit-bourgeois opportunist who masqueraded for long
as a defender of the poor. Now his mask is off.
Like in the unjustified fuel price increase that he and a gang of
other conscienceless Jonathan administration thugs rammed
down our throats, Sanusi may yet succeed in inflicting strains on
the everyday Nigerian through his misguided monetary policy,
but he should be reminded that when people are pushed to their
elastic limit, they will react. The “Occupy Nigeria” protests bear
an eloquent testimony to that fact.
The Jonathan we now know
Reuben Abati’s piece titled “The Jonathan they don’t know” is a
classic specimen of how NOT to do PR. If President Jonathan
approved of the piece before it was released to the public, then
our president is even more clueless than people think he is. If he
didn’t, well, he knows what to do.
The number one rule in PR intervention is that you don’t give
currency to injurious rumors about you or your principal by
repeating them. That is precisely what Abati did in the piece.
After reading Abati’s piece, I came away with the distinct
impression that President Jonathan is indeed—as many people
had said in hushed tones—an indolent, provincial, clueless,
gluttonous, kain-kain-guzzling man.
If he is not anywhere close to this description, the presidential
spokesman wouldn’t even bother to respond to them. As the
late British journalist Claud Cockburn memorably said, “Never
believe anything until it’s officially denied.”

#CONSENSUS 2015