Cash Shege: Extreme, unpleasant situations of cash hustling.
“O ti su mi"(I’m tired) were my words for most of the first half of February. Yes, I know.
“You are not the first person to ever face wahala, especially cash wahala", someone might say. But does it matter? It is my pain, it is my rant, and I’ll rant it the way I want. Come and beat me in my house😅
There was something I always wished for in this life: soft life. But who was I kidding? In this country? Who was I kidding when I filled my JAMB form? Soft life? In my school? In the place where I school? With the sun hot enough to roast plantain to boli? Soft life? In my department? Soft life my foot.
To be honest, I already accepted that soft life right now might not really be practical, and so I took the next easy step: I started to wish for a medium life, somewhere in between soft life and the other end of the spectrum, not in the middle of the two, but tilting more toward the soft type of life.
Now tell me why my wish for a medium life started to get threatened with the new cash wahala.
You remember how we used to go to bank anytime of the day to withdraw money, even late at night, and get it done in less than five minutes at times. Like the cavemen said in their song 'good times’, good times are always gold. Those were good times
Now, when no one is in a bank, it means the opposite. Instead of ease of withdrawing money, it means there is no cash.
At first, the new cash’s scarcity didn’t really get to me. I was going about my struggles as a student that had little or no break. I thought writing exams almost every fortnight was the hardest part of my life. Little did I know.
I cannot exactly say when it started to hit: the 'cashless' thing, that is. What I remember was the last time I conveniently withdrew money on the counter inside my bank. I probably should have suspected that there was a problem looming when the ATM was not dispensing, and the security man told me to leave the people complaining outside and collect my money inside the bank rather than waste my time in front of the ATM.
I also remember the first day I knew that Stanley Okorie’s song may not always hold true. A billionaire fit get cash, make e no fit chop and spend am because the money dey for bank, and cash no dey for hand.
Life sweet only when one actually carries the cash, not when it’s chilling in the bank.
Reliving my first experience with cash shege gives me a headache in itself when I think of it because I can remember having the feeling of how unfair it is that although I had money in my account, I was hungry, I needed one or two things to complement my foodstuff so it becomes healthy food, and I had only the next day’s transport money with me.
First, spending that transport fare was not even an option, because I can not trek to class the next day.
Second, the transport money could not even buy more than the pepper I needed for the night, and what I needed was more than just pepper.
Getting to my hostel that day, I eventually got a thousand naira for 200 naira, but when I did get it, market women already closed. The only woman left did not have change, did not have cash.
I can vividly remember going from one buttery to another to get something, anything, because I needed to eat good food. I remember wanting to scream my lungs out, I remember wishing that it was not yet very late, and I could go to the overhead bridge close to my hostel, climb the stairs, and scream as loud as I wanted to, with the sounds of cars and bikes, and the fading human activities blocking my voice. I remember wanting to burst into tears, and telling anyone that cared to listen to me how unfair it was, for a ‘gurllllll' that wanted nothing more than a medium life; one that was closer to a soft life than the hard end of the spectrum.
On top new money🥺
“This is not the life", I kept thinking. “This, really, is not the life"
I did get something eventually, and I did eat. It was very late, but I did eat. As if the universe was against me that day, I remember not having light and cooking with my lamp being the only source of light.
Frustration was more than an understatement, to describe what I felt.
I can remember telling a more financially literate person than I am to explain what exactly was the point of the new cash dispensation that was giving me serious headaches.
I’m not even trying to make anything figurative, I had serious real headaches, literal headaches, drumming in my head.
Every other problems I faced is story for another day, or things I’ll not even like to recount because the headaches may come back as a result of the pity I’ll feel for myself remembering those days.
Queueing for money is another thing I thought I would not do, but eventually did twice; and boy, was it hardddd. The fact that I could have spent those times sleeping at least is something I will always tell anyone that wants to listen.
I was so frustrated that I considered offering POS services for some minutes with the money I got from the bank, knowing I’ll get extra cash to compensate for the things I went through: my sandals cutting, pains on my foot when someone stepped me while struggling, the sun, the hunger, the body pains. The only thing that stopped me from borrowing someone’s POS machine was the fact that I honestly could not think of coming back to queue for money for another 8 hours of my life even if offering a POS service was going to add extra to the money I had. I don’t think the extra 1k or 500 naira I would have gotten on 5000 naira was worth coming 6am or 7am another day.
Let’s not even start with how the “cashless policy" as some call it has affected many.
“Person A loves chips. She bought it almost everyday for months until late January and early February when having cash on hand was rare. She could no longer buy 2 chips for 200 naira out of 400 naira because that would equal eating her rice without locust beans filled vegetables as she would have only 200 naira to buy rodo and onions; no 100 naira efo and 50 naira locust beans.
Person A went for days without her beloved crunchy and peppery chips"
“Mama Chiamaka is a farmer. Her and her children live on the little they earn from hawking produces from their farm, and eat from the ones they end up not selling. They are in the season of vegetables.
Mama Chiamaka got vegetables worth a thousand, five hundred naira from the farm. Mama Chiamaka has a bank account, but has less than 5 thousand naira in it, the amount left of what her elder brother sent her a few weeks ago. The five thousand naira is for her child, Chiamaka’s school fee balance.
She asks Chiamaka to hawk the vegetables; fresh and plenty vegetables. Without money from the produce, Chiamaka and her siblings will probably go hungry. Chiamaka hawks the vegetables, but makes only 700 naira instead of 1,500. Why? Many wanted the vegetables, but had only small cash for pepper and onions. They want to do transfer, but mama Chiamaka is not accepting transfer, because the maximum amount she can withdraw at a time from her bank is five thousand naira, and that is the exact amount she has. Tomorrow, she won’t be going to the farm until she withdraws Chiamaka’s fees from the bank. If she accepts transfer,
- She’ll have to sacrifice half of another day or the whole day to withdraw a thousand naira from the bank, instead of going to the farm for more produce to feed her children.
- She will spend hours in the bank, queueing to get just a thousand naira
- There is no assurance that the money will be up to a thousand naira when she gets to the bank, because of the 1,500 naira worth of vegetables, not everyone will do a transfer. If 700 naira cash is gotten,and 800 naira is gotten through bank transfer, withdrawing 800 naira from the bank is most likely not a possibility.
- Hence, mama Chiamaka will be left hanging dry. The bank will remove charges after sometime, for whatever.
- The only thing she needs is cash, to feed her family.
Mama Chiamaka is left with 800 naira worth of vegetables that she cannot finish eating, and 700 naira that will finish at a finger’s snap.
“Half of the people on a street sell drinks. We are in the dry season, but more than half of the shops are closed. The rest that are not closed have their owners looking dull and visibly tired. Why? No one is coming to patronize them, to buy drinks. Yes, people want to take cold bottles of coke, or Viju milk. No, they dare not spend 200 or 300 of the 1,000 naira left with them on drinks. There are families to feed, transport fares to be paid, food to buy, so buying a drink can just wait. Water will do, it has to. Cold, or otherwise.
What of transfer? Transfer? When Iya Bisi told the people on her street that unlike the rest, she would collect transfer, two days ago, many were happy.
“You will add 50 naira charge with each transaction made" Iya Bisi told them quickly.
Many decided that they don’t have enough money as to adding fifty naira to the 150 they’ll pay to get a small sized bigi apple. Others said that they work for their money, and cannot imagine themselves adding fifty naira for every drink bought, especially because they are not buying them in packs.
Iya Bisi now goes home with less than 50% of her usual sales. On top cashless policy.
“Busola is going home for a three-week break given by her scholl. After queuing for about 6 hours, she got cash enough for her to get home, and an additional 2,000. She decides never to spend the money recklessly,and to hold it as tight as humanly possible.
Just when she was about to get home, she remembers that she got nothing for her three siblings, for the first time ever. She knows they’ll wait in expectancy of the cold caprisonne and chinchin that she gets for them whenever she goes home. She does a quick calculation. Three caprisonnes: 450 naira. Three chinchin: 300 naira. Total:750 naira.
On a normal day, it would have amounted to a thousand naira, as she’d have gotten hers too.
“Seven hundred and fifty naira? Of the remaining 2k?” She decides to just explain to them that cash was hard for her to get, after all, they understand what is going on. She decides to also add that, as she has learnt in school, eating fruit is better and more beneficial than eating junks, and that she’ll buy fruits for them. She calculates it, and decides that 500 naira banana should do. She promises herself to get it for them when she goes out the following day. They love banana, right? Right? Hmmnnn…she’s not sure her excuses for not getting a caprisonne and chinchin each for them will be convincing, but it doesn’t hurt to try, does it?
Only that they do not understand. They do not get it at all, and has to give them the 750, has to see them happily chew away a part of the six hours she spent queuing on empty stomach in her bank. Only that she is not seeing the chinchin, she is seeing cash. To her, they are eating her money, literally. Like Stanley Okorie said, there is no mercy, but this time, it’s from money, not for it
I won’t even start with the violence that has resulted in banks after banks, between drivers or bikemen and their customers.
What will I say about people that have nothing at all, bank or no bank, and have to ask others for money in these hard times? The deadly and dirty look they have had to suffer from the recipient of their pleas to get money to eat something.
Or should we start to talk about how many do not believe that people that work in these banks don’t have as much money as people think they do?
How POS terminals have suffered so much, with many of them having to shut down services completely, their source of income cut short.
Or how many have fallen down, slumped or even died while trying to get money?
Or how we have to buy things in bulk so that transfers will be done at once to avoid charges and debit alerts that pierce deep into our hearts like sharp swords?
Or how people that repair things such as shoe menders are still trying to get used to the new system and cannot yet afford to collect transfers of 50 naira after mending a part of a sandal.
When I decided to have a medium life closer to the soft end of the spectrum, this was not what I signed up for, and I really do hope it gets better.
I have learnt one thing in all of this: enjoy every moment of soft life now, whether you are eating, walking, enjoying the air, beautiful creations. Savor the different tastes in your food, close your eyes and enjoy beautiful music, take in beautiful sceneries.
I get you, if you have experienced what I did, or even worse,way worse. Like we always say in situations as these, we’ll be fine in the end. If we are not fine yet, then it’s not the end, right?
