 Welcome back, it's still the breakfast on Plus TV Africa and now we're set for our first major conversation. We're still going to talk about the new Nara Notes, the redesigned Nara Notes. You want to call them that? Some call it the refurbished Nara Notes. I don't know what you want to call it, but it's become the stuff of jokes in recent time. Of course, I think MSE had to laugh when I reminded her that the Central Bank of Nigeria said the new notes were washing off because they're new. But the Central Bank of Nigeria, through its governor, Gordon Mephili, on October 26, 2022, re-collect announced that the new Nara Notes would be introduced to replace the current 200, 500, and 1,000 Nara Notes in circulation. And indeed, on Thursday, December 15, 2022, we all saw the news on Twitter, on Facebook, where President Abu Habib was standing with Gordon Mephili at the Federal Executive Council chambers, holding up these new notes and commissioning them. And Nigerians said, oh, they're not new after all. They are still the same old designs, but with new colors, like you can see there. So that was on December 15, 2022. The redesigned Nigerian currency came into effect on the 15th of December, but we saw them unveiling it before then. The governor of CBN also said that the existing notes would cease to be regarded as legal tender by January 31, 2023. Now, the Nigerian governor's forum is the latest to add its voice to the conversation. They are calling on the Central Bank of Nigeria to consider the poorest and most vulnerable households, among other concerns arising from the recent Nara redesign, and also the cash withdrawal policy. Chairman of the Nigerian governor's forum and governor of Sakwato State, Aminu Wazidi, in a statement at the end of the forum's first meeting of 2023 expressed the need for the Central Bank to consider the peculiarities of states across the country, especially as they pertain to financial inclusion and underserved locations and communities in the country. Now joining us this morning to discuss the impact of the Nara redesigned policy on marginalized communities in the country. We have Chinasa Collins, Obu Ho's head, Inclusion for All Initiative, a civil-side organization. Chinasa, good morning to you. Thank you very much for your time. Good morning, Kofi. It's nice to be here. All right. And before we dive into the conversation proper, tell us about Inclusion for All Initiative. What do you do? Inclusion for All is essentially an advocacy initiative that seeks to first of all deepen the knowledge and understanding of the barriers that keep poor and marginalized communities excluded from the formal financial services. And we do that by working with different actors within the financial inclusion and broader ecosystem to advocate for the removal of these barriers. Okay. Interesting. So what are your thoughts as an advocate for the financially excluded? We look at vulnerable communities in the country. You feel that these segmental side will be heavily impacted negatively by the policy and the deadline we counted after January 31? Absolutely. So because these are the people we care about, whenever policy decisions are made, our first reaction is to understand using data to say, look, this is how this decision is going to affect the groups we care about. So I'll put that into perspective. So in 2020, FINA released their A2F Access to Finance report, which showed that there's 38 million unbanked people in Nigeria, unbanked adults. That's a large amount of people. That's a large amount. And that's 2020. We can multiply that by two. I know. And basically what that tells us is there's a huge population of these people. And if we sort of do a deep dive into that number, it's people who live in rural communities. So they're likely to be poor, even likely to be women. That's some of the analysis we've done an inclusion for all. And we've also established that poorer people are less likely to get access to some of these formal services. For instance, even getting the national identity number, which is a campaign that we're currently running, and we're running for over the past 12 months. So yes, the poor people are always at the receiving end in a negative way of these decisions. And over the past 12 months, for instance, in April 2022, the NCC made that mandate decision to cut off calls for people who hadn't registered. And our reaction was, this is going to disproportionately affect people in rural communities. And then come 12, like some months after that, then we have the narrow redesign. And our reaction is, this is also going to disproportionately affect these poor people. So it's almost like a double whammy to two events that affects these people disproportionately through no fault of theirs. Because they don't have access. So first of all, look at it this way, these people, the reason they're currently cash driven, right? And the reason they're cash driven is for things such as the banks are too far from them. So they can't use the cashless mode of transaction. I mean, so again, let me not say they can't. They can, it's just that they have, so if they're going to use the cashless solutions, which is taking the agents to them, then they have access because the problem is they can't go to the bank. But then CBN overtime has tried to use the agent network model to reach these people. So bringing bank into their doorstep. The challenge now is there's still a gap in the agent coverage. So for instance, we know that from the report that was released at Q4 last year with agent coverage, looking at the agent network, we, the CBN has a target for 20% for the northeast. And it's still at 6.3 as our last check. So yes, they're trying to reach them using the agent network, but I don't think they have the sufficient network to reach them just yet. Alright, so my concern would be if these are the issues that we have, how come our policies have not been geared towards improving the agent's gap and what, just like you have rightly mentioned now, why is it that we have not had policies? Do you think that in the formulation of this new narrow note, some people say the governor did not consult stakeholders? Do you think that in this policy formulation, redesign the entire process of still ongoing replacement and what have you, do you think that this group of persons were factored in? So I'll be careful to answer that question and here's why, because I was in the room with them. But what I do know is I believe that stakeholder consultations must have held. The concern of the challenge we have and because we understand that this policy is actually well-meaning. In fact, it actually helps us achieve our ultimate objective of inclusion for the poor and marginalized communities in terms of driving towards the cashless economy. But the challenge here is the timing, right? So stakeholders could have been consulted and they're doing the right thing, but the right thing within the right timeframe is also very critical. If you make the decision in October, the new narrow is effective in December. We only have about six weeks between then and now. But I think that we're seeing one and the same thing, but probably maybe in different lines, because if you're seeing that stakeholders were consulted, then why are we in a rush now? Why does it feel like we're still struggling with getting people to accept that even in the open centers, you still have a lot of persons who are not very conversant with the note and that's a lot. So still have the issue of, you know, the note's not been in circulation. So what happens to those who are in the rural communities, those who you say they are on bank? I mean, a huge percentage of these persons are on bank and probably poor. So what's the implication? So the reason I say stakeholders must have been consulted is because we can see it. So first of all, the CBN was particular to come out to say that they're going to leverage, they're going to have targeted responses to people in vulnerable communities, the vulnerable populations by leveraging the agent network, which makes sense because then you can't apply the same approach to the people in urban locations because you understand their own challenges, one of which is the proximity to the bank. So we're going to take the agents to them. What we're now seeing is do you have enough agents to reach these people in these locations in the timeframe that you set? It may well be that you want to work with the agent coverage that you have, but then you probably can't do it in the timeframe that you're working with. Just before Kofi comes in now, surely, I'd like to ask, paint a scenario. Now just eight days before, you know, the withdrawal of Tiligo tender, we're in the open center, we haven't been able to lay our hands on it. Kofi doesn't have the dose now, right? So what now happens to those in the rural community? So I think it was a couple of days ago that the CBN, I think you guys talked about it earlier, they just released, they've launched that program, the cash flow program. So to your point about who's going to have access, and I think I've also heard people saying we're trying to get this money, but the money isn't even in circulation, it's not accessible, it's not available. Now I don't have that experience because I'm cashless, right? But then to the people in the rural communities who would have the same challenge, the CBN is saying we're intentionally going into these locations to do cash drops of up to 10,000 Naira, and they were relaxing the requirements, which is the KYC, which was initially our concern in terms of you're asking people for documentation that they don't have, and imposing this approach on them, which basically just further excludes them. They've now relaxed that as well, so you can use your NIN, your BVN, and your voters card, which we know that some of these populations have. I mean, I'll just allow Kofi to it, but I'm just still struggling to understand how we're talking about the shortage of the notes now. We're still struggling, right? And there's a lot of statement and proclamation about having a cash swap. We don't have it. I mean, it's nowhere. It's almost like there's nothing. So how can these things be? But apparently, you don't have the CBN government, so let's not even put you in that. No, no. So I want to answer that. If the CBN is saying that we're going to go into these communities, I'd like to believe that they have the cash, right? Because why are you making statements and launching a program? They have the cash. And if they have the cash, my point is why haven't we seen the cash? Because there should be a trickle-down effect. Absolutely. And so it should trickle down from the head to the bottom. That's what it should be. Kofi, it starts from the head down. So if you say that we're in the urban centers, one would believe, I mean, I'm just saying it's just logical reasoning. I'm wondering that if... Could I play the devil's advocate? Go ahead. So you know one of the reasons they're also driving this is for us to use less cash. I just probably think perhaps this is, we're not printing a lot of these cash because ideally we want you to start to transact digitally. Do you see? Why am I going to print a huge amount of cash when I know that part of my ultimate aim is to drive a cashless economy? This is me playing devil's advocate. But I do hear you because the timeframe is stifling and it's unfair to the people in the rural communities. But like I said, the response in terms of going into these communities to do cash swaps is probably the solution. But then it's eight days enough to do that when we understand that there's a gap in terms of the age coverage. So it's interesting that you took the word out of my mouth. Everybody's talking about this cash swap. So the apex bank is saying, I think on Friday it released a circular to the DMBs. So they are also going to do this in partnership with the super agents and the DMBs, deposit money banks in different parts of the country. But like you said, we don't have enough super agents. Except it's happened over the night. Maybe there was just some sort of abracadabra. And then we don't have enough of the banks around. So local government areas are so big it's working in riverside, before I came to New York City. So local government areas are so big that to move from Port Haco to local government headquarters, to move from the local government to Belich somewhere in that place, those that have bad rules. I know a particular local government area that doesn't have a bank in riverside. Then the local government chairman's campaign promised that if he becomes a chairman, he's going to bring a bank there. So these are the issues. So what do you think about this? And bear in mind the CBN says they're going to use deposit money banks for this cash. They're not going to go do it themselves. They're going to leverage the agent network. Yeah. I mean at least the CBN strikes do something. Exactly. That's number one. You said the agents won't work with the DMBs. Obviously not. Number two, is it 10,000 an hour enough? If you look at the population that we're talking about in truth, right? So yes, they're cash driven. And yes, they're saving cash and transacting cash daily, et cetera. But they earn a daily means of income. I'm unlikely to be holding cash that is a huge amount. In fact, some people... So could the cash in the buried in the ground? No, I agree. But in terms of... So as an immediate sort of solution, right? How much cash? And I don't have this number. Could they possibly have that is in excess of 10,000 an hour? Because if you look at their lifestyle, they're spending on a daily basis. Then there's a likelihood that they're not holding cash as much as people in urban communities. So they even deal... So we're looking at the hard to reach communities. The places where even the reason why the agent coverage probably isn't as high is because of insecurity challenges. It's because, as you mentioned, the bad roads. And so even if CBN wanted to do anything, which is why I keep talking about the timeframe, yes, you can use the agent network. It's probably the one that makes the most sense. But in what timeframe? Well, you think the amount of money is okay? 10,000 an hour. Because what they're saying is that if you have an amount above 10,000, I used to be covered, but it may be treated as cash in deposits into wallets of bank accounts. Mm-hmm. You know, will that work if I live in a village where there's no financial institution and you want to tell me that this money I want to give you. I brought 100,000. Give me a new narrow. Yeah. You're saying, no, I'm going to give you only 10,000. The 90,000, I'm going to put in an account. Mm-hmm. And I do not know where... I can't see the money. As a villager, will I say, okay, take it? Or will I say, no, my money is going to go where I don't know. No, you're right. Absolutely. I mean, so this, to your point, I think that's the trust element of the reasons why they don't also bank. And I think that while the reason I say 10,000 is because we're aware that this ends on the 31st. Nothing had been done where being largely concerned about these people because of the requirements, KYC, et cetera. But then Sybians come out to say that, okay, we're trying to do something. Do I agree that the amount is sufficient? Maybe not, maybe. I don't know. But then the challenge... Since you don't want to get into... No, no. The condition costs to Sybians. Because if I live far from... You know why. ...from a bank or whatever, where... I want to speak with data. Yeah. I don't know that 10,000 Naira is too much or too big, but... Yes. Right? But the person in the village who has 100,000... Very big in the ground. Exactly. Which is on... Exactly. So again, those people, what's going to happen to their money? And if you're forcing them to have a wallet, do they have a good understanding and do they trust that system enough to be able to pass with their cash? This is what we're seeing. Access. Because if I give you the 90,000... Yeah. ...to the 10,000 I pay my child's fees. What happens to the rest of my money? And then I want to take more. I have to now drive a bicycle. How many hours to the generous bank? So it brings me back to the question of why haven't we decided to... I mean, we say the reason why local government exists is to bring governance close to the people. So why haven't we thought about policy formulation to bring banking, this institution... To the community. Well, that's what the agent network exists for. So how swift is the agent network? Yes, it's the question. Because we're still talking about 10,000. I mean, that's where it brings us back to now. So we're looking at the limit of, okay, 10,000 is what we're going to give. How did they arrive at 10,000? Was it just that you looked at the people and then you said, ah, these people are poor. They don't have roads. And so 10,000 might just be what they can consume in a day or want to spend in a day. Really. So there are several questions. And I hear you, but I can't really answer for the CBN. I'm thinking about the side that I understand, the demand side, which is these people, what their challenges are. And also then, what we're trying to do is highlight as much as possible with data, right? To say that these people, 50% of them saving cash, this is what their reasons are for not banking. In the timeframe that you've set, are you able to overcome these challenges even as you're trying your best to make sure that they have access? Yes. Can we agree? I mean, I understand and respect you. You decide to really speak with data. You understand. But can we hit the nail on the head? Because all you seem to be saying, you know, if I want to put it in a way that, you know, the amount of strength I understand, is the CBN embarked on a wild goose chase. They embarked on a journey without any of plan. You know, it's like setting out to go to, maybe you want to go to Iqoyi from VI. And you don't know where Iqoyi is. And you didn't ask anybody, where is Iqoyi? How do I get there? And you didn't even get a map to plan your route. Because there's a lot of inconsistencies and somersaults with this policy. First of all, you say that you're going to put only 209 into the ATMs. That's the first thing. And then secondly, you now tell the banks that, okay, one Niger is coming, you know, exchanging money. But don't give it to them over the counter anymore. New Nair routes. So if they give it to you and you want them to withdraw, are they going to draw only 200 now? So they've been changing the policies. Now, there are a lot of ifs. And maybe, with this whole cash swap idea, you know, there are a lot of ifs. For instance, you talked about, and this is a fantastic country race, which has brought me to this question. You talked about the fact that a lot of these, these are persons in rural areas, vulnerable in the poor, in the society. The federal government says I want to give how many billion through conditional cash transfers that way. That one's another topic for another day. Which would be enabled if people were cashless and had to sell a cash? You've said, no, this would not have BVNs. NIN. NIN. No, you said they are going to waive the KYC. But the thing is, can you open a wallet on account without any form of identification? Absolutely. Any form of identification. Can you? So you know that the CBNs KYC tier, that's tier one, tier two, tier three, tier three is the highest where you need all the formal forms of ID. The lower tiers are a bit more relaxed. So if you have a form of ID, then you can open a wallet which just has limitations in terms of the volume of transaction that you can do. What kind of ID? A voter's card. You don't have voter's card, like you said. Then for the tier one, I think you can just use your name and your number and something, yeah. So with the tier one, but what that does is it limits the volume of transaction that you can do. So they can go without any ID identification. Just take my phone number and my name. Yes. In this instance, what CBN is trying to also do is that they must provide NIN, BVN or voter's card. You see. Our data shows that most of them have a form of ID in terms of whether voter's card writes that would allow them open a tier one account. But then they don't have the proof of address which is a requirement for tier three, which was originally what CBN had requested. So when I say the relax, it's different from what they initially started off with, which would have totally put these people out of this process, taking them out of the process. But coming to relax these requirements and also then taking the agents to them is sort of a step in the right direction, but we still don't think it's enough because the time to address the issues and ensure that this happens is just not sufficient in our opinion. You have this in a sentence because we're out of time. What are you advocating the CBN do now? In order to avoid the crisis, because people don't want to save money for years under a mango tree in the compound and then you come take it from them and they won't want to give you the money. So what are they to do now? Is it to extend the deadline to say, oh, we made a mistake. We are sorry Nigerians. We messed this up. Forgive us. We're going to extend. I don't know about them coming to say we made a mistake, but I think that what would be good is if there's an extension just again because as I've reiterated, I don't think that we have sufficient network coverage to achieve the goal that they intend to achieve in terms of making sure that these people have access before the deadline. So what that looks like, I don't know. And then more overarchingly, as these policies have been designed, we always sort of advocate for them to design with the most vulnerable populations in mind. I think it's a very important segment of society you're covering because you're speaking for the voiceless mercy and those who do not have any say, they're not even captured. You know, the Central Bank is saying they want the super agents to be the ones to what do you call it, sensitize them on wallets and all that, which is crazy, because at the end of the day, how many, what kind of sensors can you do from today? Exactly what we're saying. So the time frame. Amazing. Absolutely. Really amazing. How much do these guys spend again to think about our macro economy? I think my only concern is also in this process, they're going to ask these people to also pay at some point that service to the agents, which then puts another spanner in the wheel. It's, I can ask, how much do they get paid to run the Central Bank? We need to ask those questions. How much do they get paid? She asked our colleagues of both. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much. You did very well. Thank you. And thank you. You stay in the middle. She's the head inclusion for all initiatives. It's also an organization that looks after the vulnerable and poor audience banked, the financially excluded. We hope to have you back. Thank you very much. Well, we'll be talking about the 2023 elections coming up next. And of course, many candidates have signed a piece of course, but are they really, really honest about a non-violent or violence-free and, of course, an issue-based campaign? So we'll discuss that when we come back.