I have shared the contents of some of my
general commentaries on this policy in the past two weeks. I want to share the
contents of my intellectual work on this policy as stated above before giving
my verdict. But before I do so, a word on KITA. KITA, an acronym for Kick in
the ass, was introduced into managerial
lexicon by Hertzberg when he propounded his two-factor theory of motivation. It
is the process of using threats of punishment to coerce somebody into doing
something. It is coercion because while force can compel somebody to do
something, it can never motivate!
The first paper ( 2013) reviewed the cashless
policy and assessed peoples’ behaviours and attitudes towards it in Lagos where
it first became operational. It was
found that 72% of the respondents believed that the cashless policy was
necessary; only 40% believed that the CBN approach to its implementation was
the best but only 36% believed that the policy would succeed. The 64% who
believed that the policy would fail justified their doomful predictions on the
power supply situation, poor implementation and non-availability of cashless
channels in the rural areas.
A disturbing feature of this policy since its
inception has been the several reversals, which indicated that the CBN did not do its
homework well or is not surefooted about it. The date for its take-off, the
pilot states, the cash thresholds and punishments have all be fiddled with. In effect, it has
been one step forward, two steps backwards, three steps inside the bush and
back to square one! The latest and most disturbing of these amoebic developments occurred in February 2017. The CBN had reviewed
the policy, revised its charges upwards
and directed that these should become operational in the pilot states on 1/4/17
and staggered its nationwide implementation from 1/5/17 to 1/10/17. Surprisingly
on 20/4/17, it reversed itself on the new charges and on the nationwide
roll-out and reverted its implementation to the pilot states.
My recent
intellectual intervention, which was based on the postulations of Seth & Fraiser( 1982) and
Christensen, Marx and Stevenson(1986) concluded that inducement and leadership
tools are the most optimal strategies for the effectiveness of the cashless
policy. Inducement( persuasion and economic incentives) becomes the preferred
strategy when people have positive attitude towards the desired change but do
not or cannot change. Leadership tools (negotiation and salesmanship) are
preferred when people agree on what they
want but disagree on how to go about it.
Nigerians are not opposed to the cashless policy per se; they are
opposed to the knee-jerk, KITA approach! The fact that electronic transactions increased from
N56.3trn to N138.7trn between 2015 and 2018 is an indication that some progress
has been made; but it would have been more awesome if we had done the right
things.
My verdict then is simple
and emphatic: AWAY WITH KITA. You cannot force people to change unless you want
them to pretend to have changed. My argument since 2011 is that Nigerians
should be encouraged (not forced) to embrace the cashless policy through
persuasive communication and incentives. Customers should be paid to go
cashless and this payment can be done through CBNs regulatory intervention or
from the cashless-induced savings by the
banks. Furthermore, communication should focus on the benefits of the policy,
not on the punishment for contravention. When you see the crowds at our ATM
machines all over the country, including Lagos, it becomes obvious that the
banks should up the ante.
So, no to punishment
based strategy, which is what KITA is all about. I also believe that it is WRONG to punish people
for depositing their money in the banks. Transporters, fuel-stations,
supermarkets and traders in general will surely find this very herculean. The
other day, a woman nearly went berserk at a bank where she was charged almost N40000
because a customer had lodged cash into her account! I don’t know whether she
made up to N40,000 from that transaction. Let people pay in the cash and then
hold them by the jugular when they want to withdraw the money by insisting on
cashless withdrawal. Of course, the
government should walk the talk. Just the other day, Our Vice President was
openly sharing cash to traders in the name of ‘tradermoney’ and then, how did Lagos State give the N20000 to the South African
returnees?
In the next 10 years, we
shall review the situation and I can bet as sure as day follows night that if
the CBN does not ‘repent’ and change this punitive approach, we should be where
we are today.
Other
Matters: Governance; A huge Joke in Nigeria.
Governance is all about
ensuring that those ‘in charge’ promote and protect the interest of the stakeholders. For a government, the
number 1 stakeholder is the citizen, for whose security and welfare, the
government exists. All over the world,
governance is a serious affair but in Nigeria, it is a HUGE JOKE and here are
my evidences related thereto! Sometimes
this year, my Town-Union, which has a hall somewhere in
Lagos, joined with other stakeholders in their neighbourhood and requested the
Local Government to do ‘something’ about their road. A part of the road was
constructed sometimes ago and was done in such a way that it gave room to
several interpretations and misinterpretations. About half a kilometer to the
hall and two other community halls, the straight road veered off
its normal course, and in effect became L shaped. It appeared as if
there was a deliberate effort to deny those down the road, including these
community halls, the dividends of the tarred road. Well the LGA declared that it had no money and
that the communities should either pay the LG to do the road( yes, you heard right),
or ask for permission to do it
themselves. The LGA also gave its own quotation for the job. (So The LGA is now
a building contractor!). The concerned stakeholders, compared notes and found
that other contractors could do the job at 50% of the LGA’s bill and thus wrote
to the LGA for the authority to adopt the
DIY( do it yourself) model. The day this was discussed at the meeting, (28/7/19),
there was also a report that the union had paid the current parking and
entertainment fees to the LGA, which was
and is where our responsibilities actually ended. We met again on 29/9/19 and
this was the feedback on the matter: The LGA had not yet given the approval! So
the LGA collects all dues and levies from its stakeholders, fails to do the
community road, offers to be the contractor for the same road and refuses to
approve a DIY option for the affected stakeholders. That is governance in
practice at the LGA level; head or tail you lose!
A week after that our July meeting (6/8/19)
the Delta State Government, through its Commissioner for talk-talk, Charles
Aniagwu, warned residents living in flood-prone areas to urgently ‘relocate to
safer areas so as to avoid any form of calamities’. So, the government could do was just to tell
the people (as if they did not know) to relocate!
How, to where and with
what are they going to relocate? The government was not and is not concerned!
The government forgot that if the lizard had a choice, it could not have been
going about naked. The same applies to the basket hung above the fire and the
bat that only flies at night; they have no choice. The people know that the
place is flood-prone; they know that they ought to move but there is no
wherewithal! In effect, what the Government has done was to remind them of
their helpless wretchedness! That is governance at the state level.
At the Federal level, we are all witnesses at
how Nigeria managed the recent Naijaphobia in South Africa. It was not xenophobia; at best,
it was blackophobia. There were
no plans for evacuation and no plans for resettlement and reintegration. The
government abdicated its first-line responsibilities, which were mercifully undertaken
by AirPeace and outsourced the second-line responsibilities to state governments. Malawi on the other hand hired two long buses
to evacuate its citizens and provided them with temporary shelters before they
left for their various destinations.
They hired ordinary busses, but they did something definite. This is
governance at the federal level!
As you can see, at the
Local, state and federal governments; governance is one huge JOKE!
Ik Muo, PhD
Department of Business Administration, OOU
08033026625; muoigbo@yahoo.com, muo.ik@oouagoiwoye.edu.ng
Comments
Post a Comment