Business
Before you risk it, here’s what the law says about spraying of naira notes
Today, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) announced the arrest of Lagos socialite and crossdresser, Idris Okuneye better known as Bobrisky, for abusing naira notes.
For context, spraying naira notes is a popular practice at Nigerian parties. This idea, popularised by Nigerian Owambe culture and the flamboyant lifestyles of celebrities is a habit the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) seriously frowns at.
Unfortunately, many Nigerians do not know that spraying naira notes at weddings or funerals could land them in trouble.
What does the law say?
The CBN regards spraying of naira notes as “abusing the country’s symbol of sovereignty.”
This sentiment is strengthened by Section 21 of the CBN Act which makes it a crime to tamper with or deface naira notes.
According to the section, “A person who tampers with a coin or note issued by the Bank is guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment for a term not less than six months or to a fine not less than N50,000 or to both such fine and imprisonment.”
Section 21(3) of the CBN Act specifically forbids Nigerians to spray or throw the national currency at social occasions.
The section says, “For the avoidance of doubt, spraying of, dancing or matching on the Naira or any note issued by the Bank during social occasions or otherwise howsoever, shall constitute an abuse and defacing of the Naira or such note and shall be punishable under subsection (1) of this section.”
What constitutes abuse of naira?
- Spraying naira notes.
- Hawking naira notes.
- Using naira notes for money bouquet.
- Throwing bundles of naira notes.
- Loading naira notes into spray guns to spray at parties.
- Defacing naira notes, like dancing, or writing on them.
- Squeezing of naira notes.
Judicial precedent
Bobrisky is not the first Nigerian to get in trouble for abusing naira notes, as many others have been arrested for a range of the above-stated violations.
Most recently, in February 2024, Nollywood actress, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, was sentenced to six months imprisonment for spraying and dancing on naira notes. The court also gave her an option of a fine of ₦300,000.
If Bobrisky is found guilty, he will get the same fate as prescribed by the law.
Business
NIN-SIM linkage: MTN bars 8.6 million lines as NCC extends deadline
MTN Nigeria says it has fully barred a total of 8.6 million lines from the network in line with the directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on SIMs not linked to the National Identification Number (NIN) of the users.
The company disclosed this in its first quarter (Q1) 2024 financial report, noting that this impacted its business in the quarter.
However, to provide more time for the subscribers with less than five lines linked to an unverified NIN to complete the necessary verification exercise, MTN disclosed that the NCC has extended the 15 April deadline to 31 July 2024.
According to MTN, the lines that have been fully barred are those of subscribers who did not submit their NIN and those with more than five lines linked to an unverified NIN.
Highlighting the impact of the NIN-SIM linkage exercise and the regulatory directive, MTN Nigeria’s CEO, Karl Toriola, said:
“During the quarter, we also continued to manage the effects on our business of the industry-wide directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for a full barring of subscriber lines not linked to their National Identity Number (NIN) – the NIN-SIM directive.
“This impacted the development of our user base across all of our key business units (voice, data, and fintech) in Q1 2024.
“Although we had to fully bar 8.6 million subscribers in line with the directive, we minimised the net effect of the barred subscribers, and our total number of subscribers only decreased by 2 million in Q1, closing with a total of 77.7 million subscribers.”
Toriola said this demonstrated the effectiveness of the company’s customer value management (CVM) initiatives, which helped it to retain affected customers and reduce churn, as well as to drive gross connections.
Meanwhile, the company also reported a decline in its data subscribers in the quarter under review. According to the MTN’s CEO, active data subscribers declined marginally by approximately 78,000 to 44.5 million.
“Notwithstanding these headwinds, we recorded increased activity within the base, with voice traffic rising by 5.1% and data traffic by 40.6%.
“This is a result of the consistent growth in demand for data and voice, supported by our attractive offers to customers and continuous investment in network quality and coverage,” Toriola stated.
Data from the NCC show that total active mobile subscriptions in Nigeria across the networks of MTN, Airtel, Globacom and 9mobile, which stood at 224.4 million in December 2023 had declined to 219 million as of March 2024 as all the telecom operators implemented the policy on the mandatory NIN-SIM linkage.
Business
NDIC increases banks’ deposit insurance coverage from N500k to N5m
The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has increased deposit insurance coverage for all licensed deposit-taking financial institutions.
NDIC disclosed this in a post on its Facebook page on Thursday.
Deposit insurance protects depositors’ funds in the event of a bank failure.
Bello Hassan, NDIC managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), said the deposit insurance coverage for commercial banks was increased from N500,000 to N5 million.
Hassan said the increase provides coverage for 98.98 percent of depositors in Nigeria.
Business
Naira drops to N1,370/$ at parallel market, gains marginally at official window
The naira declined to N1,370 against the dollar at the parallel section of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Wednesday.
This represents a 1.48 percent depreciation from N1,350 traded on April 29.
Currency traders, also known as bureau de change (BDC) operators, put the buying rate of the greenback at N1,330 and the selling price at N1,370 — leaving a profit margin of N40.
At the official window, the local currency appreciated by 1.98 percent to N1,390 on April 30 — from N1,419.11 on April 29.
During trading, the exchange rate rose as high as N1,450 and as low as N1,200 according to data from FMDQ Exchange, a platform that oversees FX trading in Nigeria.
The naira devaluation has continued to pose significant challenges to firms, cutting deep into profit margins and eroding shareholders’ dividends.
On April 30, Aliko Dangote, chairman of Dangote Industries Limited, said the devaluation of naira created the “biggest mess” for the company in 2023.
“We are doing whatever it takes to make sure that at the end of the day, we will be paying dividends because if you look at our dividends last year, it was almost 50 percent more so we will try and get out of the mess,” Dangote said.
“The biggest mess created was actually the devaluation of the naira from N460 to N1,400.”
He said almost 97 percent of the companies, especially in food and beverages businesses, will not pay dividends this year due to the FX constraints.
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