Columns

Nigerians are groaning and dying

“‘There are many ways of dying!’ the Nurse shouts at us. Pain is etched in his voice, and rage has mapped his face. We listen in silence.”

Those are the very words that open Zakes Mda’s epochal novel, Ways of Dying, and they mirror the mood in the land perfectly. Nigerians are groaning and dying in different ways, and it is clear that the government takes great pleasure in their pain. Two public announcements this week illustrate this very nicely. First it was the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which, on June 26, directed banks to obtain the social media handles of customers as part of its enhanced Customer Due Diligence (CDD) regulations. The apex bank listed the new requirements thus: “For Individuals: legal name and any other names used (such as maiden name), permanent address (full physical address), residential address (where the customer can be located), telephone number, e-mail address, and social media handle; date and place of birth, Bank Verification Number, Tax Identification Number, nationality, occupation, public position held, and name of employer.” The move, it said, is to further strengthen customer due diligence regulations and deepen the identification process in the banking system. Welcome to North Korea.

Per Statista, out of the over 200 million population, there were 31.6 million Nigerians on social media as of January 2023. It is certain that not all of these Nigerians own bank accounts, and that not all bank customers own social media accounts. But the interesting point for me is that the CBN, consistently run by rogues, wants to impose yet another episode of Nigeria’s totalitarian regime on a weary populace. This is a CBN, let us remember, that actively sought to suppress legitimate dissent during the #End SARS saga; the CBN which froze the bank accounts of activists who had given logistic support to the protesters on the excuse that they were terrorism financing suspects.

If you have a bank account in this country, then the banks have your Biometric Verification Number (BVN), National Identity Number (NIN), voter card, driver’s license and/or international passport. They have your email, picture and fingerprints. They have your phone number and your house address. In asking Nigerians to register for the BVN, the CBN had screamed endlessly that it would enhance national security as criminals and outlaws would be unmasked. As it turned out, this was a lie from Lucifer. Financial crimes, many of them aided by bank staff, did not only continue unabated, crimes, including kidnapping for ransom, actually spiked.

Then came NIN, and Nigerians were again placed on endless queues under the sun and in the rain, but it did not stop terrorists from inflicting terrible pain on the populace. Last year, the CBN imposed cash withdrawal limits on hapless Nigerians on the excuse that it would tame electoral fraud, and many Nigerians, including this writer, supported the move but worried about the manner of implementation. Now, if the latest directive is anything to go by, the CBN has become directly involved in the dictatorship to which Nigerians have been subjected by the security agencies, the same evil that birthed #EndSARS.

Pray, what business does a CBN that has the fingerprint, phone number, BVN/NIN, driver’s licence, voter card and even utility bill details of Nigerians have with their social media handles? Personally, I use only WhatsApp, and even that only sparingly, so is the CBN going to monitor what I do on it or force me to open Instagram and other social media accounts? Very soon, the CBN will ask bank customers to name their best food, favourite underwear colour and nature of family background (monogamous or polygamous) even when the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has declared that its demand is illegal.

We were still pondering the CBN’s devious demand when word came that the Federal Government had imposed a N1,000 annual fee on Proof of Ownership Certificate (POC) verification, and that Lagos State would kick-start the collection of the fee in July. The initiative, we are told, is in accordance with the National Road Traffic Regulation 2012 as amended, No. 101, Vol. 99; Section 73- (1) which states that ‘There shall be Proof of Ownership Certificate for all registered Vehicles’. Section 73- (1-6) also added that ‘The commission shall establish and maintain a Central Data Base for Vehicles and drivers for the federation.” It aims to “streamline and enhance the process of vehicle ownership verification in line with legal requirement fundamental to transparency, security and accountability within transportation network.” The English sef fit give person heart attack!!

Here, I have to laugh. You see, in Yoruba, we say that when a matter has gone beyond tears, we laugh. So paying N1,000 every year is what proves that my Camry is mine? We were paying N5,000 for third party insurance previously but the government turned around and tripled the cost, and now it is a document that is normally issued with other vehicle documents that we must separately pay for. Are we buying our cars every year? Hear the sophistry: “The POC will contain vital information including the vehicle’s registration details, such as license number plate, model, year of manufacture in addition to owner’s name and address.”

To be sure, governments depend on taxes to do many things, but I am not aware of any nation that has ever taxed its way into prosperity. Prosperity is tied to production, to manufacturing and good governance, including business governance. It is tied to frugality, honesty of purpose and the spirit of savings. Nigerians are being taxed to death because the political class, including the Sheriff who wrote treatises years ago denouncing the federal bid to save for the rainy day, has absolutely no respect for the people. To them, we are mere cows to be milked to death. They have more regard for their bathroom slippers than us. For years now, they have been putting a knife on the things that held the poor together, and we have known the flesh and blood of poverty. We have become vassals of the political class, and every agency of government is a tormentor of our hapless existence.

Ngugi Wa Thiong’O spent years disclaiming the received economic theory that capital creates wealth, arguing that it is people that create wealth by working. And that is true. But what happens when the state does not encourage production but taxes the people to death? The next few years will provide the answers.

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