Mama Ahamefuna, the leader of the market women association, was the first to submit all the old banknotes she had because she did not want to hear ‘stories that touch’.
She even convinced the entire market women that it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But little did she know that ‘kasala’ will soon burst after some village chiefs took our community leader and the superintendent of money to court over this ‘gbege’.
Indeed, my community members have been facing untold hardship since the start of the year, and the sad reality is that our leaders are still playing the blame game or running away from facing the actual consequences of their actions.
We now have a different understanding of ‘cash-at-hand’ and ‘cash-at-the-bank’ following the decision of the community’s superintendent of money and our leader to change our means of doing transactions. As usual, they gave us plenty of assurances that it was for our own good, bla bla bla.
Mama Ahamefuna was the first to start rejecting the old currency until the community leader spoke that only one of the three notes will be accepted. This was after the community’s highest court ruled that all the banknotes, both old and new, should remain in use.
In spite of that, we still did not get the notes to spend. Many community members even abandoned their daily duties to form long queues at some money points to get small cash but they left there disappointed.
Thereafter, the court gave a final ruling that both the old and new money be used till the end of the year. However, for ten days, nothing was heard from our community leader or his superintendent of money.
Our leader, instead, sent one of his town criers to tell us that his principal did not instruct the superintendent of money to disobey court orders, indirectly telling us that the superintendent of money was on his own.
Is this how the community leader will wash his hands off all the suffering, hunger, and long queues we have been experiencing for months now?
Please o, is this how your community leader behaves? Grave silence. Ah God, we have seen it all in my community because up till now even though banks are giving people the old money, market women are not collecting it as they say that the community leader has not addressed the matter.
Our community leader should as a matter of importance talk to us directly, and stop sending his town criers to us as people, many of whom are starving, want to hear from him.