Bus Politics..

My lecturer has a lot of Nigerian political conspiracy theories to dish out in class. She always comes ready, a belt on her waist, an A-shaped black dress, a blue dress, green, brown, and another in black it just has to be plain.

Today, she dishes another, she does not care if we are listening or not. Jonathan betrayed the Niger Delta people he never had allegiance to his people, he served as an Obasanjo mule, Obasanjo was a key factor for his entry, Obasanjo and Abacha were childhood friends, MKO was best friends with Obasanjo as well, Obasanjo betrayed MKO, the details blur into one another. She says something about Obasanjo having a tea party with Tatcther, highly unlikely. But it is weird to imagine Obasanjo in his agbada, something monochrome, Tatcher, tightlipped, red hair flaming hot, cute two-piece with a feminine blazer. Lovely. Lovely.

I should have found this class interesting, but the theories are bizarre, bizarre than anything I have ever heard on a bus; a political conversation with the driver and another elderly man in the danfo. I call it bus politics, where citizens of Nigeria discuss politics without context, there are a lot of interesting and different perspectives. It feels like a class on its own. The wildest theories thrive in there.

Bus Politics is interesting to observe. An onset is the news on the radio, it is better when the news is read in the native language, complete with all the theatrics of a language like Yoruba. Interjections are added, and expressions, proverbs, and idioms are used to explain the situations.

I would be forced to listen, even though my mind is set on the agenda for the day. The Bus is quiet at first, everyone seems to listen, although one can never tell if everyone is actually listening, or thinking about their rent, and different problems.

The anchor, the driver may say ridiculous things with hints of truth, or start a discussion with a meaningful insight. And then it follows with the counter of an elderly man on his way to collect his pension who does not agree with him.

At the peak of the cash crunch, I got into a bus, I mostly work remotely, but today I have to be at a meeting with a client. There is a cash scarcity as a result of a new policy, to change the naira notes. Getting raw cash was an almost impossible task in the city. Election anticipation, inflation and the fear of violence mix up in a broil of tension.

In October 2022, the government announced a move to redesign the Nigerian currency and reintroduce new notes to replace the old notes. According to CBN, the purpose of the policy was to checkmate counterfeit notes. The central bank also stated that 85% of cash in circulation is held outside of banks, with the majority of these funds either employed for unlawful activities or stored underground. This is why they intended to take stock of the currency outside banks and bring it back into the financial system so that they could keep proper track of the money in circulation and also use it as a means of controlling inflation, which has been trending upwards in recent months. Elections were forthcoming in such a short time, slated for February 2023.

Persons were given a deadline to submit their currency notes back to the bank, this was the 31st of January, but it was soon moved to the tenth of February as a majority of persons were not able to meet the initial deadline. Banks and the CBN were also pressured by politicians and organisations because the policy had stated that all monies not submitted before the deadline were void. By February, most currencies were back in vaults and sent off to the CBN. Nigerians could talk about nothing else, but the cash crunch on the internet. Videos and pictures were circulated. I saw a truck coming down from the North full of tattered money in a video, people speculated that it was embezzled money kept hidden for years. Even the terrorist group, Boko Haram allegedly flung money at villagers from power bikes in haste. Traders refused to collect payment in cash, only in card payments, and mobile money transfers. POS operators and agents began to sell money at exorbitant rates as high as five hundred for a thousand. Many skits portrayed POS operators as the new millionaires, and it was true, it was the time for the boom of their business. Some of the operators went as far as charging a thousand for every two thousand withdrawn. It was a very excruciating experience for Nigerians. Nigerians spent hours and days at ATM stands. On the nightly news, people brought in small mattresses to sleep and even camp gases to cook. Persons slumped and died from hunger, and exhaustion at ATM stands. One of them was just a man who wanted to get the money he had worked hard for.

Regardless, the government and the affluent remained silent, and videos of people spraying the sought-after new currency circulated the internet. Today, the host and a community chief talk about the death of a well-known radio host in Ibadan who had slumped while walking to work.

People on the bus hiss and sigh. Some women clap their hands. The driver kept shaking his head,

“Emefiele yen ni, ko fe ki Jagaban wole.” “ the driver says to no one in particular, as usual anyone interested will reply.

“Ta tuni yen?”, the woman who could not stop talking about the packs of fish in the freezer in her shop asked me,

“Umm…. CBN Governor”. I reply, taking a break from tapping on my phone, I have been trying to complete a crossword puzzle game.

The man on the second row, wearing a white shirt with Toy R US scribbled on it — obviously thrifted replies the driver, still in Yoruba.

“It is all part of Jagaban’s strategy to win, he wants you people to look for money, and if you don’t find it, we all have to take the money he has. I hope he brings money that makes sense.”

“No, I insist, Emeliee wants to be president himself. Eni ti o ti kowo je bashu bashu.”

I sigh as the driver claims to have a niece who works in Emefiele’s house that has a huge swimming pool, where he sprays money with a money spray gun, while the girls he has pimped to him dance in the pool.

Again that might be true as the existence of Big Foot, I am on a bus and I have heard worse.

A woman veiled in a white scarf talks about the men in her area who have been spending all their nights in a bar. They were employed to burn some bulk of the old money in a bank and of course, they did not burn them, they found a way to bring back loads of the money and have been spending it at an Igbo lady’s shop, now she has a new generator set in just a week.

Another woman, who has had the bus on chokehold with her distinct vanilla scent, chips in, and applauds the woman, the woman is smart for investing in a new generator set and her shop, unlike the men who deemed it fit to spend such lucky money on beer and peppered fish. Women are smarter than men, she says. The women on the bus make sounds of agreement, like claps and interjections. This would have been a topic the men would disagree with on a normal day, but it can’t really be won by the men. Emefiele was a man who gave the last three months to Nigerians to go completely cashless or forfeit their cash.

The roads are free because of the cash crunch, people do not have money to go out.

Nigeria is a cash-centered society, cash is the grease of commerce in Nigeria. The policy was hasty and non-feasible and Nigerians were at the end of the burning stick.

Instead, the driver reiterates that Efemele had embezzled money and had used twice the money in circulation to print them out, he had also diverted five Naria from every digital transfer and transaction in Nigeria to his account in a very cunning way. This was why he liked saving with his cooperative society because every money was money, before one knew it ten naira became one thousand. He also hated transfers because he was feeding Emefiele’s family and children indirectly. And they were Igbo persons, which made it worse according to him. The old man makes a commentary about how Nigeria has always been in shambles from the beginning. They begin to argue, who was the real culprit? Who was the mastermind of bringing Nigeria to ruins? Abacha or Babangida? For the most part of the journey, this is all they argue about. Babangida did not hate Yoruba people at least, unlike Abacha. If Babangida did not hate Yoruba people then why did he not let MKO be president? Because MKO was using money to drag a young girl he liked with him at the time, a Hausa girl he wanted to marry. I try not to pay attention to the back-and-forth arguments.

Fifteen minutes later, I alight at my stop, in front of a textile shop, where I have to board a motorbike to the restaurant which is a street away. My head is reeling from the information I got on the bus. I had just learned that Dora Akunyili was not really dead but was given the opportunity to go and live on a low key in America, because she had uncovered the dealings of a drug cartel connected to the King of the Thugs in Mushin, in Lagos. I am not in Lagos, I wonder how the woman wrapped in lace knows this.

To be fair, it was the Bus, anyone and anybody could say anything, and sometimes half truths were learned, for there was no smoke without fire. My aunt once told me about how she had saved a friend’s life, because she had heard in the bus that robbers would attack her residential area. She told her friend to stay clear, and it happened. Sometimes, news not aired was tabled in a moving rickety bus, and only the wise could really discern what conspiracy theory or news was worth believing.

You do not just believe anything you hear on a bus, even if it comes from a friend or family. Last month, while on a road trip with my cousin, with a serious face, he told me of a cartel that comes with every president and how the cartel that came with Buhari had been displaced. He had constructed a really complex story and I listened to him. Only for his serious face to become all twisted up in a mocking laugh, I watch him laugh out loud and shake my head, while he mocks me for believing in a cock and bull story he had just made up. And then he tells me they might be really cartels.

Who knows? The driver on that bus, that day did tell the passengers that there was a rich man from every major tribe who had a say in who became president and one of them was Dan*****, I never knew that, to me he is just a rich old aristocrat.

Who knows? You hear all sorts of things in the Bus, political analysis and predictions, as well debates and that is just Bus Politics.