Today's Quote
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
Cornelius Hamelberg
With this exercise ( changing the currency) Naija has to be vigilant about the new naira.
Naija has to be on the lookout for counterfeit naira.
419 on a large scale
You know how it is - at the Aba Market - the marketplace where you’d find “the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses” (where else?) you’d hear hawkers and the tradespeople at their stalls praising their hardware, be it Volvo spare parts or electric generators purportedly from Japan as “ original”. Original is the ultimate in a world in which there is so much counterfeit and deceit.
I remember that when there was going to be a change of currency scheduled for 1984, some masterminds had already cooked up a plan, the logistics nearing completion, that they were going to fly in tons of counterfeit naira notes in Rolls-Royces and dump them ( the counterfeit banknotes -high denominations) in the Central Bank.
So what happened?
“The best-laid plans of mice and men go oft awry” ( as was the case with the botched kidnapping and repatriation of Umaru Dikko )
The money laundering miscreants were mad at Messrs Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idigbon’s New Year Eve’s putsch. They say that it was unforgivable and “ G-d punish them!” that Buhari & Idiagbon f-kkk-ed everything up. So, they had to shelve their devil get rich plans and continue to live in relative penury. Me too. I couldn’t extricate myself from the plans. I was going to get £1 million Sterling. No more worries, all my troubles would soon be over. I couldn’t sleep at night, just thinking about it: £1, 000,000 in cash. Then Buhari struck. No hard feelings, not even mixed feelings about his takeover, in fact, enough is enough ( with regard to the endemic corruption) and I was very very happy, but ten months later the Bank manager at Savannah Bank at 10 Aba Road, Port Harcourt, stole my £6, 000 sterling. Should I forgive him? Should I turn the other cheek? And If he takes my shirt, should I give him my jacket as well? Should I should support corruption?
Seriously, on the street level how does the poor man tell the difference between the real original and the counterfeit? The watermark? The smiling face on the front side of the naira note? Friend Kperogi hopes that his Brother Buhari’s face does not appear on the new naira notes . Not such a bad idea if he doesn’t want Brother Buhari temporarily immortalised via some inflationary / fluctuating currency. Surely there are other marks to be left behind or gained and reminded of in the name of legacy. On the other hand, in the name of fair play and justice ( no hubris) perhaps Kperogi would much prefer that his own handsome visage should decorate some commemoration stamps for his services to his country and down-trodden humanity?
In Sweden, they issued new passports, passports that are extremely difficult to forge, because there’s a big market out there for passports