Legal Tender
by Kaine Agary

My cousin, Efere, says I hustle for new currency notes like a village woman. I admit my eyes dance when they come upon new notes and I hoard them. I spend them last – they have a special place in my wallet and only come out when I have nothing else to spend.  I even have a new accomplice in this “addiction” to new notes – the Automated Teller Machine (ATM).  Besides the convenience of the ATM, it almost always spits out new notes.

My love for new notes may seem trifling to you but I am sure you have tried to hide a mutilated note between “healthy” notes to pay for something and heard the words, “I beg sir/madam, change dis money,” I could go on but the bottom line is, I like new notes and go to great lengths to get them and although no one has gone for it yet, I even try to lend them out at a premium (hey, you never know).

A few months ago, I went to the bank to withdraw some money. I got my money in five hundred naira bundles and trusting that I was getting legal tender, I didn’t inspect every one of the hundred plus notes I received. The indicator on the counting machines showed that I had gotten the complete number of notes, which is usually my primary concern at the bank, but my horror came almost two weeks later when I took out some notes from my bank bundles to spend.  As I counted the notes, I saw a particularly ugly, tattered note and I knew that it would be hard to spend, but then I thought, “I’ll just use it to buy petrol.” That was the plan until three petrol attendants rejected my N500 note.  With the first one I tried to hide the note inside another one, but as I tried to zoom off he ran after me and said angrily, “I beg change dis money jo!” (“please, change this note,“ in local parlance).

So there I was with this N500 note, wondering what to do with it.  Finally, I took the money back to the bank hoping that they would change it for me and had a conversation that went something like this with one of the tellers:
“I want to change this money.”
“Let me see… ah, sorry o, we can’t change this for you,” he said.
“How come? I want to know why some tattered notes are okay and this one isn’t”, I said very calmly.
“Well , the serial number is not complete on one side.  If the note were torn elsewhere and we could see the serial number on all four sides of the note, then we would change it for you,” he offered.
“So there is nothing I can do with this note?” I asked.
“No, only the Central Bank can change this note and they won’t see you for just five hundred naira.”
“So this money is useless now?” I asked, exasperated.
“Yes, it is, “he offered unsympathetically.

Well, that was a lie! Or maybe I should call it gross misinformation. I learnt from a reliable source (my father who at one time worked for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), that I could go to the CBN and get my money changed and it wouldn’t be a tedious process.  I wasn’t convinced but decided to try it anyway.  So off I went to the CBN, at Tinubu Square on Lagos Island, and was sent to the Mutilated Notes and Forgeries office on the fourth floor.

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Last Edited on July 2, 2006, 8:53 am.  This page has been viewed 511 times

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