Still on eNaira’s Life-changing Opportunities, by Abdulrahman Abdulraheem
It is often said that the best way to preach the gospel of any innovation or idea to people is to emphasise what the people will benefit personally and collectively from it. Even if the concept is meant for the common good or there to advance national or communal objectives, while mobilising people to embrace it, it is always better to define the people’s personal interests first.
That doesn’t mean that the goal of the project won’t be vigorously pursued. It will but since the input of the mass of the people is needed to achieve such lofty goals, their sense of self-interest has to be explored first to achieve their full buy-in.
In the case of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) popularly called eNaira which GOGETIT Investment Ltd has been mobilising Nigerians across the country to embrace, the advertised advantages at micro level are real and genuine just as the benefits at macro level are massive. So it is a win-win situation for the masses that with eNaira, their currency will have value and we will see some macro economic stability in the system. But to start with, the poor people at the grassroots must understand what is in it for them before they key into any new idea.
That was the emphasis of the MD/CEO of GOGETIT Investment Ltd, Mr Kenneth Hembe, when he and his team paid a two-day advocacy visit to Bwari and Kubwa in the suburbs of Abuja.
He told Economic Confidential that the life-changing opportunities embedded in the eNaira platform to residents who converged on the Etsu of Bwari Palace and also traders who gathered at the Kubwa Village Market for the awareness campaigns.
The residents, made up of mainly market executives, women leaders, youth leaders and heads of ethnic associations, were told to embrace the eNaira platform as a medium of sending and receiving money so they can benefit from the rewards coming from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
He stated that his team would ensure that all the market women and their customers have the e-wallet so they can begin to transact business with it instead of the cash that won’t always be available and the conventional bank transfers that often face network problems.
He informed the participants that if they agree to be using eNaira to do business, both the seller and the buyer will be getting five percent discounts each from the CBN for every time they transact.
Again, he added that the use of eNaira will ensure the people keep a lot more of their monies instead of losing them to stamp duties maintenance charges and others that the commercial banks collect from them for the conventional accounts they operate. He also added that eNaira to eNaira transfers attract no charges at all no matter the people involved or the amount transfered.
Stressing that the eNaira is the future of grassroots transactions and financial inclusion, Mr Hembe informed the participants that for every person they bring forward for onboarding, they will earn #20.
“A young man registered 60,000 people, so he was paid 1, 200,000 naira just last week. You can earn that if you work hard,”. he said.
He added that they will also train some interested persons to be recruited as eNaira agents who will replace the current POS operators since cash will be phased out gradually and eNaira will take over fully. He said being eNaira agents will be full-time jobs which the people involved will benefit from.
He added that the loans and grants that CBN gives to market women, students and other groups will now be through the eNaira. He assured that if they enroll on the eNaira platform quickly, they will get loans, grants and other forms of financial support that will improve their businesses massively.
“There are some interventions the CBN and the federal government give to people like you through your representatives in the National Assembly and other politicians which will now be sent directly to your eNaira wallets without any intermediaries. So no politician will divert your money or use fake names to take monies belonging to you again,” he added.
Mr Hembe urged the participants to do the needful immediately and avoid waiting till rush hour to start enrolling.
He also urged them to avoid suffering the way they suffered during the recent cash crunch, adding that cash availability is not sustainable and eNaira will be the only viable option in the near future.
Fielding questions from the participants on the problem-solving capacity of the eNaira platform, Hembe said Solution Centres, that will be everywhere across the country, including Bwari and Kubwa, will take care of rare issues that arise from the use of the CBDC. He noted that the Centres will be useful in the case of death and a next of kin that wants to claim the deceased money.
Peeping into the future, Hembe told the crowd that online shops will be opened as a point of convergence for every market woman in the country soon. According to him, buyers can login into the virtual platform meant for the shops, choose a particular seller and bargain products and prices, pay via eNaira and the goods will be delivered by agent riders at the gate of the buyer. This made the audience excited and they couldn’t wait for the CBN to bring forth the online shops.
There is no doubting the fact that the eNaira introduction is a game-changing revolution that is here to change everything about the way we live, relate and transact business. These indeed are interesting times for Nigerians because the eNaira has not fully unraveled yet as we begin to find more and more of its new potential on a daily basis.
Abdulrahman Abdulraheem, Managing Editor, Economic Confidential [email protected]
