When President Buhari and CBN’s Emefiele introduced the cashless policy before the 2023 elections, many of us dismissed it. We called it a political witch-hunt targeting specific politicians. Farmers and small businesses that relied heavily on cash cried foul. Few of us gave the policy any benefit of doubt.
Today, the reality is different.
In Nigeria, we politicize everything. Abduction, insecurity, banditry, kidnapping – we filter it through religion and ethnicity first. But facts don’t have ethnicity.
Today, kidnapping for ransom is daily news. Even terrorist groups claiming to fight for religion have shifted to abductions for cash.
The numbers are staggering. According to SBM Intelligence, between July 2024 and June 2025 alone, Nigerians paid ₦2.57 billion in verified ransom to kidnappers across 997 incidents. The National Bureau of Statistics puts it higher: ₦2.23 trillion paid by households between May 2023 and April 2024. That amount exceeds Nigeria’s entire 2024 defence budget of ₦1.64 trillion.
Amid all this, one truth stands out: every ransom paid is moved in cash. I doubt any bandit group has ever accepted bank transfer with BVN and transaction trails. Cash is anonymous. Cash is their oxygen. Security analysts warn that kidnapping has become a “self-sustaining business model” because cash keeps it alive.
So as a nation, can we pause the politics and reflect?
Even if the 2023 cashless policy was meant to witch-hunt politicians or stop them from winning elections as widely speculated, can we now revisit it in the larger interest of Nigeria?
I know the objections are coming: “This will kill small businesses.” But we are the same country that removed fuel subsidy. The hardship was real, yet Nigerians adapted and heaven didn’t fall. Survival forced innovation: POS, transfers, QR codes.
If we can survive subsidy removal, we can survive a stricter cash policy that saves lives.
Bandits don’t fear guns as much as they fear traceable money. Let’s take away their oxygen.
Cashless is not about the economy. It is about safety, security, and innovation to end a value chain that heavily relies on cash. Today in Nigeria, kidnapping for ransom has become a crisis that requires urgent policies citizens must bear, if only for the short term, because it will curtail our major problem: insecurity.
Aishatu Kabu
Writes from Maiduguri, Borno State
