Topic: The Return of the Barter Trade at Rural Communities in Nigeria (Read 360 times)

Wow, hard times for the Nigerians indeed. I hope and pray that things can get better from here on out. Surely Bitcoin can help solve these problems, at least a few of them, one would hope.

If the local dwellers can have a common understanding to initiate the barter trade at the moment, it will help some of those elderly people have food to eat because a lot of people are passing through difficult times to get money and buy food, plus the fact that even transaction difficulties are being encountered. The barter trade can possibly work in most local areas of Nigeria but not in the city; there are some possibilities that people in the city can get adapted to buying things through a transfer or debit card.

The government of Nigerian is causing hardship for the citizens because of political interest, i believe that while they called for redesigned of Nigerian currency it's because of the election ongoing in Nigeria so that they will frustrates the politicians is going to influence people with money, so i believe that their motive is to fight for corruption, so not happening in Nigeria is for the benefits of the citizens, it's for personal interest of a political group only.

I am saying it from my personal experience, there was a day I went to the by 3:30am in the night to take position to stand and waited for the bank to open by 11am even at that was not guaranteed that we would collect money from the bank, I stayed on the line for more than 12 hours standing to collect money, most people slept at gate of the bank. When I went there to stand at that of the night against Bank opening, I was at number 200 in that night (morning) 3:30am.

I didn't exaggerate or given overstatement of the story as you can see from the image caption.. Nigerian News here the husband went to the bank to withdraw cash but he could not get the cash and in Nigeria hospitals do not treat patients without payment, so for the long waited period the woman give up the ghost. When the husband return to the hospital, his wife had already died.

Showed this yesterday to my father, had a good laugh at it, so:
-use of porous material, not clean material in contact with food
-no fridge to keep the mandatory contact surface under 5C  temperature
-no clean utensils used for intermediary meat processing, no designed space for depositing them between usage
-no mandatory gloves used while serving customers
-no sign of running water, scraps directly in plain view, meat of different kinds in the same space
-no label, no packaging, no readable label on the date and provenance of the meat, no sign of the last inspection
-let's not even talk about pest control
-probably mentioning something as mesophilic risks would be futile
-if it's not the cameraman's shadow then obviously traces of metmyoglobin which means already a lot of time since butchering

As a seller, I would love to do business there, as a client I would go vegan.


Well, that's the bulletproof way of turning a country into one big ****.
The moment the population doesn't care at all who you put in power, the moment there is no such thing as consequences for imbecile or crooked leaders the country enters a death spiral of agony til it finally pushes the rest button, which although it will lead to possible better times with will come also with a lot of pain, and in some cases, the population will rebel against reforms and it will revert back to the spiral, a never-ending nightmare and it's better to act now if you still have the chance until there nothign to rescue left. Otherwise...there are plenty of examples where this leads to!

Yes, the elderly will have that problem but like you rightly pointed out; they've younger family members that can help them out. The problem with my fellow countrymen is that they find it difficult to embrace change. The sacrifice is not often there once it's something that will inconvenience them a bit. We want everything on a platter of gold without paying the price for it. We're often quick to point to countries with organised system and envy them but we don't want to allow such experiment a chance in our country. These same old folks didn't want the GSM when it debuted in Nigeria in 2002. They said it would be noisy to the ears and expensive to maintain. Today, those old folks barely can do without it. I believe it's the same way with this cashless thing the CBN is introducing to us. It's just a matter of time but are we ready to give it that time?

I don't doubt the stories of long lines at the ATM machines, but the two examples given here don't exactly lead me to believe that their cause of death was standing in line too long.  Was that pregnant woman in line?  Did she have to be there since her husband could have gone alone?  That part of the story sounds like inflammatory journalism.

But damn, if people are going back to a bartering system you know the country's currency is in serious trouble--the whole reason we use cash or credit/debit cards is so that we don't have to resort to finding someone who needs what you've got and has exactly what you need.

And sure, the elderly might have problems using ATM machines but I have to think that many of them have younger family members who'd help them out, no?  In any case, it sounds like there's a huge clusterfuck of a situation in Nigeria, and I feel for you.  Thanks for sharing.  If you hadn't posted this, I would never have heard about it on the news or anywhere else for that matter.

Looks like we're returning to our old habits to get by huh. In most Asian countries the concept of bartering remains til this day and some facebook groups are literally tailor-fitted for that very concept. You got a spare fridge you can't fit in your house anymore but you want this grill I got for cheap that I'm willing to toss out? Sure let's trade.

In all seriousness though, Idk what the hell is going on in the heads of the legislators at Nigeria. You don't impose a new economic system outrightly, because there are marginalized groups out there that wouldn't know the change has passed through and would not be able to catch up with the times. This regime just sounds so Great Leap Forward by Mao Zedong to me. I hope they had their brains looked at or something because this is not right.

Regulations like this make the condition and situation of our brothers and sisters there not good, even worse than the impact of inflation that has occurred in several countries. In my opinion, there are mistakes made by the responsible parties, resulting in long queues at banks and ATM booths. We can conclude that they failed to provide guarantees for the community in terms of service, then how do we expect other things that are more influential on the survival of the people there. Supposedly when currency is changed they give a bit longer time for people to exchange old currency and not forcing them to deposit and withdraw money from the ATM.

I also don't know for sure whether this falls into the category of deflation, but what happened there was influenced by the volatility of cash stocks which are increasingly scarce and in my opinion there will be potential for inflation, if the responsible party does not seek a solution in the near future, then the potential for an increase in the price of basic commodities (basic necessities) will increase and this is where the role of inflation will affect the condition of people in Nigeria so that the condition will get worse and out of control.

So much news about Nigeria adopting BTC, they can use crypto if there is the need to. We know they are not using the CBDC enforced on them because they have the idea that thier CBDC wallets are created by a 3rd party.

The country though is abundant with resources and food supply I think the people will still not go hungry if they just help each other. It's hard to believe thier government will deliberately put thier people in such a difficult situation. There's got to be an outside government telling them to do this and that which we all have the idea.

If in reality the barter trade system is invoked and utilized by a large or growing number of users, then the talks of how to set up an escrow system would be relevant. For now however, this case of trade by barter is influenced by new money policies which has made cash flow difficult, but where the hunger resides dwells the wisdom of how to survive, hence why it is gaining common ground within these rural communities with no hope for cash or means to buy food to feed.
Things are beginning to ease out a little with the total abandonment of the old #500 and #1000 Nairas which is no more in use. By the new week, we will see charges reduced and more availability of cash and an increase of transfer or online transactions for both local, small or large businesses.

I can imagine it, because even though I live in a better-ordered country within the EU, I have a president who behaves like a spoiled brat and is one of the few who supports Russia because he plays some guy who wants to be on the side of the bad guys. Maybe you in African countries have a completely different idea of how government and politics work in the rest of the world, but believe me it's just an illusion that things work well, while on the other hand, incompetence and corruption are just much better hidden behind the so-called good intentions for ordinary people.

As long as the common man has a job and can put food on the table every day, he will not protest too much against the system, no matter how bad it is.

Not actually that our political leaders are bereft of ideas of what to do at any given time, the problem is that my country doesn't have strengthened institutions that can streamline the brashness of these leaders and call them to order when they cross the line. So, it has become a sport for them to do whatever they like and think they will get away with it; they actually do get away with a lot of it to say the truth. Imagine a country where the president wouldn't obey orders from the Supreme Court of the land. Would anyone expect he would obey lower court orders then?

The CBN Governor and Federal Government are incapable of their leadership, reason because before the collection of the old Nairanotes they would have made circulation of New Nairanotes before coming to air out of their plans. I know other well known country involving in redesigning of their notes, there's no way anyone have died due to lack of their currency. Just take a look at Nigeria there's no enough ATM machine for people to have free access to their funds in terms of making withdrawal, by right there is no way people should queue on a line just to withdraw money or to deposit money in the bank, there should be enough arrangements before indulging in such action.

Shame on Buhari's Government under the umbrella of APC, they have failed us entirely and it's a disgrace people are dying because of Redesigning of Nairanotes.

 The economy is not looking to get better soon except something is done. During this period, individuals would take advantage of the cashless crunch and those who have would see themselves as king. Honestly, I won't blame those who have decided on the barter system because it's a better option to stealing.
 On the case of youths burning down banks, I doubt it would solve any problem because instead of lessening the woes of the masses, itd rather exacerbate the issue. It's just too bad that the government of Nigeria is at the center of this anomaly and chaos going on.

That's what government told to their people but its already reported by many reputed analytical firms that they failed and I don't think anyone with millions of dollars are keeping it in the form of Fiat so it affected common people and ended up a big Chaos for atleast a year for people and also the small business which reduced growth rate and many people are still trying to get away from the effect of demonetisation in India.

Strange to hear this. How popular are mobile wallets in Nigeria? Here in India, we had a demonetization in 2016, and back then there was an acute shortage of physical cash. Everyone had to adopt to mobile wallets or UPI payments. POS machines are expensive and they charge very hefty commissions (up to 2% of the total value). Mobile wallets, at least for now are free to use (PayTM, MobiKwik.etc). Bitcoin wallets are even better, but here they are not much popular outside a few cafes and electronics shops. 

That is how it is even in my locality. Most of the Banks have closed doy for the fear of attack and also for the scarcity of the new Naira banknotes. Indomie fast food sellers are also accepting transfer and some of them use POS machine for transaction. I really like when these food stuffs sellers are accepting and using POS for transaction because it makes things easier for the poor citizens.

The whole issue of Naira redesign is all politically motivated, because ordinarily you are supposed to allow both the new/old notes be used simultaneously and then the Banks gradually mob out the old notes from the system, that will take at least a year.
In England for example, the old notes which carries the image of the late Queen of England is still being used side by side with the new note carrying the image of King Charles until such a time when you will no longer see the old notes.

But the speed in which the Nigerian government is using for citizens to change bank notes in less than six months leaves a lot of us to believe that, there is a sinister move being politically motivated.

Nigeria is in a very difficult state, the banks in my region are no longer operating. I went to the market today to get buy foodstuff, the whole place was unusually scanty with just a few customers. Interestingly, many of the traders have adopted POS machines as payment gateway, it seems to be the only viable choice since cash is so scarce.

Nigerians have always shown a very high rate of irresponsibility especially from the leadership angle and that has been one of the major challenges we have.
Nigeria is a blessed nation with mineral resources, rich cultural heritage and a nation free from natural disasters but the government has made this great nation very unbearable for it's citizens as a result of their selfish and personal Interest.
This financial crisis has been one of the darkest moments in the country and my sincere condolence to the family of all those who lost their lives in cost of this struggle.
I hope this serves as an eye opener to your towards this forthcoming election that we shouldn't vote for party but rather for the right candidate and this can be done when we all get our PVC.

I've heard of the ATM crisis in Nigeria because of the mismanagement and ill-advised regulations of the authorities. Some speculated it would promote the use of Bitcoin, which seems pretty popular in some places in Nigeria. I'm really sorry to hear of people who died because of this and of businesses collapsing. This seems more serious than I initially thought. Barter is the natural thing to do in dire conditions, although of course there's a reason humanity moved to currencies: it's more convenient to have a medium of exchange than to look for people who can give you what you want but also could you what you have or are willing to take it and sell for something else later.
Nigeria seems to be a country of great people but ridiculous authorities that introduce obstacles to the economy of the country, instead of simply following the people and their initiatives.

From what I read on the forum from members of the Nigerian community, it seems that their authorities are not quite capable of dealing with problems in an efficient and less destructive way for their citizens, although they are constantly trying something, so someone could perhaps say that with time they might learn something on their mistakes. It is a weak consolation for those who suffer because of it, but if you have a political alternative, then as a people you must show the will for change in the next elections.

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As for barter trading, I can only say that it still exists in countries that are far more developed than Nigeria, and I have personally witnessed it in the rural areas of my country where people who live from agriculture exchange their products. People used to do this on a much larger scale because they were much more focused on production, but the more the human population moved to big cities, the more they became dependent on money and shops.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be a big problem, because if someone closes banks and ATMs, and if the distribution chains are also disrupted, then we have an angry and dangerous mass of people who are ready for anything.

Well, it may resemble but there's no way that it is the same case, because Indian government, as far as I know, did that for a very good cause which was to fight black money and to make them worthless, hence they announced demonetization of their currency which they knew would be a big slap on the faces of those who earn and keep black money since they would never be able to come out in order to exchange the currencies.

This particular case to me seems like a plan or something maybe from the authorities or maybe from a bigger and more powerful source who might have some evil intentions which they want to achieve through this. Either way, I feel bad for the people living there.

Yes the government and the Apex bank has created this chaos but just read through your last paragraph and you will know it is entirely not their fault. A citizen needs to have the back of his fellow Nigerian. Is the government also responsible for the high amounts charged by POS operatives? or are should we also blame it on them that the commercial banks decides to give this money to politicians or other rich individuals?
This policy is a good initiative and can only work if every Nigerians work towards it and not causing more chaos in this. I believe this suffering is temporary and will subside once the election period ends

Barter is a fairly ancient scheme of market relations. Yes, it is primitive, but it is not very convenient... But cryptocurrencies for the elderly population are an even more inconvenient and "suspicious" technology. The thing is that they don’t need blockchain and high technologies, they need to quickly, here and now, exchange what they don’t really need, for what they really need! In critical times, relationships always descend to more primitive technologies, and only real products that provide life and survival are of value. Even gold and diamonds in certain situations are exchanged for a simple loaf of bread in order to survive, although in ordinary life you could buy 1000 loaves of bread for the same diamond ring ... The value of different things in different situations is very relative!

One main feature about humans is adaptability. The human brain or mind is very powerful that it can always seek for ways to solve it's financial problems. Nigerians have devised the barter system in order to survive this harsh economic policies. But the challenge is that barter will not give promote equitable exchange of goods and services because the value of the goods that is used for the exchange might not be well determined. Nevertheless, it is a good option because the people of Nigeria must survive.

Since the naira notes is not available on the street and even in the banking halls for the citizens to use, the angry youth in the country have started destroying things plus burning down of Banks and also destroying political campaign banners on the streets.

The old women, men and children, how are they feeding?
Those who hodle a very small portion of the new note sell it to other people that don't have it. Like someone has $20 of the New naira notes and you need it because you don't have any in your hand but you have it in your bank account, what you have to do is that, you send $12 to the owner of the physical cash account number then he will give you $10. This is the latest on ground. Nigerian Government and it economic team has failed the nation.

This was the expected implication, how I do you expect a nation to function when there is no money? The Nigerian government and its central bank got it all wrong there, you can try to combat a problem by creating another problem for everyone.

The Nigerian government intended that their policy of a new note and putting a dead line on the use of old note would stop corruptions in the upcoming election. Even if it does it’s still against all human rights.

 Well I won't say they are opting for a cashless policy because thst too is failing. Mobile apps have been prone to network hitches and if something is not done ASAP, there'd be more damage to the economy than they planned for.
 At present, the government seem to look confused and it's sorely affecting those at the rural areas and also at the urban and honestly, I won't blame them if they resort to trade by barter method since peeps would do anything for survival.

It resembles with what happened in India when their government demonetised the money and issued completely new notes including higher denominations and I remember banks out of paper money due to unavailability but it was temporary and government managed to bring the liquidity back but they can't catch their growth like before.

But how it can be said we have to return to barter system? It doesn't work with current society structure and what will be the case of working class? Cause they are not producing anything so how they can get what is needed for their survival...

Do you change the currency for reasons related to forgery? For example, discovering a defect in the nature of paper or the ease of forgery, or that forgery has become supported by authorities and governments, and therefore it is necessary to change the currency, or is it to solve economic distortions such as deleting or adding some zeros, or for any unimportant reasons, for example, cosmetic reasons, updating the paper or political reasons?

When the currency is changed, the public is given a period of one or two years with the adoption of old currencies and not forcing them to deposit and withdraw from the ATM.

If barter based trade is on the rise. Demand for reliable 3rd party escrow services could be as well. Which could pave the way for growth of that business sector.

While electronic escrow can collect a percentage of transactions, automatically. It could be far more challenging to escrow commodities and material assets. If they trade 3 chickens for 1 goat, how does escrow collect a percentage?

I think one of the biggest obstacles to people avoiding second hand markets and trades is difficulties associated with scams and unreliable bad actors. A trustworthy and reliable escrow service (along with some form of insurance) would definitely go a long way towards increasing trade volume and participation of barter based systems. That is probably the area where markets would need to develop and innovate for economies to have a chance of thriving on an independent basis.

Are they trying to fully introduce digital currency or they are just going to issue another form of fiat money?

It’s too bad not to get your money directly from the bank and being limited with your withdrawals, this is a worst implementation so far and many already suffered. How the government will solve this one? i guess they gave enough time to their people but its still unclear who’s fault is this and why they are rushing into this implementation.

I am sure that it is not the first time that people resort to barter in our modern era. Nigeria will certainly be one of those countries whose inhabitants may resort to primitive exchange systems. Nigeria is a country that suffers from political and security instability that affects the movement of the economy and impedes its growth. A reality that forced many people to adapt their lives and lifestyle to the new circumstances, and to adopt behaviors that they thought had become a memory from the distant past or that they were on the road to extinction.

The cashless culture that the government is pushing Nigerian citizens to adopt is making things difficult and it is not a culture that will be easy to adopt amongst the people in the rural areas and interior villages that do not have the facilities to support a cashless culture.

Transactions can be made via the simple "Unstructured Supplementary Service Data"(USSD) that does not require internet connection or an android phone, but upon that, since people are not still very familiar with the cashless culture, it is difficult to adjust to.

The Barter system becomes the alternative for people especially in rural areas who are heavily into farming, fishing, hunting and other activities that provide a level of self sufficiency for them. Trade by barter can help them in this period before people begin to adapt.

The new redesigned Naira note has become rare or out of reach of the poor masses across the nation, and most rural areas of Nigeria are about to adopt the barter trading system. The government wants its citizens to adopt a "cashless" culture, which is unlikely to benefit men and women in rural areas who are unused to or unable to use the internet because roughly 80% of individuals there cannot buy an Android phone. Even people with such phones do not have internet access. People will be forced to use the barter method of trading.

Some people are suspecting that this move by the central bank has a political undertone. Nigerian elections are normally challenged with vote buying, which means that the highest spenders always win. The present government wants to ensure that there is a scarcity of physical Naira notes to ensure that vote buying is reduced.

But this move is affecting the country negatively because Nigeria is not yet mature for online or internet banking. Many citizens are illiterate and cannot use any other banking channels apart from cash transactions. Nigerian internet service providers are unreliable and the country lacks infrastructure such as electricity supply. Switching from physical money transactions to online banking should be gradually and not his urgent style.

The deadline was first slated to be 31st January 2023 before the 10 days extension. I wouldn’t say this businesses have collapsed but rather they were shut down and the main reason was that the business owners do not want to transact in old currencies. We could all point fingers to the government for their lack of proper planning for the redesign even though they thought it might help curtail the problem of vote buying in the next coming election.
Then aside the government the commercial banks should take some responsibility too. First by hoarding the new notes and giving it out to politicians and people known to them rather than making it accessible to the general public. The bank also failed in updating their mobile banking apps which proved in this period that it can’t handled many transactions and it resulted in slow transaction process. The USSD codes that were supposed to make it easy for the cashless transactions has since been having network problems which clear shows the lack of proper preparation by this commercial banks, because Fintechs like Opay and Palmpay have been doing excellent well this period.
The citizens themselves made life difficult by charging exorbitant fees through the local POS withdrawals. Hospitals should also have provided means of accepting cashless transactions rather than sticking to the old way of paying with cash.
The government is currently looking to extend the deadline again for another 90 days period

From what I have seen of the economy in Nigeria it is in a pretty disastrous state, and this is one more straw that fills the camel's back.

I also understand that cryptocurrencies are used quite a lot, but I imagine that this is in the cities, right? And that's why in the rural areas they've gone back to bartering.

Anyway, what a mess. Cheer up for those of you who live there.

The redesigned of the new Naira banknotes was announced late last year and the deadline to use the old naira notes was given on the 15/01/2023 and before then the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN plus the Federal Government in the country told the citizens that the newly resigned naira notes will be available for everyone to use before the deadline, though they said nobody can withdraw more #20,000 which equivalent to $43.43.

But reaching the deadline which made all the citizens to go and deposit all their old naira notes to their various banks for the fear of expiration but when the last date came CBN extended the deadline and banks refused to pay their customers the money that is in their bank accounts from inside the banks except from the ATM and that makes or form a very long queue on the AMT stands.

Many people died because of this and almost 60% of business collapsed. On the 13th of February 2023, in my locality (State Capital) all the banks closed down. Bank network is malfunctioning.

The age group ( old people) can't queue on the ATM and also they are not conversant with cashless technology. So they have to resort to their old way of buying and selling method. That the exchange of goods to goods so that they can survive. Barter




Cash Crunch: Rural Dwellers Resort To Trade By Barter