Good morning friends. It's an amazing sunny morning in southwest Nigeria. Though it is a cold night, the atmosphere is lightning up with the rising of the sun. Going through the first writing topic for the week, my brain quickly flashed back to the past where some silly act of forgetfulness cost me my peace of mind.
In the early days of the year 2023, I had gone out hunting for cash as the former president, Muhammadu Bihari and the Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Mr Godwin Emefile was pursuing a cashless policy economy and the scarcity of cash had become the topic of the day on the lips of every Nigerian. The bank Automated Teller Machines around town were not stocked with cash and to make matters worse, only Point Of Sale Machines were given out cash but the sad part of this is that, you would have to pay an equal amount for what you intend to withdraw. It was an exorbitant procedure but we were left with no other option than to follow.
On that fateful day, I had some old Naira notes which were no longer used for exchange. The total amount I had was about eighteen thousand Naira (#18,000) but the POS guy who was willing to buy it from me was pricing it for seven thousand Naira (#7,000). I couldn't believe my ears. I had tears gathered in my eyes but could not cry. How on earth was I supposed to lose a whooping Eleven thousand Naira (#11,000). It was in my best interest to keep hold of my precious eighteen thousand Naira old notes.
Back at home, my wife and children were expecting me to bring home what would be prepared as food for the night and here I am, scouting for cash that has become the costliest commodity at the moment.
I walked from one part of town to the other. The major conversation you are likely to hear from guys was the Naira redesign discussion. But far beyond that, the hunger in my stomach was not ready for that debate, so I would just pass and visit another bank ATM to try my luck.
This whole saga continues for about four hours. A trip that would have cost me not more than one and a half hours. I had begun to lose faith in getting cash. The most annoying thing was that the market women were refusing bank transfers. Some of them were only going to trade in physical cash.
Luck shined on me when I got to my bank and found that the ATM machine had cash but one cannot withdraw more than ten thousand naira in a day. I quickly withdrew the ten thousand Naira. It appears that people around the bank never knew that the ATM was stocked with cash as I was the only one who was at the premises of the machine.
I proudly ventured into the market and bought what we needed and returned home. I forgot to remove my ATM card from the machine. What was on my mind was to quickly return home and to begin the cooking to quench this hunger.
Two days later when I needed to use my card was when I remembered that I did not remove the card from the ATM after withdrawing cash. This was after I had searched everywhere including my wife's and children's school bags and the nook and cranny of the whole house.
When I got to the bank the next day, Ingot back my ATM card and swore never to be in a hurry when conducting a withdrawal or any transaction with my card.
It was anxiety that made me forget the card in the machine plus the hunger that was tearing me apart and the annoyance against the killer CBN Naira redesign policy.
More often than not, when one is angry and in a hurry to get serving done, there is usually error committed. This is the reason I have resolved to always be calm when I want to engage in doing anything. This has helped me in carrying out activities without committing errors.
Sometimes I have to create a to-do list to guide me in taking a procedure step by step to avoid committing the error of forgetting.