There is no Nigerian alive today – above the age of five and not locked up in a monastery – who has not seen a video of a jubilant crowd tossing Naira notes into the air like confetti at a victorious World Cup parade. From the glitzy ballrooms of Lagos to the dusty courtyards of Owerri, we spray – not perfume or pesticide – but our national currency. And we do it with so much relish and reckless abandon that one would think it grows on trees watered with ego and fertilised with showmanship.
The question appears simple: When does money spraying become currency mutilation? The law answers it bluntly – the moment you throw, paste, stamp, or manhandle a banknote outside the act of exchange, you have crossed into the dark alley of currency abuse. But this is Nigeria, where even the Constitution wears agbada and dances to the drumbeats of status, influence, and impunity. So, while the law may be clear, enforcement becomes a carnival of selective morality.
Our love affair with spraying did not fall from the sky. It’s a cultural artform that has evolved over decades – first as a benign gesture of appreciation and honour in Yoruba traditional festivities, and then as a pan-Nigerian badge of financial virility. In the 60s, it was the preserve of the elite – the white-collar class and cocoa merchants, who sprayed pound notes during wedding ceremonies and coronations. The act was elegant, structured, almost choreographed – a gentle tuck of a note on the forehead of a bride, a rhythmic gesture matching the highlife beat.
By the 70s, it had become more audacious. The oil boom came with disco balls and excessive cash. Parties turned into fashion runways, and currency spraying moved from the forehead to the air, then to the ground. The 80s introduced a swagger to the ritual: musicians began to sing names of wealthy guests mid-performance, urging them to make it “rain”. Naira notes floated like feathers over Fuji beats.
The 90s? Ah, that was the golden age of dollar-flaunting, where people like “Society Madam” and “Chairman of All Chairmen” competed not for dance steps but for the most flamboyant financial display.
Today, the practice is a full-blown pandemic. There’s scarcely any high-profile wedding, burial, chieftaincy ceremony, or even toddler’s birthday where bundles of mint notes don’t suffer from projectile motion and trampling.
This is despite the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) screaming itself hoarse about Section 21 of the CBN Act (2007), which criminalises the spraying, selling and abuse of the Naira. The law prescribes fines, jail terms, or both for offenders. Yet, Nigerians remain unmoved, unbothered, and utterly unrepentant.
Why? Well, because this is a country where enforcement is like suya pepper – unevenly applied. Nigerians are at constant loggerheads with this law, not because we are anarchists by nature (well, not entirely), but because we see the law as targeting the poor or the unpopular. The rich spray in front of police officers; the poor get chased for picking notes off the floor. Celebrities get arrested and, after a few hours, are paraded not in court, but in the offices of EFCC or the Police PRO, grinning and promising to “sensitise the public” through Instagram. You call that deterrence?
We can recall a few “victims” of this double-edged sword. There was the actress who made headlines for trampling on Naira notes during her birthday party in a high-end club. She cried foul after spending hours in EFCC detention. There was the flamboyant socialite who claimed ignorance of the law after a viral video showed him making it rain at a housewarming bash. Their punishments? Public apologies and Instagram advocacy. A few others – faceless, unconnected – were less fortunate. They were charged, convicted, and dumped in jail.
But now comes the real test of this crusade against currency abuse: Chief Government Ekpemupolo – aka Tompolo – a man who once held the nation’s pipelines to ransom, now turned influential government contractor. His recent video went viral – notes flying in thick swirls, a cacophony of cheers, drums, and dancing feet – the sort of footage that would have landed a lesser mortal in custody. But thus far, crickets. Not much louder than a whimper from the authorities. If they dare raise a finger, they risk an unprintable backlash from his numerous sympathisers, or thoughtlessly worse. But if they let him go unscathed, it confirms what many believe – that the law in Nigeria is a whip for the ant and an air freshener for the elephant.
Beyond the legal gymnastics, let us ponder the societal impact. In a time when the price of garri is flirting with that of imported rice, and petrol is a luxury for the rich, the sight of bundles of Naira littering dancefloors is nothing short of infuriating. It signals a gross insensitivity to the suffering of the majority. The spraying spectacle becomes a metaphor for inequality – the “haves” mocking the “have-nots” with each toss of a mint note.
Worse still is the psychological toll on our youths. They grow up seeing wealth not as a product of hard work, but of display. If you don’t spray at parties, you haven’t arrived. If your name isn’t sung by the DJ or the live band, you haven’t “blown”. This warped value system has driven many into ritualistic madness – chasing wealth by any means just to keep up with the Joneses – the big boys and girls. When Yahoo boys start spraying in nightclubs like oil barons, the message to the rest is simple: make money, anyhow, anywhere.
There are other ripple effects – the distortion of financial priorities, the destruction of banknotes (costing the CBN billions to replace), and even physical injuries at parties where people scramble for airborne cash like Black Friday shoppers.
What then should the authorities do? Certainly not another round of warnings and Instagram campaigns. We need consistent enforcement – from the rich to the regular. There must be clear, non-negotiable consequences. Party venues must have posted warnings, with police units monitoring large events. Musicians should also be warned – no encouragement of money spraying mid-performance. The banks too must be held accountable for supplying mint notes in suspicious volumes to clients with obvious non-business purposes. It’s no secret that most mint bundles at parties are procured via backdoor arrangements involving bank officials.
Finally, the Nigerian people must embrace a modicum of decorum in how we celebrate. Nobody is saying don’t enjoy your money. But must you baptise the ground with it? In these harsh times, spraying money is not just wasteful; it is provocative. We must think of the optics – the widows, jobless youths, and unpaid workers watching your viral video of spraying and stepping on Naira with chilled wine in hand. Must we insult their reality with our spectacle?
If you must spend lavishly, do so with tact. Buy food for your guests, pay the band well, tip the servers. But don’t treat our currency like toilet paper. Whether it was earned by sweat or scammed by sleight, money deserves to be spent, not spattered. May we all find wisdom before the next viral video becomes the latest proof that Nigeria is a nation allergic to learning from itself.
Femi Akintunde-Johnson @ThisDay
