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Despite threats to lives and properties in Lagos during the 2023 general elections, ITREALMS' REMMY NWEKE highlights the missing links worthy of leveraging by peace-loving Nigerians, arguing that we are deeply connected than could be imagined.
Just before the commencement of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, the apex
regulator of banks in the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) began
another phase of its cashless policy and introduction of the redesigned new
Naira note.
That weekend, I had a few things to fix in one of the vehicles, and the best
bet was a reference at the popular Ladipo Spareparts Market in Mushin. The
reference was a young man named Tayo, who specialises in using scanner to detect
certain faults and fixing same.
Courtesy of Iya POS:
After Tayo finished, efforts to pay him via the USSD could not work out as my
bank kept returning with an error message that the transaction could not be
processed. I switched to the mobile application of the bank, aka 'mobile app'
basically for online banking and was told the transaction could not be
completed that I should contact my bank.
Relying on using the various wallets to sort out
any transaction with obvious scarcity of cash, I inquired about any Point of
Sale (POS) agent around the park, as I collected Tayo’s bank details of which
he promptly pointed at one POS outlet. So, both of us approached the shop. The
operator, Iya Kola who had stepped out to give POS service to some folks in a
nearby 'refined' restaurant known as Iya Amala for their assorted Nigerian
local dishes.
USSD is the Unstructured Supplementary Service
Data introduced as the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol
that is used to send text messages and could also be used to make mobile
transfers.
On the other hand, POS is Point-of-Sale handy device that affords a customer to
execute given payment for goods or services and where sales taxes, bills may be
paid through.
On inquiry, I was told that Iya Amala, now a landlady in a Lagos suburb, has
grown her business, that she has been cooking for both Yoruba and Igbo clients
as well as other ethnic groups in the market for over five years. So, Iya Kola
managed to know why her attention was being called, just a stone throw from her
shop by her son, and there, we were, standing to be attended to.
Few minutes later, she joined us and the transaction was done. And because I
would not like to just pay for parking space of N1000 for a day, I inquired
where to get a good mechanic to change my car oil since I was inside the market
and could easily locate kind of motor oil for servicing. A young man in his
late 40s was called. "Doctor, doctor" were the shouts that followed.
Informed that he was a ‘Motor Doctor,’ while his real name was Adekunle, I was relaxed to ask for his mobile number and by putting a call across, was directed to a nearby workshop to meet him.
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