Spraying Naira at a Wedding Is a Blessing and an Offence — Epoche B1
At Nigerian weddings, guests shower the dancing couple with naira notes, pressing them to foreheads and letting them fall. The same act is an offence: the Central Bank of Nigeria Act forbids abusing or defacing the currency, spraying included, and prosecutions have followed. Take the custom seriously first. Money thrown in public is not a tip. It is a blessing performed in front of witnesses, and it keeps a public account: everyone in the hall sees who came forward for whom, how long they danced, and how much they honoured the family. Elders say a gift given in the dark is only half given. Spraying is giving in the light, and it settles obligations that will be remembered at the next wedding. Now take the law seriously too. Notes are trampled, torn and swept up at the end of the night, and the central bank must print replacements at public expense. A currency is common property; damaging it takes from everyone a little in order to honour one family a great deal. The statute is not an attack on joy. It is a rule about a shared thing, and shared things need rules. Between the two sits the question of what prosecution actually does. Charging a handful of well-known people makes an example, and an example is not the same as a change. The custom is older than the statute and it will find another shape — notes dropped into a basket, bundles handed to the musicians, a transfer sent from a phone while the drums are still playing. That may be the whole answer. The custom is not the throwing; it is the public record of honour. Move the money into a basket and the blessing survives, and the notes go home in one piece. References Federal Republic of Nigeria (2007). Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007, section 21. Federal Government Press. Central Bank of Nigeria (2018). Clean Note Policy and Banknote Fitness Guidelines. Abuja: Central Bank of Nigeria.