I closed very late from work very tired and needed at least a cup of coffee to whip up my system and also to nibble on something to calm my rumbling stomach. In a whole street of Abuja, the living had all gone to sleep, just few cars screeching their tyres on high speed, police torchlight and ATM churns.

I have been to other major cities in sub Sahara Africa like Johannesburg, Dares salaam, Addis, Nairobi and even Lome. I realized that quite a lot of them have self service sales outlets where people pop in coins in machines and buy coffee, snacks, drinks, cigarettes and even gas anytime of the day. There are sales machines that make use of currency notes (though I saw some in place like unilag and some hospitals in Lagos) where I once bought bus ticket in a European city.

The bottom line is that these services are more effective where currency coins are available and circulating. This is because of the limitations posed by using notes in sales machines.
One begins to wonder why the Nigerian government is not thinking of minting reasonable currency coins even if it entails using same denominations of notes already in circulations instead of wasting resources minting dead and insignificant denominations that soon fizzle out of circulation.

If the right thing is done, liquidity as well as financial inclusion will be eased. Even more jobs will be created as a result.