…Mint Notes Now Thrive In Illegal Second Market Fuelled By Scarcity
…Regulators Look Away As Bouquet Vendors Openly Trade Cash For Profit
Fawaz Adebisi
“We fold the naira like flowers, wrap it and design it to look beautiful and then sell the designed money to our customers,” Obiremi Ayanfe, a caterer and event planner in Abeokuta said, her fingers moving with the casual confidence of someone doing normal business, not committing a crime.
Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria explicitly categorized money bouquets as a form of Naira Abuse under the Section 21 of the Central Bank Act which criminalises the spraying, selling, squeezing or mutilation of naira notes.
The EFCC itself tweeted on 17 February 2023; ‘The act of spraying, stapling, folding into bouquets, or any other form of naira mutilation is punishable…’ Yet 986 days later, not one bouquet vendor has been charged.
In Abuja, Lagos, Abeokuta, Ibadan, Enugu and across other Nigeria’s cities, naira notes are no longer just legal tender, they’ve become decoration pieces, priced, folded, traded and resold like flowers. As lovers gift them proudly at birthdays and bridal showers, the CBN watches a booming illegal market grow right under its nose.
Therefore, an investigation into Naira bouquet exposes the quiet, nationwide collapse of cash control, illegal sale of cash and the regulators who seem too tired, too absent, or too uninterested to stop it.
From TikTok, Facebook, X and Whatsapp vendors to Instagram stylists and local event planners, the naira now has a second market value, not as currency for trade, but as an aesthetic product with the excuse of celebrating loved ones.
The CBN didn’t criminalise spraying and decorative misuse merely for optics, the naira was literally dying faster than it could be replaced.
Under the CBN Act 2007 and the Clean Notes Policy, the idea was to reduce mutilation, protect the lifespan of notes, and stop illegal cash circulation outside the formal banking ecosystem. But despite that legal clarity, an entire underground trade has evolved, mint notes are hoarded, resold, folded and repackaged into money bouquets without consequence.
What was supposed to be a protective monetary policy has instead become a loophole that vendors now exploit as a business model. The more Nigerians demand “fresh notes for aesthetics,” the more the black market profits, while the banking system bleeds integrity as CBN grapples to print new notes.
In Nigeria today, flowers are for the broke, but mint cash? That’s the new bouquet of love.
But behind the glitter of ribbon-wrapped cash sits a harsher economics; Nigeria’s mint bouquet boom is a side-market born out of scarcity. In a country where inflation has repeatedly eroded purchasing power in the last two years, and where POS agents, now de-facto the main practical cash-access points for millions, ration physical notes depending on their own supply, the naira itself becomes a product
Instead of currency serving as medium of exchange, it becomes an object of display, resold for premiums. That is why a ₦100,000 bouquet can retail at ₦155,000, the mark-up is not “creativity”, it is the surcharge of scarcity.
Today, Nigeria has created a two-tier naira market; the bank naira, and the decorative naira. One loses value by inflation; the other gains value by aesthetics.
The Money Bouquet Business, Illegal Cash Flow
Money bouquet is a decorative arrangement where real banknotes are folded, wrapped and designed like flowers, then sold as a gift item, often for birthdays, proposals, bridal showers and celebrations. Instead of roses or petals, the naira itself becomes the “flower.”
While it is majorly supplied by event planners, caterers, surprise-package vendors and bouquet stylists who source mint notes, repackage them aesthetically and resell them at a higher price, vendors across Nigeria admit openly that this is not creativity, this is cash trade, business.
“A bouquet depends on how much they want inside it. Sometimes people ask for ₦30k, ₦50k or ₦100k worth… and I only add my charge on top,” Ayanfe said. Her “charge” varies quietly but the market understands the code, adding that “the more cash you want, the more you pay”.
Akin Balogun, who runs Chacha Cakes out of a workshop off Lagos Island, does not hide the arithmetic behind his bouquets. “If somebody wants a ₦10,000 bouquet, we don’t sell it for ₦10,000, that one goes for ₦24,000 as a package,” Balogun said, folding a mock rose from a scrap of paper to explain the styling.
“There’s a difference between what goes inside and what we charge; people pay for availability and for the mint.”
He walked through the math without prompting, “for a ₦100,000 bouquet, our package price is ₦155,000, that’s ₦55,000 extra. For ₦50,000 cash inside, we sell ₦85,000. That extra money covers what we paid the supplier for mint, the transport, the wrapping, and sometimes a small margin for us.”
He added that, “Sometimes after you pay the person who gives you mint and buy materials, your real gain is small, maybe a few thousand naira. But the customer sees the top price and thinks we’re making a fortune,” he added.
On sourcing, Akin admitted he uses a mix of channels,“Most times I ask the customer to bring the fresh notes. If they don’t, I call my plug, sometimes from POS guys, sometimes someone who has contacts in a bank’s branch. They charge a premium for mint and that premium is why packages are so high.” He shrugged. “We use money to collect money.”
In Enugu, Chinelo Okafor, who runs Peculiar Surprise Package, described the bouquet trade as choreography around cash availability. “We do packages where ₦25,000 inside becomes a ₦56,000 package,” she said. “If the customer wants ₦100,000 inside, the finished product often goes for ₦160,000. People ask why, na scarcity and demand.”
Chinelo explained the drivers plainly,“That extra, from ₦25k to ₦56k, or ₦50k to ₦90k, pays for sourcing mint. I sometimes buy fresh notes from people who say they can get them from banks. They ask for their cut. We add our service charge on top.”
She gave an example of tight margins, “After you pay the middleman, buy materials and pay for delivery, your net may be ₦3,000–₦4,000. That’s the bitter part, big packages, small real gains.”
When asked how often she goes to a bank herself, Chinelo laughed. “Rarely. It’s stressful. If a client can bring the mint, I prefer it. But influencers, weddings, big clients, they expect us to provide everything. So we find ways. Call contacts, call colleagues. The worst thing is to get stuck with no mint two days to an event.”
Zainab Hamzat, ZinoSupreme, an online vendor in Abuja, offers both small and high-end bouquets. “We do small ones, ₦5,000 cash inside sold as ₦10,000 packages, and the big ones too,” she said. “Our list shows ₦100,000 cash packaged at ₦130,000; ₦200,000 cash goes as ₦260,000.”
Zainab described said, “For ₦50,000 in ₦1,000 notes, you can see us sell for ₦70,000, that difference is not all profit. A chunk goes to whoever supplied the mint.” want the look. We deliver, for a price.”
Romoke Adebayo of RommySurprises works out of Abeokuta and specialises in mid-range bouquets. “For ₦20,000 cash we sell packages that go for ₦34,000,” Adebayo said. “For ₦100,000 in notes we price at ₦150,000. Look at the numbers, the package is often 50–80 per cent above the face value.” Romoke used concrete examples to explain customer psychology: “If someone wants a ₦30k bouquet and it’s looking big, they’re willing to pay ₦55k for presentation and convenience.”
On whether she thinks the business is sustainable, Romoke paused. “It is only sustainable because people keep demanding new notes. If banks made mint available properly, or if people accepted replicas or digital gifts, this would shrink. For now, we work the gap, we source, we package, we sell.”
The Trends
In 2025, money bouquets have gone from niche “DIY surprise idea” to a mainstream gifting culture. Social media platforms are now the biggest accelerators of this trend, with videos, reels, fan surprises and tutorials driving both demand and normalisation.
On X (Twitter), the conversation is split between admiration, pricing debates and legality. A popular post by user @_chiceeeyyy (Post ID: 1980168804236976178) defended the trend as a global import saying people abroad also do it, arguing that the real problem is the cost of mint, not bouquet art.
Another post by @victorfbn247 (Post ID: 1982102523243876381) showed a large bouquet gifted to BBNaija’s Sultana in Abuja, while posts like @getbehindmezita (Post ID: 1973005108805030021) showed ordinary Nigerians crowd-sourcing bouquet funds for newborn celebrations.
Still, not everyone is impressed. One widely shared post by @JahBlesssaint21 (Post ID: 1958424113472852276) complained that young Nigerian women now prefer money bouquets over actual flowers.
On TikTok, the vibe is less debate and more “how-to.” Tutorials showing wrapping, folding and styling, like videos posted by @bubeorjingene (Video ID: 7443395937927499064) and @luxx_roses (Video ID: 7552617161689140494), have racked up large engagements.
Others like @nikkysurprises44 (Video ID: 7532115215173815557) showcase emotional surprise reveals, turning bouquets into soft-life storytelling.
On Instagram Reels, luxury dominates. Pages like @thebouquetfactory promote premium Lagos-styled bouquets, while vendors like @florablooms_by_reee (Post ID: CxC4SGXs13B) have openly shown pricing, including how mint charges shape the total package.
YouTube hosts longer tutorials, such as videos teaching wrapping techniques, for example one by Cha-Cha’s Hub (Video ID: skobZYNuC30), often used by upcoming bouquet vendors to learn the craft and enter the market.
On Facebook, bouquet communities actively trade tips, pricing formulas and warnings. Some posts celebrate beautiful outcomes, while others in craft groups warn clearly that the act is illegal under Nigerian law.
Security Officials Close Eye As Money Bouquet Business Thrive
On 30 January 2025, police in Lagos detained a university graduate’s sister for several hours over a ₦50,000 money bouquet gift, then released her without charge. It remains the first, and so far only, publicly documented case of its kind.
Yet despite the CBN declaring money bouquets illegal since 2023, despite EFCC’s own 2023 tweet calling “folding into bouquets” a punishable offence, and despite Section 21 of the CBN Act being crystal clear, not a single bouquet vendor has ever been charged, prosecuted, or sentenced in Nigeria.
That single detention, which exploded to 4.7 million TikTok views in 48 hours, became the loudest warning shot nobody heeded.
The crackdowns that Nigeria knows, Bobrisky in April 2024, Cubana Chief Priest in 2024, Daniel Nduka in 2025, and earlier ICPC booking of actress Darasimi Omoseyin in 2023, were all for spraying and trampling cash in public, not for folding or arranging cash into bouquets.
Bouquets are invisible to police, they happen in studios, quiet home surprises, DM transactions, not noisy owambe halls where EFCC can swoop in.
This silence from enforcement has made the bouquet business feel “safe”, even though it is illegal.
So while the law is loud on paper, the practice is alive on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook vendors and surprise-package accounts, with daily orders, big mark-ups driven by mint scarcity, and zero fear of EFCC raids.
Enforcement is punishing the spectacle, not the system that supplies mint and in that blind spot, the bouquet business is flourishing.
Lawyers Drop Submissions, Provide Legal Ways To Spray, Celebrate With Money
Legal experts Clarkson O. Adebayo Esq. and Habeeb Whyte Esq. have sounded the alarm on the CBN’s inconsistent enforcement, particularly as money bouquets continue to flourish unchecked. Their insights, drawn from exclusive analyses and interviews, reveal a regulatory landscape rife with gaps, where cultural celebrations collide with rigid laws.
Barr. Adebayo, principal at Clarkson Attorneys & Solicitors, frames money bouquets as a symptom of broader failures.
“Prosecutions for the use of naira in gift bouquets remain virtually nonexistent,” he notes, contrasting it with high-profile spraying cases like Idris Okuneye (Bobrisky)’s six-month sentence in April 2024 and Okoli Frank Emeka’s conviction in May 2025.
The CBN’s Clean Notes Policy explicitly bans bouquets for “misuse of the naira for decorative purposes,” yet enforcement leans on “public sensitisation” rather than action, he argues.
Barr. Whyte, a legal practitioner and youth advocate, agrees the Act treats folding notes into bouquets as a “criminal offence,” with penalties including six months’ imprisonment or ₦50,000 fines. But he highlights “selective” targeting, “Enforcement remains and often targeted at high-profile individuals,” with bouquet cases stalling at “stern warnings” in police stations.
Both experts delve into the “mint note controversy,” where vendors source crisp bills at illegal premiums, despite CBN rules requiring issuance at face value under the Currency Operations Manual. Adebayo calls this “currency racketeering” fueled by festive demand and bank insiders’ corruption. “Financial institutions are deeply engrossed in corruption. They profit from the sale of mint notes,” he said.
Whyte added that “Under Section 20(5) of the CBN Act, 2007, it is illegal… to buy, sell, or trade naira notes for any fee or premium,” noting limited availability creates an “informal market” that indirectly powers bouquets.
The cultural-legal rift is stark. Adebayo emphasizes gifting as “a cultural symbol of love, celebration, and social identity,” warning that rigid laws “may criminalise a practice rooted in affection and artistry.”
He distinguishes “temporary decorative use” from permanent damage. Whyte concurs. Celebrations “come alive with… the age-old tradition of spraying money,” but clash with protections for the naira’s “dignity and lifespan.” Public ignorance exacerbates this, Whyte observes most vendors believe “as long as the notes aren’t torn or burnt, no law is being broken,” viewing Bobrisky’s case as a “celebrity issue.”
Reform is urgent, they insist. Adebayo proposes CBN guidelines for “replica or commemorative notes,” public education to address “ignorance, not intent,” and a task force to monitor banks’ hoarding.
He suggests “creative ways” like spraying into bags or drums to avoid trampling, already practiced in some communities.
While Whyte advocates digital shifts, “e-spraying” via QR codes, formalized mint requests at no markup, and “symbolic or prop currencies.” In short, “reform shouldn’t aim to kill the culture, it should guide it.”
However, Adebayo said, “Money bouquet is a foreign culture… If the CBN cannot find an alternative, it should be treated as an offence. What happens to giving flowers or gifts?”
As bouquet trends surge, with TikTok views in the millions and vendors eyeing X-Mass 2025 and New Year 2026, Whyte concludes, “protecting the naira isn’t just a legal duty but also a civic one.” Without balanced modernization, Nigeria risks criminalizing joy while cash controls crumble.
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