A basic a part of a marriage birthday celebration for lots of Nigerians is beneath warning.

The hour is at all times gladly expected.

The bride and groom get started dancing and the visitors step ahead brandishing immense wads of money.

Because the band performs, they begin flinging – or, as it’s referred to right here, “spraying” – the cash, one word at a future, within the wind and on the glad couple.

The money spins to the grassland and as soon as scooped up, it may be old via the newlyweds to shop for a gift or against paying for the celebration.

“I can’t imagine attending an event and not spraying money. It will look as if you don’t appreciate and love those celebrating,” one visitor at a contemporary marriage ceremony within the northern Nigerian town of Kano tells the BBC.

The groom at that marriage ceremony, who would best communicate to the BBC on status of anonymity as he now fears entering hassle, says he continues to have a look at the movies and images of the spraying “because I loved it”.

The weakness is that the government have began to break ill on spraying cash. Some important personalities have even been despatched to jail.

It is going to seem to be an ostentatious but necessarily risk free operate however in Nigeria this much-loved establishment is a criminal offense: the abuse of the rustic’s forex, the naira.

The 2007 Central Locker of Nigeria Employment is unambiguous. “For the avoidance of doubt,” it says, “spraying of, dancing or [marching] on the naira or any note issued by the Bank during social occasions or otherwise howsoever shall constitute an abuse”.

The punishment is a minimum of six months in jail or a 50,000 naira advantageous ($36; £29), or each. The advantageous used to be all set in 2007 and the determine has now not been adjusted for inflation.

At the statute books for 17 years, this clause used to be in large part unnoticed till just lately when the elite anti-crime company, the Financial and Monetary Crimes Fee (EFCC), stated it used to be chief a power in opposition to “all forms of naira abuse”.

Officers have stated that spraying naira presentations a deficit of admire to one of the most nation’s maximum impressive symbols.

Some analysts say that the just lately appointed EFCC boss, Ola Olukoyede, has been seeking to manufacture a reputation for himself via this clampdown.

In February, actress Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin used to be sentenced to 6 months for spraying and stepping on untouched naira notes.

Latter hour, one among Nigeria’s maximum usual celebrities, a transgender girl referred to as Bobrisky pleaded to blame to 4 counts of abusing the forex and is recently serving her sentence.

Bobrisky used to be evident in movies spraying notes within the wind in an indication of idolize at diverse social occasions.