The simple answer to what can be traced to be the cause of these questions of thoughts is “MONEY” — What the Holy Bible called the root of all evil. We run from pillar to post, struggle hard, hustle tight — day and night, and hope high to get a very befitting delicacy on our tables.
Sometimes, I sit back and think about these things and I also want you to sit back on your sofas and think about why you suffer, think about why you sweat all day as humans, think about why we run helter-skelter yet, with no shelter. If you can spare some time to think about why corruption gradually drives this world to its grave, why so many evils persist and lastly think about why we can never agree with ourselves as humans.
The simple answer to what can be traced to be the cause of these questions of thoughts is “MONEY” — What the Holy Bible called the root of all evil. We run from pillar to post, struggle hard, hustle tight — day and night, and hope high to get a very befitting delicacy on our tables.
Yes, money determines everything. It determines our doings from the spiritual to the mundane, from the political to the socio-economical. So, there is a need for regulation. The reason man jostles for power and influence is either because he wants to earn high or because he wants to move with those I call “top guys” who can change his life. Also, kidnappers kidnap for ransom (money), so they could live a very good life the same way some people concluded to be a higher assassin for money.
In short, money cannot be left out of the plausible challenges facing our world today and particularly, the Nigerian nation.
Timeline of Currency Redesign in Nigeria
In the medievals, different cultures in Nigeria used different items as means of exchange. The perceived importance of a means of exchange to facilitate the transactions in everyday life necessitated the introduction of items like cowries, manila, bottles, beads, and salt. However, the first major currency issued in Nigeria was undertaken following the colonial ordinance of 1880 which introduced the Shillings and Pence as the legal tender currency in British West Africa. The units of coins managed by the Bank of England were one shilling, one penny, 1/2 penny and 1/10 penny and were distributed by a private bank, the Bank for British West Africa till 1912.
Meanwhile, the first set of banknotes was released from 1912 to 1959 by the West African Currency Board (WACB) which inserted hyperlinks to banknotes. The Board also released coins in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Gambia. The highest banknote denomination was one pound, while the one shilling coin was the highest coin denomination.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on 1st July 1959 issued Nigerian currency banknotes, while the WACB-issued banknotes and coins were withdrawn. It was not until 1st July, 1962 that the currency was changed to reflect the country’s republican status. The banknotes which bore the inscription, ’FEDERATION OF NIGERIA‘, now had, ‘FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA’, inscribed at the top. The notes were again changed in 1968 following the misuse of currency banknotes during the civil war.
Sequel to the decision by the government to change from metric to decimal, the name of the Nigerian currency was changed in January 1973. The major unit of currency which used to be £1 ceased to exist and the one naira which was equivalent to ten shillings became the major unit, while the minor unit was called the kobo; a hundred of which made one naira.
On 11th February 1977, a new banknote with the value of twenty naira (₦20) was issued. It was the highest denomination introduced at the time as a result of the growth of the economy; the preference for cash transactions and the need for convenience.
The banknote was the first in Nigeria to bear the portrait of a prominent Nigerian citizen, the late Head of State, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed (1938-1976) who was the torch bearer of the Nigerian Revolution in July 1975. The note was issued on the 1st anniversary of his assassination as a fitting tribute to a most illustrious son of Nigeria. He was declared a national hero on 1st October 1978.
On 2nd July, 1979, new currency banknotes of three denominations, namely ₦1, ₦5 and ₦10 were introduced. These notes were of the same size i.e. 151 X 78 mm as the ₦20 note issued on 11th February, 1977. In order to facilitate identification, distinctive colours were used for the various denominations. The notes bore the portraits of three eminent Nigerians, who were declared national heroes on 1st October, 1978. The engravings at the back of the notes reflected various cultural aspects of the country.
In April 1984, the colours of all the banknotes in circulation were changed with the exception of the 50 Kobo banknote to arrest the currency trafficking prevalent at the time. In 1991, the 50K and ₦1 were both coined.
In response to the expansion in economic activities and to facilitate an efficient payments system, the ₦100, ₦200, ₦500 and ₦1000 banknotes were introduced in December 1999, November 2000, April 2001 and October 2005 respectively.
On 28th February, 2007, as part of the economic reforms, ₦20 was issued for the first time in polymer substrate, while the ₦50, ₦10 and ₦5 banknotes; as well as ₦1 and 50K coins were reissued in new designs, and the ₦2 coin was introduced.
On 30th September, 2009 the redesigned ₦50, ₦10 and ₦5 banknotes were converted to polymer substrate following the successful performance of the ₦20 (polymer) banknote. Thus, all lower denomination banknotes were now printed in the polymer substrate.
Finally, the CBN, as part of its contribution towards the celebration of the nation’s 50th anniversary of Nigeria’s Independence and 100 years of its existence as a nation, issued the ₦50 Commemorative polymer banknote on 29th September, 2010; and the N100 Commemorative banknote on 19th December, 2014 respectively.
Now, down to the present, October 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria announced its plan to redesign the currency again, this time, the CBN says it would redesign the ₦100, ₦200, ₦500 to the ₦1000 and will issue the new notes from 15 December, 2022 in order to control the currency in circulation, also imperative to forestall the abnormalities bedevilling Nigerian financial, monetary and security systems and for other economic reasons.
The effect of this would be that both the old and new currency will circulate together as legal tender until 31st January, 2023 when the existing currency ceases to be legal tender.
THE DEBATE
The eventual announcement by the Central Bank of Nigeria has left so many Nigerians with different opinions and commentaries. While some reacted positively, others reacted negatively.
However, I would rather as a person see it from two angles. The first being the perspectives of Economist and Banking Experts who understand further than I do and secondly, is the Nigerian point of view i.e the layman's point of view on which I will rest most of my assertions.
Fine, it is important we control the money in circulation, yes, I think it is important we destroy the vault of those trying to keep the money meant for all citizens for their unborn children thereby leaving the vast majority of citizens in abjection — by making the money they've stolen of no value whatsoever. All these are possible to achieve only if the Nigerian system permits it to happen.
'Reason am!' with an almost incompetent Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the unprecedented strategies that the Muhammadu Buhari regime has engendered in the last seven years, I won’t be surprised if the main motive force for the CBN’s move to redesign the naira is to accomplish a plan to put Buhari’s face on one of the notes.
The more the days go by, the worse it becomes. The baton of ungovernance, misgovernance and degovernance of this maladministration is going at a frightening speed. They go after insensible policies leaving the needed ones; leaving leprosy and concentrating on eczema. No be juju be that?
The CBN Governor, Emefiele who should in all capacity have a more intimate and esoteric knowledge of Nigeria’s monetary policy than anyone once thought the value of the naira was in an implacably downward spiral. This thought of his might have been engineered because a Nigerian-owned UK-based website called AbokiFX was publishing the black-market foreign exchange rates of the naira. This event resulted in a physical combat between Emefiele and Oniwinde Adedotun, the owner of AbokiFX, so the value of the naira could rise again!
Emefiele cannot be trusted in any respect as he has masqueraded himself as a person whose judgement and prescriptions anyone should not trust and defend. At a point in time, he even became openly politically partisan by unsuccessfully running to be president on the platform of the ruling All Progressive Congress while still a supposedly apolitical CBN governor. I ask you, how does this happen in a normal society?
Now, 'reason am' again! This same year, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Ahmed Halilu, his brother-in-law, an older brother to Aishat Buhari, as the head of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting, a department which prints Nigeria’s currencies. Halilu was first appointed as one of only two executive directors at the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting in late 2019 before he was promoted by President Buhari from an executive director of Nigeria’s currency printing company to its head on September 1, 2022.
With my calculations and speculations, with the congress and synergy that existed between the partisan CBN governor, Emefiele and Buhari’s brother-in-law, the head of the minting company who has the final say on any design to be used and printed. I would not be surprised to see the portrait of our dear president appear on, probably the 1000 naira note in a way to remember him when he leaves office. My puzzle, opinion and thinking are accurate though they might not be fulfilled in the long run but think about these things.
This in fact can be reasonably linked to tilting towards the precedence from what happened in Uganda far back as January 1973, when Uganda's Idi Amin decided to change the country’s currency in order to get them designed with his portrait.
Yes, Omoyele Sowore opined and I tended to blend with his submission. He said: “When Boko Haram wanted to release the first batch of kidnapped #Chibokgirls they specifically requested for Euros and were paid in #Euros. They also claimed some well-placed Nigerians have stacked Naira at home, the truth is that most well-placed Nigerians spend foreign currencies.”
This is in sharp contrast to what Emefiele said while stating the prospects for the currency redesigning. He said; “in view of the prevailing level of security situation in the country, the CBN is convinced that the incidents of terrorism and kidnapping would be minimized as access to the large volume of money outside the banking system used as source of funds for ransom payments will begin to dry up.”
So, he actually wants to control terrorism and kidnapping through redesigning the currency? This is unreasonable to some extent. What happened to the case of a woman who according to Omoyele Sowore, trended in a WhatsApp message was threatened with abduction and given the option to deposit money into an account?
“The woman enlisted the help of her banker friends to get the account number flagged so that the kidnappers may be caught. The message said, “Bank did checks. Bank said the account cannot be flagged, else they will lose influential clients. How so? The names attached to the account are powerful names.”
So, I'm not convinced enough and I don't think any other Nigerian would be convinced to believe that combating terrorism and banditry can possibly be a reason for redesigning naira notes. His claims and assertions are just like the veil of the masquerade, which makes virtually everyone think that the person behind the mask is from the celestial.
So many people have also moved against this decision and one of them was the Finance Minister Zainab Ahmad who said she was not in on Emefiele's plan to redesign the naira, adding that it “portends serious consequences on the value of the naira to other currencies.” Talk of a confused and discordant government!
Let's learn from the experiences of the past. Let's learn from 1984 when Buhari did a thick-skulled currency change that impoverished millions of people. This wrongheaded policy inflicted enormous hardship on every Nigerian. So many people died without getting back their money. Now, we are here celebrating an improvement which we have no idea about.
My conclusion is short. Let's learn from the #100 notes which were changed in 2017. I ask you, since the redesign, what has changed? The newly proposed currency redesign will only be effective if the Central Bank of Nigeria can answer all the ‘why’ questions ringing in the hearts of every Nigerian. Yes, it will surely control the money in circulation and perhaps inflation but this is only from the expert's point of view, mere theories which might not work due to some Nigerian factors. Rather, let's look at Nigeria's point of view. I ask you again, what has the redesigned #100 achieved? Is terrorism and banditry not on the hike?
Lastly, when a system is faulty in Nigeria, we either change the name, redesign it or paint it in a more inviting colour to deceive the masses. SARS was faulty, it was changed to SWAT, yet, police brutality remains on the hike. The NNPC logo was defective, it was changed for a new one, yet fuel scarcity persists. Now, Naira is devalued, we are moving to change its design. “Reason am again!”