The Nigerian naira

What Nigerians paid with before the naira

Before colonial rule, cowries, manilas, beads and salt all served as money. A colonial ordinance of 1880 made shillings and pence legal tender in British West Africa, and the Bank of England managed the coins, from the shilling down to a tenth of a penny, and a private bank, the Bank for British West Africa, distributed them until 1912.

From 1912 to 1959 the West African Currency Board issued notes and coins for Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Gambia. Its notes went up to one pound. On 1 July 1959 the Central Bank of Nigeria issued Nigerian banknotes and the board's notes and coins were withdrawn. The notes changed on 1 July 1962, when the heading Federation of Nigeria gave way to Federal Republic of Nigeria, and again in 1968, after the currency had been misused during the civil war.

How Nigeria switched to naira and kobo

A Decimal Currency Committee, set up in 1962, reported in 1964, and its recommendations took effect on 1 January 1973. The pound disappeared. The naira, equal to ten shillings, became the main unit, and 100 kobo made a naira. The Central Bank issued notes of 50 kobo, ₦1, ₦5 and ₦10, all showing its former headquarters on the Marina in Lagos, with coins from half a kobo upward. The half kobo was struck only that year.

Obafemi Awolowo coined the name naira from the word Nigeria.

Who appears on Nigerian banknotes

The ₦20 note of 11 February 1977 was the first Nigerian note to carry the portrait of a Nigerian: General Murtala Muhammed, head of state until his assassination in 1976. It came out a year to the day after his death. New ₦1, ₦5 and ₦10 notes followed on 2 July 1979, all 151 by 78 millimetres, with portraits of three men declared national heroes on 1 October 1978 and scenes from Nigerian cultural life on the back.

In April 1984 the bank changed the colours of every note except the 50 kobo, to curb currency trafficking. Coins replaced the 50 kobo and ₦1 notes in 1991. The ₦100 arrived in December 1999, the ₦200 in November 2000, the ₦500 in April 2001 and the ₦1,000 in October 2005. The ₦100 carries Obafemi Awolowo on the front and Zuma Rock on the back, and the first prints placed the rock in the Federal Capital Territory, though it stands in Niger State; later prints dropped the caption. The ₦1,000 shows two former governors of the Central Bank, Aliyu Mai-Bornu and Clement Isong.

The Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company does the printing and the striking.

Why the small naira notes are plastic

On 28 February 2007 the bank issued the ₦20 on polymer, redesigned the ₦5, ₦10 and ₦50, and added a ₦2 coin. The polymer ₦20 held up well, so on 30 September 2009 the ₦5, ₦10 and ₦50 moved to polymer too. A polymer ₦50 marked fifty years of independence on 29 September 2010, and a commemorative ₦100 with a QR code on the back followed on 19 December 2014.

What happened when the big notes changed colour

In November 2022 the Central Bank changed the colours of the ₦200, ₦500 and ₦1,000 notes, citing hoarding, a shortage of clean notes and counterfeiting. Too few of the new notes reached circulation, and a cash shortage in January and February 2023 set off street protests. The government said the change would curb vote-buying before the general elections of 2023. Other accounts read it as a push towards the eNaira, the digital naira launched in October 2021. The Supreme Court later struck down the declaration that the old notes had stopped being legal tender, and both designs of each of the three notes remain in circulation.