What does the Nigerian currency redenomination entail? Redenomination is by knocking out or dropping two zeros from the currency or moving two decimal places to the left which will consequently revive coins back to circulation as it occurred in Ghana in 2007 with four zeros dropped and in Turkey in 2005 as six zeros shed while the name of the Nigerian currency will remain the Naira and Kobo. The process will make Nigerian currency reference money for Africa with sound official exchange rates around N7.75 to $1 and N9.76 to £1. During the transition period, the existing naira will be referred to as the “Old Naira”, and the new one to be called the “New Naira”. After the transition period, the word “new” may be removed, and all the Kobo in coins and all the Naira in notes/coins. In the process, higher denominations like N2000, N5000, and N10,000 notes must be introduced to circulation and by redenomination, will be converted to N20, N50, and highest N100 new Naira notes respectively. Likewise the existing notes of N1000, N500, N200, and N100 notes will be redenominated to N10, N5, N2, and N1 new Naira respectively while direct coinage of N50, N20, N10 and N5 polymer notes will automatically become 50 kobo, 20 kobo, 10 kobo and 5 kobo coins including new ½, 1, and 2 kobo coins. This recalibration will kick-start President Bola Tinubu’s overall economic and monetary reforms vis-à-vis new monetary transactions, and exchange rate, akin to formulating a productive economy and broad-based export capacity, in a reminiscence of the 1980s when Nigeria was a productive and heavy exporting country. Hard economic decisions stimulate transformation, all-inclusive, overlapping generation growth. During 2023 electioneering campaign in Minna, Niger State former Governor Sanni Bello, like other Nigerians urged President Tinubu to transform Nigeria as he did Lagos when he was Governor of the state. With high hope and all eyes on Mr. President, he will therefore need to take currency restructuring as a matter of urgency. Redenomination of currency is a tough decision that can only be taken in a way similar to petroleum subsidy removal. This is only achievable by a futuristic and world-class economy-concerned leader like President Tinubu. The two-step – petroleum subsidy removal and the proposed currency recalibration from Tinubunomics will earn the country a strong economic footing among other short-run-pain-long-run-gain policies. If Nigeria under President Tinubu fails to take tough decisions on subsidy removal cum currency recalibration at this crucial and critical time, it will take an endless long shot before Nigeria can get it right. Strong institutions make a developed country. Mr. President thus needs to re-institutionalize our weakened institutions and de-institutionalize failed ones to measure up to global standards. First, the CBN still needs to redenominate currency to fundamentally call back coins to circulation. In a developed circulation, every currency has a pair of notes and coins. Second, the apex bank also needs to redenominate to bring back Kobo because every currency has major and minor denominations, such as Naira and Kobo in the Nigeria case. My answer-seeking questions from the above two points are: Where are the Nigerian coins? What constituted coin depletion? Where are the Kobo currencies? The sweet memories of gold and silver coins (in Naira and kobo) which my parents used to give me as pocket money while I was in Ansar-Ud-Deen primary school (now ADS 1 and 2), Modeke, Igboho, Oyo State in the 1980s through Igboho-More Community Grammar School to Irepo Grammar School, Igboho in the 1990s, were no longer in circulation. To my dismay, I expended coins during my trips to the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates, and not too long in Cyprus and Turkey, among other countries operating notes and coins on the world stage. All nations, both developed and developing settle transactions with notes and coins in their respective circulations with varying ratios of dominance, say 90:10% or 95:5% respectively while Nigeria operates on a 100:0% notes-coin ratio in a mono-circulation. To achieve the currency restructuring and coins call-back, the administration of President Bola Tinubu, Governors’ Forum in conjunction with the National Assembly nexus need to take the bull by the horns to redenominate the currency by January 1, 2024, when Nigeria will usher in new year new monies. The proposed currency recalibration will earn the new administration a strong currency footing for economic reform. The suggested period will give enough time and space to educate Nigerians especially the not-too-learned, old, and rural dwellers on currency restructuring and redenomination. In 2007, the then CBN Governor, Professor Charles Soludo stated at a Bankers’ Committee meeting in Lagos that: ‘‘…. we intend to restructure the entire currency by dropping two zeroes or moving two decimal points to the left from the currency, and issuing more coin denominations. This would entail a total currency exchange and phasing-out of all the existing denominations from August 1, 2008. Effectively, at the current exchange rate, this policy would mean that the Naira/US dollar exchange rate would be around N1.25 to US$1 then. All Naira assets, prices, and contracts will be re-denominated by dropping two zeroes or two decimal points to the left with effect from this date’’. It was either the presidency of Late Umar Yar’Adua in 2007 didn’t get the redenomination attempt right with Soludo or Soludo was not convincive enough or the instilled phobia of the millionaires and billionaires would be relegated to thousandnaires and millionaires respectively or a mix of the trio not knowing fully well that new values of their money would remain the same as the old ones. Thanks to time, the former CBN Governor Soludo who was one of the brain boxes of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s successful administration and is now Anambra State Governor has much to tell Nigerians about his redenomination proposal in 2007 and open up to the nation the stumbling blocks he then encountered which will guide President Bola Tinubu on currency redesigning and redenomination. The query on coins and kobo’s disappearance propelled me to publish some piece on the quest for the return of the Nigerian coins to circulation in national dailies – Nigerian Tribune, November 14, 2022, The Nation, March 16, 2014, Daily Independent, March 5, 2014, p. 31-32 and the Nigerian Tribune, March 3, 2014, p. 20, all, after eight years of no-action, still begging for answers from the appropriate quarters precisely the Federal Government, Ministry of Finance and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). So, learning about the CBN’s failure in currency redenomination by the last three successive administrations of YarAdua, Jonathan, and Buhari, I am still poised to re-echo the crusade to President Bola Tinubu, before it is too late. Given the above, it is evident that the Nigerian currency’s redenomination overanks and overshadows the redesigned currency by the former CBN Governor. For Nigeria’s currency to align with top global currencies and to redeem coins from pendulous existence and perpetual extinction, I would like to, as I convinced former Presidents Goodluck Jonathan in 2014 and Muhammadu Buhari in 2022, advise President Bola Tinubu to devise currency restructuring to meet up with the world currencies standard and return the Nigerian precious and prestigious metallic monies to circulation.
