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Nigeria's Currency: The meltdown of Naira is getting worse.

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Kenechukwu97
@kenechukwu97
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There are fewer things in life less annoying than knowing that your local currency is rapidly facing a meltdown and no reasonable thing is being done to save it from the crisis. It gets even worse when the ministry of finance and the president of your Central Bank feign ignorance of this meltdown.

I'm a Nigerian and this is a post where I will explore the recurring meltdown Nigeria's Naira has been facing since antiquity. Get ready to have a look at [Nigeria's Naira](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_naira) through the lens of a local lad.

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Nigeria's Currency;

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According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act of 1991, the legal tender we use in Nigeria by is Naira and Kobo. According to this same Act, our currency is in form of paper money and coins.

Even the latest version of this Act which was updated in 2007 still highlights the fact that our currency is in the form of paper money and coins. But, the customary usage and acceptance of money in the country have already driven coins into extinction.

So, if you happen to find yourself in Nigeria tomorrow, moving around with coins won't do you any good. Even the commercial banks within the country will make caricatures of you if you present that on a counter.

With coins being completely unacceptable in customary usage, paper money has been our go-to currency. The denominations of our paper currency are as follows;

  • Five Naira Note
  • Ten Naira Note
  • Twenty Naira Note
  • Fifty Naira Note
  • One Hundred Naira Note
  • Two Hundred Naira Note
  • Five Hundred Naira Note
  • One Thousand Naira Note

The first three denominations mentioned above are almost useless in themselves because it's very hard to see anything that can be purchased with that alone. Maybe a sachet of water or lollipop. That's pretty much the case.

There has also been an interesting discussion about giving the Central Bank approval to print Five Thousand Naira Notes. The argument surrounding this is quite intense and good points are being made on both sides of the argument. I'm all eyes and ears in anticipation of what our Central Bank will do in this regard.

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Do you notice any problem with Nigeria's Currency so far?

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I like to think that the problem with our currency is crystal clear... Audible to the deaf and visible to the blind.

The currency is in shambles because it keeps losing its purchasing power and the recurring inflationary pressure we are facing is not helping things at all. It's sad how the exchange rate we get for our currency on the CBN website is a pure lie in itself.

Screenshot taken from [CBN website](https://www.cbn.gov.ng/rates/exchratebycurrency.asp)

I can tell you for a fact that there is nowhere in Nigeria you can buy USD for that price. Not even in Banks.

When all the business lads in Nigeria who run import businesses end up spending so much Naira to get the dollar required to restock, this automatically leads to a ludicrous increase in the selling price of goods.

As they say, money is the life wire of any economy. When the currency continues to lose value like it's been doing over here, we can only imagine the level of economic crisis we will be facing in the future. We are already feeling it, but what is to come will be in the same proportion with the biblical crisis recorded in the old testament.

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In Conclusion;

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I started writing this piece to dig deep into the level of imbalance Nigeria's Naira have in comparison to the likes of USD or CAD, but because most of those that will be reading this are not Nigerians per se, I decided to give you a basic intel about our Currency.

The currency is in all sorts of mess and it's getting worse. I know this because I pay good attention to Nigeria's economy and so many people who are supposed to make policies that will help save our currency are still in denial of the problem we are facing.

In other words, all things being equal, the meltdown of our currency will only get worse.

I plan to dig deeper into this topic sometime in the future. Look forward to more posts about Nigeria's Naira.

Thanks For Not Missing Any Full-stop Or Comma.

Thumbnail Image from [pexels.](https://www.pexels.com/photo/currency-in-nigeria-5671470/) Screenshot taken from [CBN website.](https://www.cbn.gov.ng/rates/exchratebycurrency.asp)

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