Nigerian citizens protesting against digital & CBDC payments amid demonetization

The citizens of Nigeria took to the streets to oppose the e-Naira and forced the central bank to increase the circulation of the new physical traditional form of the currency as soon as possible.

Nigeria is among the top countries, which showed its dominance in the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) development race. In Oct 2021, Nigerian Central Bank successfully launched its CBDC, or say e-Naira, following several controversies among the Nigerian fintech companies.

Recently many citizens of this country gathered to protest against the Nigerian Central Bank & Government. According to these protestors, the bank is continuously decreasing the cash supply and forcing citizens to adopt CBDC & digital payments. In short, the Nigerian CBDC is facing opposition from the citizens.

Just a few months ago, Nigerian Central Bank (CBN) reported that CBDC adoption over the last year was only 0.5%, obviously very bad news for the renewed digital payment. 

Few people claimed that to force the citizens to adopt digital payments & CBDC and make the country’s economy cashless, CBN started to reduce cash circulation. 

The majority of the reputed media sources confirmed that the Nigerian government decided to redesign its currency & also announced about its decision in Oct 2022 and few media reports noted that the decision by the Nigerian government was a very bad move and now the situation is getting worse. Nigerian Banks stopped accepting old currency since 31 Jan 2023. 

In the present time, the majority of commercial banks are facing shortage of cash and also citizens are waiting to get a newly designed currency but they are not in the mood to go with digital payment:

The country’s Central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele said:

“The destination, as far as I am concerned, is to achieve a 100% cashless economy in Nigeria.”

Few media reports noted that citizens are claiming that not all people can access digital forms of money and also some big service providers are not in the mood to accept digital payment. An example of this case can be seen in a tweet, where a fuel station refused to accept digital payment.

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