The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that it has no plan to redenominate the Naira currency.
In a statement signed by CBN’s director of corporate communications, Dr. Issa AbdulMumin, on Tuesday, the apex bank disowned a text message in circulation suggesting a purported plan to redenominate the Nigeria’s currency.
“The attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria has been drawn to the wide circulation of a text message suggesting that the bank plans to redenominate the country’s legal tender, the Naira with effect from January 2024. We are concerned that this narrative, which we had refuted before now, appears to be gaining traction with several debates on the implication of such a policy for the Nigerian economy.
“We wish to reiterate that the content of this message are misleading. The authors of this message in their mischief modified text from an old policy by a previous CBN governor in 2007 to make it appear recent.
“For the avoidance of doubt, there is currently no plan by the bank to restructure and predominate the naira. Whilst the bank may be considering refunds such are subject to laid down procedures in line with the provisions of the CBN Act, 2007.
“The public is hereby advised to ignore the news report as it is speculative and calculated to cause panic in the polity,” the CBN stated.
LEADERSHIP reports that, in monetary economics, redenomination is the process of changing the face value of banknotes and coins in circulation. It may be done because inflation has made the currency unit so small that only large denominations of the currency are in circulation. In such cases, the name of the currency may change or the original name may be used with a temporary qualifier such as “new”.