By Daniel Adaji
Nigeria has never lacked economic ambition. What it has lacked is the discipline to see those ambitions through. Over the past two decades, successive governments have rolled out headline-grabbing economic initiatives, each unveiled with urgency, patriotic rhetoric and grand expectations, only for many to fade quietly into policy footnotes. The eNaira, Nigeria’s central bank digital currency, now sits uncomfortably in that long line of unfinished economic experiments.
Developed by the fintech company, Bitt, based in the Carribeans, it was launched on October 25, 2021, with fanfare. The digital currency was presented as a bold leap into the future: an initiative that would deepen financial inclusion, reduce transaction costs, improve monetary policy transmission and modernise Nigeria’s payment system.
At the launch, the then Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Godwin Emefiele, said about 500 million eNaira ($1.21 million) had already been minted. As of August 2023, the volume of eNaira in circulation was N9.78 billion, according to the CBN. This rose to N13.98 billion by 2023’s end. In May 2023, the IMF disclosed “that 98.5 per cent of eNaira wallets are inactive and the average value of transactions was 923 million naira per week.”
Nearly four years on, it has struggled to move beyond novelty. Adoption remains weak, everyday utility is limited, and public confidence is thin. The problem is not the idea itself, but the environment into which it was introduced, an economy already bruised by repeated policy failures.
Nigeria’s flirtation with a cashless economy predates the eNaira. The cashless policy, formally introduced around 2011 and piloted in Lagos in 2012 under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, was meant to reduce the dominance of cash, curb corruption and modernise payments. While electronic banking expanded, cash never lost its grip. Infrastructure gaps, unreliable networks, low digital literacy and the sheer size of the informal economy ensured that cash remained king. The policy neither died nor succeeded; it simply drifted.
Under the Muhammadu Buhari administration, economic intervention became more aggressive and more centralised, particularly through the Central Bank of Nigeria. The Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), launched in 2015, was designed to link smallholder farmers with large-scale processors, boost local food production and reduce import dependence. In its early years, the programme recorded visible gains in rice and other staples. But over time, repayment failures, politicisation, weak monitoring and insecurity in farming regions eroded its effectiveness. Billions of naira were disbursed, yet food inflation continued to rise, exposing the limits of intervention without structural reform.
NIRSAL – the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, followed a similar trajectory. Conceived as a technical and financial bridge between banks and agriculture, it was meant to de-risk lending to farmers. Over time, however, it became opaque to the public and marginal in impact. For many small farmers, access to credit remained elusive, while commercial banks continued to treat agriculture as a peripheral risk.
Social intervention programmes have fared no better. The Conditional Cash Transfer scheme and other components of the National Social Investment Programme, launched from 2016, were intended to cushion poverty and stimulate grassroots demand. Millions were reportedly enrolled, but persistent complaints about poor targeting, irregular payments and weak transparency undermined public trust. In the absence of credible data systems and independent oversight, the programmes became politically vulnerable and economically shallow.
In August 2025, a press release by the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation stated “in the effort to empower vulnerable persons and mitigate Poverty in the country, the Federal government is to disburse N54, 911, 850 to 2,196,474 households in August 2025 through the National Social Investment Programme Agency under the National Conditional Cash Transfer Programme. However, Nigerian have raised alarm over the alleged misappropriation of the fund, asking ‘who are the beneficiaries of these transfers?’
Then came the naira redesign of 2022, perhaps the most damaging policy experiment of recent times. Introduced abruptly under the guise of fighting currency hoarding and accelerating the cashless transition, it instead triggered a nationwide cash crisis. Businesses stalled, informal trade seized up, and trust in the monetary authorities plummeted. Rather than push Nigerians smoothly towards digital payments, the episode hardened resistance and exposed the fragility of Nigeria’s financial plumbing.
Further reactions to the cashless policy were the continued hoarding of cash by Nigerians. As of October 2025, cash held outside the banking sector, climbed to N4.646tn from N4.465tn in September, according to latest and credit statistics released by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
It was into this context that the eNaira was introduced. Asking citizens to embrace a central bank digital currency requires trust, trust in institutions, policy consistency and technical competence. Nigeria, unfortunately, offered the opposite signal. Many Nigerians saw the eNaira not as a tool of empowerment but as another top-down experiment disconnected from daily economic realities. Without compelling incentives, seamless integration into existing platforms, or reliable digital infrastructure nationwide, the eNaira struggled to answer a basic question: why should the average Nigerian use it?
The deeper issue is systemic. Nigeria’s economic management culture favours announcements over execution. Policies are launched before institutions are ready, scaled before pilots are tested, and abandoned before lessons are learned. Each new administration prefers novelty to continuity, while agencies operate in silos with little accountability. Technology is often treated as a shortcut rather than a complement to structural reform.
The tragedy is that many of these ideas are not inherently flawed. Digital currencies, targeted cash transfers, agricultural credit guarantees and cashless payments have worked elsewhere. What Nigeria lacks is policy patience, credible data, institutional memory and respect for sequencing. You cannot digitise trust. You cannot innovate your way out of weak governance.
If the eNaira is to avoid becoming another entry in Nigeria’s catalogue of abandoned economic projects, it must be repositioned, not as a symbol of modernity, but as a practical tool embedded in a broader reform agenda. That means fixing payment infrastructure, rebuilding confidence in monetary policy, strengthening data systems and, above all, proving that government programmes can endure beyond press releases.
Nigeria does not suffer from an absence of ideas. It suffers from an excess of unfinished ones. Until that changes, the eNaira will remain less a revolution and more a reminder.
