The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced a calendar of events that will take place tomorrow October 25, 2022, as it marks the first anniversary of the debut of “eNaira” which was officially introduced by President Muhammadu Buhari in the State House, Aso Villa, on Monday, October 25, 2021.
To commemorate the country’s major milestone as it embraced the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and its underlying technology, it will hold a one-day workshop themed “Leveraging Innovation for Inclusive Growth and Development: The eNaira Advantage.” This is to review the eNaira implementation journey, its further adoption through public engagement, and to facilitate global policy dialogue on CBDC to promote peer learning
and benchmarking.
This is according to a press release by the Central Bank of Nigeria, signed by Osita Nwanisobi, Director of Corporate Communications, and available on its official website.
Launching the eNaira on October 25, 2021, was a major development that reaffirmed the place of Nigeria as the giant of Africa and set the stage for adopting CBDCs in the continent.
According to the CBN, Nigeria has gained recognition as one of the forerunners in the deployment of a CBDC into live production thanks to the introduction of the eNaira. International stakeholders like the IMF, World Bank, other Central Banks, and the CBDC community have continued to show interest in this.
The one-day workshop scheduled to take place tomorrow, Tuesday, October 25, 2022, at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos is only a part of the activities lined up to mark the first anniversary of the eNaira.
The event which will be hosted by the Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, will also feature other speakers including the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy and Minister of Humanitarian Affairs.
According to the press release, other key participants at the event include the Chief Executives of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), members of the Bankers’ Committee, the academia, financial services, and telecommunications regulators, merchants, agents, cooperative groups and technical experts, the entertainment industry; amongst others.
A panel discussion on “eNaira Adoption for Economic Growth” and a policy round-table discussion on “Effective Collaboration for National Development (Infrastructure, Interoperability, Regulation)” will also be part of the event. As a result, the CBN invites Nigerians to participate in the festivities, which will be broadcast live on the bank’s and the eNaira’s social media channels.
