Co-founder and vice president of the Nigeria -Malaysia Business Council, Dr. Michael Aderohunmu said that Nigerians always have alternatives when they not able to transact as they should.
The economist said on CityTalks with Reuben Abati that Nigerians need to embrace the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) now as the eNaira, because it is the new norm.
According to him, the idea behind the eNaira is to drive Nigeria cashless economy.
He said, “The world is going towards cashless economy and the objective of that is to make life easy for everybody.”
On the 25th October, 2021, Nigeria became the first African country to launch a digital currency called the eNaira to upend commercial banking in Nigeria.
The digital currency will have the same value as the physical cash we use on a daily basis.
The Central Bank of Nigeria made it clear that the eNaira is not a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, or any other type of cryptocurrency, contrary to popular belief. It is not decentralized and cannot be controlled privately in the same way as cryptocurrencies can.
Dr Aderohunmu is of the view that the eNaira platform is going to be a platform that will drive all transaction, but the challenge is that; “how easy is it going to be for users to access this platform without being frozen or a challenge of bandwidth?”
He noted that the major thing to start with for every country that is going into digital economy; is the availability of bandwidth without interruption.
“As we go by the question, we need to ask is how do we link the advantage of a digital currency into the Nigeria economy itself. Because if you don’t have anything to sell, you are still exposed, the difference here is that it has reduced the pressure on naira compare with what we use to have,” he said.