Brief History of the Naira

Brief History of the Naira

The   naira  note  was i ntroduced on  the 1st   of Jan. 1973,  repl acing the Britis h Pound at two Naira to a Pound.  This  made Nigeria the last State to abandon the British currency system. The currency denominations  released by  the CBN were 50kobo, 1, 5, 10 a nd 20 naira  and coins of  ½, 1,5,10 and 25kobo.

On  the 11th  February, 1977 a new bank note  denomination of the value  of  20 na ira  was issued.Then N20 note  was t he highest denomination and also  the 1s t currency to bear the portrait of a Ni gerian citizen – the late Head of state, General Murtala Muhammed.

On  the 2nd   of July,  1979,  new currency notes  of three  denominations  – N1,N5 and N10 were introduced

In 1991,  bot h the 50k and N1 notes  were coined.

In December 1999,  November  2000,  Apr il 2001 and October 2005,  N100,N200, N500 and  N1000 were introduced res pectivel y.

On  the 28th   of February 2007,  N50,N20,N10,N5,N1,50k were rei ssued with a new design, while a new  denomination N2 coin was introduced.