Core Focus: The trajectory of Nigeria’s eNaira from initial retail underperformance to its repositioning as a programmable payment rail for government disbursements, and the lessons learned from the first African CBDC launch.

In-Depth Notes:
When Nigeria became the first African nation to launch a central bank digital currency in 2021, the initial rollout focused heavily on retail adoption. It naturally struggled to gain a foothold against an already robust, low-friction mobile money ecosystem, processing a modest ₦22 billion ($16.02 million) across its wallets . One year after the launch, less than 0.5% of the population had used it; the number of wallets downloaded was 860,000 but an estimated 98% were deemed inactive . Following the severe cash shortage encouraged by the Nigerian government in 2022, with limitations on cash withdrawals, the volume of retail transactions reportedly rose to an estimated USD 48 billion by July 2023 .

The Repositioning Strategy:
The CBN’s PSV 2028 roadmap changes tack completely. Instead of fighting for retail market share, the CBN is integrating the eNaira directly into the machinery of government . The digital currency is being repositioned as the foundational rail for public-sector disbursements, including civil servants’ salaries, pensions, and social welfare programmes. The proposal suggests that government salaries, pensions, conditional cash transfers and other public-sector disbursements could in future be channelled through the eNaira platform as part of efforts to accelerate adoption and improve payment efficiency .

Addressing Barriers to Adoption:
The PSV 2028 document acknowledges that despite recording millions of wallet registrations and transactions worth about ₦22 billion, the eNaira had yet to achieve widespread use in everyday economic activities . The identified challenges include: limited merchant adoption, weak integration with banking and fintech applications, and the absence of live cross-border CBDC payment corridors . To address these challenges, the CBN proposes repositioning the eNaira for government payments, remittances and trade settlements while opening application programming interfaces for fintech integration .

The Stablecoin Complement:
Alongside the repositioned eNaira, Nigeria is also building a regulated stablecoin framework. Between mid-2024 and mid-2025, Nigeria recorded an astonishing USD 92.1 billion in crypto-asset value, with stablecoins driving the bulk of that activity . Stablecoins have essentially become an unofficial parallel rail for remittances, freelance compensation, and corporate treasury management. The CBN’s PSV 2028 proposes a rigorous licensing regime for fiat-collateralised stablecoins, mandating 100% high-quality reserve requirements, and explicitly targets reducing the cost of international remittances from the current Sub-Saharan average of 8.78% down to a ceiling of 5% .

Lessons from the eNaira:
Pilots such as Nigeria’s eNaira highlight that technical reliability, merchant integration, and user experience are as critical as policy goals . The initial underperformance demonstrates that retail adoption cannot be mandated; it must be earned through clear value propositions. The repositioning toward government disbursements represents a pragmatic recognition that the CBDC’s comparative advantage lies in programmability and direct government-to-person payments rather than competing head-on with established retail payment platforms.

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