Central Bank of Nigeria

Snapshot

Established: CBN Act, No. 24 of 1958 · operations commenced 1 July 1959
Current Act: Central Bank of Nigeria Act, 2007 (re-enacted; conferred operational autonomy)
Headquarters: Plot 33, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Way, Central Business District, Abuja
Mandate: Price stability · sole issuer of legal tender · banker to the FGN · regulator & lender of last resort to banks
Governor's tenure: Five years, renewable once (CBN Act 2007, §8)
Sitting Governor: Olayemi Michael Cardoso (sworn in 22 September 2023)

The Bank, in its own line of history

▸1912 — 1959The West African Currency Board

Until 1959 Nigeria had no central bank. Currency in Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and the Gambia was issued by the West African Currency Board, established by the Colonial Office on 6 November 1912 and headquartered in London with a regional office in Lagos. The Board issued the West African Pound at full sterling parity and held its reserves in London gilts; it had no discretion over monetary policy because there was none — money supply was determined by the balance of payments with the United Kingdom.

The push for an indigenous central bank began with the 1953 Fisher Report commissioned by the colonial Government and continued through the 1957 Loynes Report, which finally recommended that the British Government accept the creation of a Nigerian central bank as part of the constitutional progress toward independence.

▸1958The CBN Act

The Central Bank of Nigeria Act, No. 24 of 1958, was passed by the Federal House of Representatives on 17 March 1958 and given the Royal Assent on 17 May 1958. The Bank commenced operations on 1 July 1959 under its first Governor, Roy Pentelow Fenton (a seconded Bank of England official). The Bank's first head office was a leased building on Tinubu Square, Lagos; the purpose-built head office on Marina was commissioned in 1965.

On the day operations began, the CBN issued the Nigerian Pound, replacing the West African Pound at par; the WACB was wound up in 1962.

▸1963First Nigerian Governor

On 25 July 1963, Aliyu Mai-Bornu succeeded Fenton as the first Nigerian Governor of the CBN. From that date forward, every Governor and Deputy-Governor has been Nigerian.

▸1973Decimalisation; the naira

Under the Decimal Currency Act 1971, Nigeria converted to a decimal currency on 1 January 1973. The naira (₦) replaced the Nigerian Pound at ₦2 = ₤1; the kobo (k, 100 = ₦1) replaced shillings and pence. The naira was at the time stronger than the US dollar (₦0.66 to the dollar at the official window).

▸1986SAP, autonomy and the second-tier market

The Structural Adjustment Programme (1986) abolished the fixed exchange-rate window and created the Second-Tier Foreign Exchange Market (SFEM), through which the naira was first floated. The CBN's monetary policy responsibility expanded from currency issue to active management of the exchange rate, interest rates and reserve requirements.

▸1991 & 1999CBN Acts revisited

Decree No. 24 of 1991 (Babangida) consolidated the Bank's supervisory powers over commercial and merchant banks; Decree No. 37 of 1998 and the BOFIA 1999 (Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act) widened the perimeter to include discount houses, finance companies and bureaux de change. Until 2007 the Governor served at the pleasure of the President.

▸2007The CBN Act of operational autonomy

The Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007 (signed 25 May 2007) conferred operational autonomy on the Bank, fixed the Governor's tenure at five years renewable once, statutorily constituted the Monetary Policy Committee (12 members; chaired by the Governor; meets at least four times a year), and required the Governor to defend monetary policy decisions before the National Assembly twice a year. It is the operating charter of the modern Bank.

▸2009 — 2014The Sanusi years; the banking consolidation audit

Lamido Sanusi (Governor, 3 June 2009 – 20 February 2014) commissioned a special audit of the post-consolidation banks in August 2009, found ten banks technically insolvent, sacked the CEOs of eight, and injected ₦620 billion in tier-2 capital. AMCON was created in 2010 to absorb the resulting toxic assets. In February 2014 Sanusi was suspended by President Jonathan after alleging that ~$20bn in NNPC remittances was unaccounted for. The Supreme Court later ruled the suspension lawful but the policy debate it triggered shaped the 2015 election.

▸2015 — 2023The Emefiele decade

Godwin Emefiele (Governor, 4 June 2014 – 9 June 2023) presided over multiple-window exchange-rate regimes, the 2016 and 2020 devaluations, the Anchor Borrowers' Programme, the eNaira launch (2021) and the October 2022 naira redesign. Suspended and arrested by the DSS on 9 June 2023, he was later acquitted of currency-counterfeiting charges in May 2024.

▸2023 — presentCardoso, orthodoxy and rate

Olayemi Cardoso took office on 22 September 2023 with an explicit mandate to restore orthodox monetary policy. Between February 2024 and November 2024 the Monetary Policy Rate was raised from 18.75% to 27.5%, the official and parallel exchange-rate windows were unified, and the CBN ceased its development-finance interventions.

Charts · Monetary policy & the naira

Figure CBN-1

MPR vs inflation, 2006–2024

The rate the CBN sets and the rate Nigerians actually pay. The gap is the negative real interest rate that subsidises borrowers and taxes savers.

Source · CBN Monetary Policy Decisions archive; NBS CPI bulletins.

Figure CBN-2

Naira–dollar official rate by FX regime, 1973–2024

Each label marks the regime in force. The 2023 unification compressed five overlapping windows into one and crystallised a decade of suppressed devaluation.

Source · CBN Annual Reports; CBN FX policy circulars 1986–2024.

Inside the Bank

Sub-archive

The Currency of the Republic →

From cowries and the manilla, through the West African Pound, to the naira and its redesigns. Approval, withdrawal, and what each note could buy — grouped by era.

Sub-archive

Governors of the Central Bank →

Every Governor from Roy Fenton (1959) to the sitting officer — grouped by era, with sourced profiles and tenures.

Methodology

Tier 1 · primary

Courts. Gazettes. National archives.

Tier 2 · corroborating

OCCRP. HRW. BudgIT. TheCable.

Tier 4 · tertiary, flagged

Wikipedia only where primary is pending. Always labelled.