In 1962 the Federal Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Sam Okotie-Eboh, appointed a Committee on Decimal Currency to advise the Federal Government on whether and how to convert Nigeria's currency from the £sd (pound-shilling-pence) system inherited from the West African Currency Board to a decimal system. The Committee's secretariat was provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria under Governor Aliyu Mai-Bornu, with technical input from the Federal Treasury and the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The Committee reported in 1963. It recommended (i) decimalisation on a 10/100 basis; (ii) the adoption of an entirely new currency unit rather than a "half-pound" or "decimal pound"; and (iii) that the name of the new unit reflect Nigerian identity. Several names were considered — Nigeria's pound, the "naira" (a contraction of "Nigeria"), the "kobo" (Hausa, "to drop") for the minor unit, and proposals from Chief Obafemi Awolowo to use his preferred name "Naira" alongside "Kobo". The Committee recommended Naira and Kobo at a 1:100 ratio, with conversion at £1 = ₦2 to preserve coin denominations.
Implementation was delayed by the political crises of 1962–66, the coups of 1966, and the Civil War. The Federal Commissioner for Finance under General Gowon, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, revived the Committee's recommendations and, by the Decimal Currency Act 1971, authorised the changeover. The Central Bank of Nigeria executed the conversion on 1 January 1973, retiring the Nigerian pound and issuing Naira and Kobo notes and coins designed by the Nigerian Security Printing & Minting Co. (Mint). The 1962 Okotie-Eboh committee report is therefore the originating document of the Naira itself — though Okotie-Eboh, assassinated in the January 1966 coup, did not live to see the currency he commissioned.