On his inauguration day, 29 May 2023, President Bola Tinubu declared "fuel subsidy is gone." Within hours petrol prices roughly tripled. In June 2023 the CBN unified the multiple exchange-rate windows and effectively floated the naira; it slid from about ₦465/US$ to above ₦1,500/US$ by 2024. Headline inflation crossed 33% year-on-year in 2024 — a multi-decade high. NELFUND (the student-loan scheme) launched 2024 to cushion tertiary access. The cost-of-living crisis became the dominant political fact of the period.
Figure 1
Headline inflation, 2015–2025 (% year-on-year)
The June 2023 subsidy removal and naira float pushed inflation to a 28-year high of 34.2% by mid-2024.
Source: NBS Consumer Price Index monthly reports 2015–2025.
The money itself
Archival illustrations commissioned for this archive — format, palette and motif of each issue, not a photograph or facsimile.
12 October 2005
₦1,000
Aliyu Mai-Bornu and Clement Isong — the first two Nigerian Governors of the Central Bank — on the obverse.
What it bought
₦1,000 in 2005 filled a car's tank with 15 litres to spare.
Worth today
₦1,000 of 2005 ≈ ₦15,800 in 2026 money. It remains the largest note in circulation.