Their reactions followed a report by Quartus Economics urging the Central Bank of Nigeria to introduce ₦10,000 and ₦20,000 notes to restore the naira’s portability and reduce the cost of cash transactions. The report, titled “Is Africa’s Eagle Stuck or Soaring Back to Life?”, claimed that the ₦1,000 note, Nigeria’s highest denomination, had become “practically obsolete in terms of purchasing power.”
In separate interviews, OPS and labour groups dismissed the proposal as “ill-timed, elitist, and economically risky.” The National Vice President of the Nigerian Association of Small-Scale Industrialists, Segun Kuti-George, said that introducing a ₦20,000 currency note would only favour the rich and contradict the government’s digital economy agenda.
Kuti-George stated, “Such a policy could worsen inflationary pressures. The mere consideration of these denominations reflects underlying inflationary trends, and their introduction would likely escalate them further. If at all necessary, a ₦2,000 note could suffice, but anything beyond that is neither practical nor economically sound for our current realities.”
He cautioned that the proposal appeared to benefit the wealthy, enabling them to stockpile large sums of cash in private vaults with greater ease. “At a time when the nation is deliberately encouraging reduced cash transactions and promoting digital payment systems, issuing higher denominations would only take us backwards,” he stressed.
Similarly, the Director-General of the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, Eke Ubiji, warned that introducing higher denominations could plunge the economy into a deeper crisis. “It’s a very bogus thought. The planners of that idea should think properly before they launch it; otherwise, they will put the economy into a deeper crisis,” Ubiji said.
The President of the Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria, Dr Femi Egbesola, described the call for a higher currency as counterproductive, saying it would derail the country’s move toward a cashless economy. “For me, introducing a higher currency does not help Nigeria’s economy. Globally, the world is pushing for digital means of payment through different platforms and reducing the use of hard cash,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr Muda Yusuf, said the issue had both merits and risks but cautioned against introducing excessively high denominations. He proposed a moderate approach, suggesting that a N5,000 note could balance the need for efficiency with economic prudence.
The Nigeria Labour Congress dismissed the idea as a recycled economic mistake. The NLC Assistant Secretary-General, Chris Onyeka, said, “I’ve seen this kind of move before, and honestly, it’s nothing new. If they like, let them go ahead and turn the economy upside down; at the end of the day, we’ll all swim in the same troubled waters.”
In 2012, the Central Bank of Nigeria had announced plans to introduce a ₦5,000 note, but the plan was suspended following public backlash. Analysts at Quartus Economics argued that had the ₦5,000 note been introduced in 2012, it would now be equivalent to ₦50,000 in value, reflecting a 94 per cent decline in the naira’s purchasing power over two decades.
Business groups and labour maintain that introducing ₦10,000 or ₦20,000 notes would be a “step backwards” that risks deepening Nigeria’s inflationary woes and undermining public confidence in the currency.