By Tony Obiechina, Abuja

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released a programme of events to commemorate the first anniversary of the launch of Africa’s first Central Bank Digital Currency tagged the eNaira.

The Director, Corporate Communications, Mr Osita Nwanisobi, disclosed this in a statement titled ‘CBN marks first anniversary of eNaira’.

The eNaira was formally launched by the President Muhammadu Buhari on October 25, 2021.

The statement said the implementation of the eNaira had put Nigeria in the global spotlight as one of the pioneers to deploy a Central Bank Digital Currency into live production.

It noted that it had continued to attract the interest of global stakeholders such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, other central banks, and the CBDC community.

The CBN said as part of activities lined up to mark the first anniversary of the eNaira, it would hold a one-day workshop themed ‘Leveraging innovation for inclusive growth and development: The eNaira advantage’ scheduled to take place on Tuesday in Lagos.

It stated that the objectives of the workshop include to “Review the eNaira implementation journey, one year after; To drive further adoption of the eNaira through public engagement; and to facilitate global policy dialogue on the CBDC to promote peer learning and benchmarking.”

The event would be hosted by the Governor, CBN, Mr Godwin Emefiele, while the ministers of Communication and Digital Economy and Humanitarian Affairs would be speakers at the event.

Other key participants at the event include the Chief Executives of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the National Information Technology Development Agency, members of the Bankers’ Committee, the academia, financial services, and telecommunications regulators, merchants, agents, cooperative groups and technical experts, the entertainment industry; among others.

The event would also feature a policy round-table discussion on ‘Effective collaboration for national development (infrastructure, interoperability, regulation)’ and a panel discussion on “eNaira adoption for economic growth’.

“The CBN, therefore, encourages Nigerians to be part of the celebration which shall be streamed live on the bank’s social media channels as well as those dedicated to the eNaira,” the statement added.