The Inside Story Of How Nigeria’s eNaira Digital Currency Vanished For 24 Hours

It’s no news that Nigeria rolled out a national digital currency - the eNaira - a week ago, with all the trappings of a watershed moment - a first on the continent. And for a (very) short while, it all seemed to be going according to plan. Until it didn’t.

Barely 48 hours after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and various local deposit money banks (DMBs) officially began to invite the public to start using the eNaira platform, locals suddenly found that they couldn’t - because the platform seemingly vanished, for a full 24 hours. What went wrong? Quite a lot, apparently.

“The platform was taken down because it needed to undergo some necessary maintenance,” a CBN spokesperson told WeeTracker. “I can’t speak to the technicalities but the platform needed some fixes,” the spokesperson added in a rather coy manner.