Former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Professor Charles Soludo said yesterday that jettisoning of coins denomination is a mistake.

Speaking on a Channels television programme monitored in Lagos, Soludo said he was confident that some day, the nation would realize the need to get back to the usage of coins re-denomination since it has become a major medium of exchange in most developed countries.
Re-introduction of coins as the medium of exchange was one of the last projects the former governor was pursuing before the expiration of his term at CBN. “The main reason why people don’t use coins or accept it is because it does not meet one of the principle characteristics of medium of exchange. It must be portable and it must have value. If it has value, then people will carry it. We had the coins of N1, 50kobo which later changed. You needed a trolley to effect any transaction because it’s huge. We realized that but at the same time people travel abroad and have coins all over them,” he said.
Soludo said it was not that Nigerians do not like to use coin but it has no value. “Is not that they don’t like coins, nobody will throw away one pound coins because the one pound coin has got value and that was why we put up the concept of re-denomination,” he said.
He said under the re-denomination of our currencies, CBN under his management planned to have six re-denominated coins. ”We planned to have six re-denomination coins and four notes. If it has value, people will carry it. So, it is work in progress, I’m confident that some day we will get back to re-denomination,” he said.

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