The Central Bank of Nigeria says that the Rate of counterfeiting of the Naira is less than 1%.
The bank made the assertion following comments of one of its former CBN senior officials who said that 20% of Naira in currency is counterfeit.
“The attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been drawn to certain spurious and grossly uninformed claims suggesting that about 20 per cent of the Naira currency notes in circulation are counterfeited,” a statement signed by its Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor made available to the media
“While we acknowledge that no currency in the world is immune from counterfeiting, we make bold to state that the rate of counterfeiting in Nigeria has been very minimal due to appropriate policies put in place by the Bank” Okorafor said in the statement.
“Indeed, our records at the Bank clearly indicate that the prevalence of counterfeit notes in Nigeria from January to December 2016 was LESS THAN ONE PER CENT (0.0014%) or 14 counterfeit pieces out of one million bank notes.
“In line with our core value of proactivity, we have always endeavored to use strong security features to make it difficult for dishonest persons to counterfeit the currency. In addition to that, we have carried out periodic massive nation-wide enlightenment of Nigerians on easy identification of fake banknotes and the reporting of such.”
The CBN restated its commitment to safeguarding the value of the Naira by ensuring that Naira banknotes are not susceptible to counterfeiting. The bank is also working constantly with relevant security agencies to monitor and check the activities of counterfeiters.
