Faces to adorn the currency

One reason I can think of for having individuals grace our currency is to remember and celebrate the achievements these people brought to the country, but wtf did the first two governors of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) do for their faces to be on the highest naira denomination; the one thousand naira note? I mean, the value you brought to the country should be reflected by the value of the currency your face is on, so maybe these CBN governors should be on the 5 naira note or none at all? 😅

Speaking of the 5 naira note, Tafewa Balewa is pretty much forgotten at this point because of how useless that note is these days, when last did you even see one? We have other prominent Nigerians gracing other notes like Azikiwe, Awolowo, and Ahmed Bello, but then again we have the likes of Murtala Mohammed, what did he even do? OK fine, he helped to start the transition of moving from military to civilian rule, but Obasanjo finished it. Anyway, here are the individuals I feel we should have their faces on the Nigerian currency, starting with the most important.

Umaru Yar'Adua

Whenever I think about the best times of my life in this country, Yaradua immediately comes to mind. Granted, I was still quite young when he started ruling (I was about to finish primary school then) but I still remember a lot of his achievements. How many of you still remember VISION2020? They advertised this a lot on TV back then and talked about Yaradua's goals and I started looking forward to the year 2020.

Till today, Yaradua remains the best president Nigeria ever had as every other person that came after seems to be worse than the previous. Security was very good during his tenure, as I remember how he solved the militancy issue of the Niger Delta by introducing the amnesty program. That region is still benefitting from the peace that this amnesty program brought years after it was introduced.

Should I also talk about how our economy was very strong back then? Yaradua came up with a lot of policies that helped to strengthen the economy and also touched other key areas like power and energy, food security, Healthcare, infrastructure, and education. Sadly, he died before he could actualize some of his goals but his vice; Goodluck Jonathan took over and was equally a good president. Up to me, I will put both their faces on the 1000 naira note.

Dora Akunyili

If you ask me to name some very powerful women in Nigeria, Dora will be one of the names to pop into my brain (even though she's dead). I found out about her back in primary school and since then, I loved her. Dora actually made me took interest in the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and their activities, I didn't even know much about NAFDAC before she became the Director-General.

She totally reformed NAFDAC and improved its public image. Counterfeit drugs were kept under control when Dora was in charge but what do we have today? We see dangerous substances having NAFDAC Numbers, how did that even happen? Dora won a lot of international awards for her dedication to public health and safety. Pharmaceutical products and food items were checked to make sure they met quality standards before being released to the public. Honestly, NAFDAC died with Dora.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Another powerful woman that comes to mind right after Dora Akunyili is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; damn, even her name sounds powerful 😅. In fact, she has been recognized as one of the top 3 most powerful women in Africa by Forbes and also one of the 50 greatest world leaders, as well as several other recognitions and awards. She was a former finance minister of Nigeria at 2 different times and I have to tell you; this woman is a very intelligent economist!

One major achievement of Ngozi I remember quite well was helping to wipe out a huge debt Nigeria owed. I googled it and the amount is $30 billion! Just imagine how the conversation went; "hey, remember that $30 billion you owed us? Yeah, you can forget about it" just like that! That's the power of this powerful woman. Nigeria's economy was at its strongest when she was the finance minister because of the good policies she introduced.

Right now, she's currently the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, she's both the first woman and the first African to hold this position! The first time I read about it in 2021, I was just smiling from ear to ear as if she's my mother, I was just very happy with the records she's breaking around the world. Up to me, I will put her and Dora Akunyili's faces on the 20 naira note and remove Murtala Mohammed 😅 they truly deserve it.

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