As Nigerians await the launch of the country’s first-ever digital currency dubbed the eNaira, which was scheduled to be unveiled tomorrow, 1st of October, 2021, the country’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced today, Thursday, September 30th, 2021, that the planned launch of the eNaira will no longer hold tomorrow, as a new date will be announced in due course.
The launch of the nation eNaira has generated a lot of excitement among the citizens who were all looking forward to October 1 as they were eager to get on board and enjoy the new initiative by the CBN. The postponement will definitely come as a huge disappointment as they have to wait for a later date which is yet to be announced by the apex bank.
In the statement released by the CBN and was signed by the Director of Communications, Osita Nwasinobi, The apex bank explained that although they thought that merging the launch of the new digital currency with the 61st Independence Day celebration of Nigeria would be a perfect climax, they went back on that decision “in deference to the mood of national rededication to the collective dream of One Nigeria.”
The statement titled, “CBN defers eNaira launch to mark Independence Anniversary”, read in part:
“Ahead of the anticipated launch of Nigeria’s Central Bank Digital Currency, known as eNaira, the Spokesman of the Central bank of Nigeria, Mr. Osita Nwanisobi, says the planned unveiling on October 1, 2021, has now been deferred due to other key activities lined up to commemorate the country’s 61st Independence Anniversary.”
While assuring that there was no cause for alarm, Nwasinobi said the CBN and other partners were working round the clock to ensure a seamless process that will be for the overall benefit of the customer, particularly those in the rural areas and the unbanked population.
However, Nairametics has gathered that the unexpected traffic to the eNaira website forced the management of the CBN to go back to the drawing board as the surge was unexpected. According to the economic website,
“An unanticipated surge in visits on the website of the Central Bank’s eNaira initiative has led to the sudden postponement of the launch of the apex bank’s digital currency dubbed “eNaira.” The surge led to a recalibration of the number of potential users, which the bank now believes could be ten times more than earlier expected soon after the launch. The bank, therefore, decided to postpone the launch in order to recheck and retest the robustness, safety, scalability and security of the eNaira system.
“The eNaira website recorded about 480,000 hits the first day it went live. The visits grew to over 1.7 million the next day and has averaged over 2.8 million hits daily since then. Apart from attracting hits, the website has also recorded a surge in usage with the time spent on the site generating content of over 80 GB daily. Nairametrics understands this required that the apex bank conduct another stress test on its systems to ensure it is capable of withstanding a further surge in traffic when they go live.
“The apex bank seems to have learnt from the botched launch of Obamacare which was coincidentally launched on the 1st of October 2013. Back then, the website was unable to consistently handle 500 users at once in the testing phase, and tests failed with 2,000 users over a three-day period, according to a Reuters report at the time. Engineers conducted performance tests just before launch and the results pointed to capacity issues that could affect a smooth experience on the launch date. Yet they proceeded, embarrassing President Obama.
“To sidestep a similar fate, Nigeria’s central bank decided to postpone the launch until they have assurances that their system has the right capacity to withstand a surge in visits.”
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