Owó Nigeria: The currency of Nigeria
How to say Money in Yoruba
Welcome back to Naijish! Today’s post is slightly different to the usual as we shall be focusing on a cultural aspect of Nigeria, MONEY.
The word for money in Yoruba is owó. The currency used in Nigeria is a paper or polymer note called the Naira. In the past coins called kobo were commonly used alongside the Naira notes, however, they became a lot less commonly used with time and are now no longer used.
The symbol for Naira is an N with two lines through it ₦ and its code is NGN, currently Nigeria uses the following Naira notes, ₦10, ₦20, ₦50, ₦100, ₦200, ₦500 and ₦1000. This may seem like a lot of money but just to put it into perspective…
£1 = ₦479.31
$1 = ₦389.87
GH₵1 = 67.55
according to Morningstar for Currency and Coinbase for Cryptocurrency on the 27/05/2020.
Therefore, the highest value Naira note, the ₦1000 note, is about equal to £2. Because of this, there have been many talks on whether or not to introduce another Naira note into circulation, the ₦10,000 note.
There have been several people who are for this idea, stating that a ₦10,000 note would reduce the need to carry thick wads of Naira notes everywhere. However, there have been some who are against the idea stating that it could cause high inflation. Comment below, what are your thoughts about Nigeria introducing a ₦10,000 note.
Cost of living
The Naira, of course, cannot be directly compared with the stronger value currencies such as the GBP for example, because the cost of living in Nigeria is a lot lower than it is in the UK.
For example a loaf of bread from Tesco (grocery shop) in England is usually around £1, however, a loaf of bread from Shoprite (a similar style shop) in Nigeria is around ₦350 (£0.70). Adding to this, Shoprite would be considered one of the more expensive food shops in Nigeria, you could even buy bread a lot cheaper, from a small shop down the road.
What would be the best service we could provide you with to help you learn Yoruba?
Please complete the form below to let us know, this is the only way we can truly improve our services!
Great information.