1 Kobo

Nigeria adopted the kobo as its subunit of currency when it decimalized in 1973, abandoning the pre-independence system of pounds, shillings, and pence that had been inherited from British colonial administration. The shift was part of a broader assertion of economic autonomy during the oil-boom years, when federal revenue was expanding rapidly and the government had appetite for institutional reform.

The Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company had only been established in 1963, and domestic coin production in these early years was a point of national policy rather than pure economics.