Nigerians Tag eNaira ‘Most Useless App Of 2021’ As CBN Fails To Fix Problems

The Nigerian Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), known as eNaira, is yet to start fulfilling the purpose for which it was created more than one week after it was launched.

The eNaira, which is Africa’s first central bank digital currency, was unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari on October 25, 2021 at a ceremony held at the State House, Abuja.

The Godwin Emefiele-led CBN had selected Barbados-based Bitt Inc. as its technical partner to launch and implement the digital currency in Nigeria. The CBN had described the company as “the Caribbean’s leading authority on digital currencies”.

But eight days after the app was launched, Nigerians have been unable to use the platform.

THE WHISTLER had previously reported some of the problems many users encountered with the app. The app has continued to receive numerous negative reviews on the Google Play Store.

When our reporter tried to create an account on the app on the launch day, a message that popped up said, “We have encountered a problem with the BVN validation service, please try again later. Service timed out.”

Our reporter encountered a different error message during the second attempt. The app requested a six-digit token sent to the email provided, whereas no token was sent to the email.

The token later came in at about 3am the following day, more than ten hours after the sign-up attempt.

Meanwhile, fresh Google Play reviews of the app are largely negative.

One Abraham said, “Inarguably, this is the most useless app on Play store in 2021. Don’t bother downloading it. It doesn’t work yet. It won’t even allow you set up access. After repeatedly failing to work, it will accuse you of making too many login attempts. CBN should get serious by resetting everything about this app, and relaunch it at a future date. Instead of deliberately trying to disgrace Nigeria, as always. Must everything done by Nigeria’s government be a mess that doesn’t work?”

Mohammad Sani said, “This app does not deserve half a star from me because the app is very bad. The single star I gave is unintentional (it is because you can’t post a review without giving at least a star). You can’t do anything with the app. It keeps telling me to contact customer care after collecting all my information like BVN, account number, email address and phone number. Now, which customer care are we going to contact?”

Another user, Adesegun Olamilekan Odusanya, said he was able to successfully sign up, but when he tried to login, the app said he had used an invalid username and password.

“After which I clicked on login help to reset my password. They said it has been sent to my registered email. I have not seen anything since that day till now. I have requested for the reset and even an email to the support yet no response. When I try to register, I get a response “too many requests on my BVN” Please do something to help me out,” he said.

Another user described the app as a total waste of time and resources, saying the registration was completed successfully and they were then asked to check their email but did not receive any message.

A few users seemed to have experienced similar problems while trying to sign up.

Kunle Amuda said, “I can’t even sign up. It says 6-digit code has been sent to the email address presented but no 6-digit code received. I even clicked on the resend button countless number of times, and it’s still the same. More work needs to be done. Please let’s fix this.”

Ugochukwu Nnanna said, “I have downloaded the app, trying to signup but it is requesting for a six-digit token sent to my email. I have resent the token several times without receiving the token in my mail and cannot continue with the signup as a result.”

Rasheedat Akanmu said, “Downloaded the app but when I tried to sign up with my bank, l never got the six-digit token supposed to have been sent to my email no matter how many times l asked it to resend. Uninstalled it considering other people’s experiences. Wish one thing, just one, can work in this country.”

Other users who signed up successfully said they couldn’t see the advantage of using the eNaira app over their regular bank apps.

Isaac Adeoye said, “The app is nice and everything works just fine. However, what’s the advantage of using this enaira app over using my bank app? Because it appears that I can only send money to other enaira wallets. I can just decide to continue using my bank app. If you will want people to make use of this wallet, then there should be an added value.”

Caleb Segun said, “It’s the same as bank app. Nothing more. It performs the same functions like bank app. At least, there should be something special in the app that will make it different. Just as if you’re having another bank account. Do something new please!”