Central bank digital currencies, financial subordination and the quest for infrastructural autonomy: the introduction of the eNaira in Nigeria

Political economists have only recently begun to grapple with the question of how to conceptualise and systematically explain the responses of states in lower-income countries to the rise of digital money. This article connects scholarship on financial infrastructures and international financial subordination to conceptualise the factors that explain the investments of central banks in lower-income countries in the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). My main contention is that limited control of infrastructure is an important dimension of international financial subordination. I illustrate this argument focusing on the case of Nigeria, the second country in the world which launched a CBDC. My analysis suggests that Nigeria introduced her CBDC, the eNaira, to enhance her autonomy in the context of a subordinated position in the global financial and monetary system. Nigerian authorities considered the eNaira as a state-controlled financial infrastructure which they envisaged to reduce the reliance on externally controlled payment infrastructures. As such, this paper contributes to broader debates about how lower-income countries navigate the disruptions associated with FinTech. This includes the questions of how much sovereignty they have in the governance of digital financial infrastructures and how much influence foreign players have over their digital financial infrastructure.