Three out of four Nigerians are choosing foreign currencies and cryptocurrencies over the naira as their preferred means to store monetary value, shows findings of a local survey conducted after the nation’s presidential election on Feb. 25.

The study, conducted recently by Versus Africa’s data analytics platform, shows that about 33% of the respondents picked the US dollar, while 18.6% chose the British Pound Sterling (GBP).

Those who want to hold their money in crypto form take a 15% chunk. Euro (EUR) gets a 8% slice but 25.7% of users still prefer the naira, according to the survey with respondents totaling nearly 500 residing in Nigeria.

Versus Africa, co-founded by Kemdi Ebi, is a market research platform that specializes in helping businesses in Africa get real-time trends about markets in the continent. The continent’s telecom giants like MTN Nigeria and Kenya’s Safaricom,and UK’s Arsenal Football Club work closely with Versus.

The startup has also partnered with McKinsey & Co. and Ogilvy to support its African clients, according to Ebi.

Naira and president-elect Bola Tinubu

(Kemdi Ebi, co-founder and CEO of Versus, spoke in an interview in Lagos / Photo by Nodo News)

Nigeria still is still struggling to calm its cash crisis, combat deflation, and restore the value of the naira, with Versus Africa’s survey indicating that that 53% of the respondents were not convinced that president-elect Bola Tinubu could help strengthen the naira.

“Naira will probably remain in its current levels or even potentially worse especially with recent news of the opposition parties contesting the (election) results with the Nigerian Supreme Court,” Ebi told Nodo News. “The longer the uncertainty, the higher the likelihood of decreased confidence in investments from both local and international investors.”

Since former president Muhammadu Buhari’s election in 2015, Nigeria’s economy has been on a downward spiral, with the naira losing over 300% of its value against the US dollar in the past eight years.

It remains to be seen how the fiat currency will perform under the new administration, but one thing is clear: more Nigerians are putting their money into crypto to guard their savings against the highly volatile naira.

“The president-elect and his team must act swiftly to restore confidence back into the economy,” Ebi said.