The Central Bank of Nigeria under the leadership of Godwin Emefiele issued a directive recently on closure of all accounts involved in crypto-currency for high impact regulatory sanctions. The directive aims at identifying persons/entities transacting in or operating crypto-currency exchanges within their systems and ensure that such account are closed immediately while all bank staff has been told to be on alert to flag down people going against the order.
In the past two days, there has been a high volume of account restrictions and closure which primarily affects a lot of young Nigerians involved in Crypto, Binance, Paxful, Patricia, Luton and many others.
Many account holders involved in Binance peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges have had their accounts closed. Binance P2P is buying and selling Crypto locally and a peer-to- peer exchange.
Is P2P transaction wrong? Why is CBN bent on frustrating young Nigerians into another State Showdown?
Many are of the opinion that the order to flag down accounts of people involved in Crypto currency is a fiat and has no legal process or order to back up this directive. Many account holders affected primarily uses GTB, Kuda, Zenith bank to mention a few.
The action of Emefiele is seen as a way to fight back the youths displaying lot of affluence, enriching themselves through various loopholes and intimidating the elderly ones, who knows?
The Central Bank governor of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele has failed to look at the economic sides by fixing a transaction fee to rake in revenue for the government but with interest to disallow the crypto dealings and embrace e-naira with no profit benefits.
Lot of questions have arisen which are: What will happen to the money of those whose accounts are flagged down and what is the fate of the account users?
One thing to note is that many young people are gradually phasing away from banks due to binance and crypto currencies which are now used for buying and selling. This may be one of the reasons for this directive and may have been a way to save the face of Nigerian banks and the Integrity of CBN in the face of financial malpractice.
As it stands now, it is very evident that Mr. Godwin Emefiele, Central Bank Governor is on rampage to clamp down accounts involved in crypto currencies which is majorly linked to the youths with few exceptions. The same youth without jobs trying to make a living through available opportunities.
The Government still remains in the shadow of its so called-empowerment targeted at giving young people 30,000 naira per month, KEKE NAPEP, Trader moni and schemes that will continue to keep people in penury for a long time.
Before it was ENDSARS, now maybe Emefiele must go. It will be in the best Interest of the CBN governor to have a robust discussion with owners of fintech, Crypto-currency traders/stakeholders, representatives of banks, youths and have a robust town hall meeting to resolve the current impasse before it takes another dimension.
Written by Tosin Adesile(Esq)