Binance, Aboki FX Not Responsible For Nigeria’s Problems – Nigerians Tell FG, CBN

Nigerians have taken to their social media accounts to criticize the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria for the crackdown on Binance and other cryptocurrency operators, similar to the action taken against Aboki FX.

The criticism caused Aboki FX to trend on Twitter for hours on Thursday, as Nigerians decried the clampdown on Binance.

This is coming following the decision of the Nigerian authorities to detain two senior executives at Binance as it cracks down on cryptocurrency exchanges.

The executives flew to Nigeria following the country’s decision to ban several cryptocurrency trading websites last week but were detained by the office of the country’s national security adviser (NSA) and their passports seized.

Recently, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr Olayemi Cardoso said nothing less than $26 billion was moved by unknown sources through Binance Nigeria in one year.

Cardoso made this known to journalists after the committee’s meeting at the CBN headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday.

Binance is an online exchange where users can trade cryptocurrencies.

This has made netizens recall how former CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele clamped down on ABoki FX in 2021, blaming it for the economy’s flaws.

In 2021, Eemefiele blamed the owner of Aboki FX, an online platform that gathers and displays parallel market rates in Nigeria, and stopped the operations of the website in the country.

Reacting to all of these issues, Nigerians said the federal government has failed to make the country a manufacturing economy which has plunged the citizens into current hardship.

Here are some of the reactions on X:

@FinPlanKaluAja1 posted, “Forget the market size and numbers, it’s the optics this ban sends to investor that is important.

“A few months ago, CBN unbanned banks from dealing with crypto. Today the government of the largest economy in Africa is blocking crypto firms.

“This is the same way Aboki FX was blamed for the FX issues back then.

“We are looking for scapegoats, the real and ONLY issue is that Nigerian oil output which brings in the bulk of revenues has fallen from 2.2mbpd in 2005 to 1.55mbpd in 2023.

“You are sending the wrong signals to investors.

“But you will argue.”

According to @firstladyship, “Emefiele said it was Abokifx. Yemi Cardoso said it’s Binance. Today, Abokifx is free, but Meffy visits the courts for checkups. I wonder why Coinbase has not crashed the Dollar & the US economy. If Cardoso insists that Binance is the problem, LOL Goodluck to the Fatherless Naira.

In another post, @firstladyship wrote, “1. Binance is not the problem. 2. Abokifx was not the problem. 3. COVID-19 was not the problem. 4. Russia-Ukraine was not the problem.

5. Nigerians on Twitter are not the problem. APC has always been the problem.”

“If you like, arrest all Binance executives in Africa. Ban Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Ban all BDC operators in Nigeria. Ban AbokiFx again. Track P2P activities on Telegram and more, if you are not manufacturing and exporting, your country will continue to be BROKE!” @BOTAD01 said.

“You can’t use propaganda and fraud to dig yourself out of the hole of FX crisis your party created in the first place,”@MrOdanz reacted. “Clamp down on AbokiFx, cut down trees at Zone 4, fight BDC operators, ban Crypto. It won’t save you from the mess you created until you tackle the real issues.”

@iSlimfit stated, “Binance and other cryptocurrency platforms have been made the sacrificial lamb same way Aboki FX was. It’s sad they keep making decisions that make lives harder for the youthful Nigerian population who earn money legitimately trading cryptocurrencies.”