The Federal Government on Friday said it has slammed a $10 billion fine on crypto trading platform, Binance, over allegations of influencing the country’s forex crisis.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on information and strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this on Friday morning in an interview with the BBC.
This followed accusation by Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso at the last Monetary Policy Meeting (MPC) that the crypto trading platform had carried out over $26 billion suspicious transactions in 2023 alone.
The federal government followed up on the allegation by arresting two binance of officials on Wednesday.
According to Onanuga, the parallel market is not the real gauge of the health of the nation’s economy, asserting that the “parallel market is illegal.”
The presidential aide said speculators are profiting from the weakness of the Nigerian economy, and Binance is a prime suspect.
Onanuga claimed that Binance is not registered in Nigeria and has no presence in the country.
He alleged that people used the platform to arbitrarily fix dollar-naira rates; a practice he said negatively impacted the value of the local currency.
He explained further that the Binance team was already cooperating with the Nigerian government by providing useful information, and had already suspended naira-related transactions on the platform.
Onanuga said, “The platform fixes the exchange rate in Nigeria, which is illegal. The Central Bank of Nigeria is the only authority that can fix the exchange rate for Nigeria.
“Binance harbours a lot of people who fix exchange rates which impacted the country badly at a time when the government is trying to stabilize the economy.”
