Avoid Binance at All Costs; It Will Destroy Nigeria’s Economy, Says Onanuga
According to Presidential Spokesman Bayo Onanuga, the Nigerian economy will be devastated by Binance’s arbitrary manipulation of the foreign exchange rate until it is stopped.
The country’s economy is in danger of collapse unless we take action against Binance. “They just fix the rate,” Onanuga complained on Wednesday’s TV show.
“We are not without our saboteurs. We must examine the impact of Binance on our economy. The authorities took action against Binance because of this. Some individuals have taken over the CBN’s responsibilities and are now dictating our exchange rate through cyberspace.
They can fix anything they want when they sit down. This is an act of sabotage, and we will do all in our power to stop it in the future, he said.
According to the presidential adviser, the only legitimate platform for foreign exchange rates is the website of the apex bank. He further encouraged Nigerians to quit using the parallel market.
To get a true picture of Nigeria’s economy, you can’t look at the black market. A black market exists in the parallel market.
This secondary market is a source of income for Nigerians and the media, and I have no idea why. We shouldn’t go there; what is the CBN rate? The dollar was worth around N1600 on Friday.
The so-called parallel market is also seeing a stabilisation of the currency rate, which is necessary for this. The dollar is too central to our economy. Onanuga said that importers are fixing prices based on the exchange rate, which some are doing arbitrarily and others are doing for profit.
He claims that once the CBN manages to stabilise the currency rate, the country’s products prices will return to normal. “Things are going to get better in the next several weeks; they are not going to become worse,” he remarked.
In certain regions of the country, protests have broken out in response to the high cost of living caused by the elimination of gas subsidies, as well as other issues such as the currency crisis, food inflation, and increasing inflation.
Under President Bola Tinubu’s watch, the foreign exchange window was closed, and the naira has been weakening ever since. The naira hit a record low, dropping from around N700/$1 in May of last year to more than N1500/$1 right now.
Since then, the government has shifted its attention to cryptocurrency websites, using telecom providers to crack down on them.
According to Olayemi Cardoso, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Binance was a conduit for illegal cryptocurrency transfers on Tuesday.
At the first meeting of the apex bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) since he took office in September 2023, Cardoso addressed concerns about what he called “suspicious flows” and “illicit flows” through various crypto platforms (crypto platforms).
“Regarding Binance, $26 billion has gone through Binance Nigeria in the past year from individuals and entities that we are unable to properly identify,” he continued.
A coordinated investigation of cryptocurrency exchanges is underway, according to the head of the central bank, with assistance from anti-corruption agencies, law enforcement, and Nuhu Ribadu’s office.