By Nudoiba Ojen
The Federal Government has imposed a $10 billion fine on crypto trading platform, Binance, over allegations of influencing the country’s forex crisis.
The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, made the disclosure in an interview with the BBC on Friday morning.
Onanuga said that Binance profited substantially from its “illegal transactions” in Nigeria while the country suffered huge losses.
Onanuga noted 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.”
He added that Binance influenced the increase in foreign exchange rates through currency speculations which made the Naira value to fall by almost 70 per cent in recent months.
