By Eugene Onyeji
Hard times await individuals and organisations who engage in the trading of cryptocurrency. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has ordered all Nigerian commercial banks to freeze their accounts.
The Director of Banking Supervision, J. Y. Mammanand made this known in a Post-No-Debit (PND) circular signed on November 3 to all the banks.
“You are hereby directed to close accounts of the underlisted bank customers and place the funds in the accounts in suspense accounts for engaging in cryptocurrency trading in contravention of CBN Circular BSD/DIR/PUB/014/001 dated February 5, 2021.”
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The listed accounts belong to two individuals, Nnamdi Francis Okereke and Nwaorgu Kingsley Chibuzor, and a company called TVS Hallmark Service Limited.
In February, the apex bank ordered banks and other financial institutions to close all customer accounts used in trading cryptocurrencies and other related transactions.
A circular the Peoples Gazette said it sited, ordered deposit money banks, non-bank financial institutions and other financial institutions to “identify persons and/or entities transacting in or operating cryptocurrency exchanges within their systems and ensure that such accounts are closed immediately.”
The government of President Buhari had banned all trading in cryptocurrencies in Nigeria, citing it being used to launder money, fund terrorism, amongst other corrupt and nefarious activities.
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Although the apex bank at the time said it was working on reviewing the policy, no new guidelines authorising Nigerians to trade in cryptocurrency have been issued.
In June, the newspaper reported that the Attorney-General Abubakar Malami still traded cryptocurrency on his mobile device despite the ban.
The revelation came when Malami uploaded a screenshot on Facebook to show that he had deactivated his Twitter account in line with Buhari regime’s controversial and illegal ban of the social media app. He, however, accidentally revealed his crypto trading app’s icon in the process.