It's really an extreme sport being a Nigerian right now . The government keeps on making different policies that is just hard to fathom and strigent to struggling citizens of the country especially unemployed youths of the country .
It came as a shock to some Nigerians when crypto exchange Binance announced they would discontinue all services in Nigeria by March. Despite facing scrutiny from regulators before the announcement, many people still asked how the biggest exchange in crypto could just disappear from the world’s fastest growing market for bitcoin adoption.
I wasn’t shocked because I actually saw this coming. For a country to ban twitter in 2022 , it won't be hard clamping down on Crypto and its different platforms for exchanges. This war is about the financial system and the power to control the levers that decide whose money is good and whose money is bad.
Leaving Binance aside the Federal Government of Nigeria recently moved to delist the Naira from all peer to peer (p2p) platforms. In their own claims this move by the Federal Government, through the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is a step to make up efforts to tackle exchange rate manipulators and dollar racketeers. They strongly believe operators in the crypto space have allegedly used the P2P platforms to manipulate the naira and the exchange rate.
At this juncture I don't seem to understand the government's obsession with crypto and trying all means to seriously clamp it down. Instead of looking for ways to cement the blockchain technology grounds in the country to work for the economy they are doing the exact opposite . They fail to understand that it is crypto where smart guys that don't want to go into cybercrime are making and carving out a living for themselves.
The Naira is basically down because of mass printing and no export. Nobody wants the Naira, we are not a producing country as well , the list of our troubles are endless. It's really just a shame , instead of SEC and other related bodies to sit down and figure out tangible ways of tapping into this booming economy like El Salvador, US and the others are, they are blaming crypto platforms here and there.
To cap it all up , I woke up this morning to the news of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directing all banks to impose a 0.5% cybersecurity levy on all transactions. Prior to this news the CBN already banned new registration on Fintech Apps and now with the introduction of this so called cybersecurity levy people can't switch. These traditional banks already duduct fees from people's money for maintenance charges,Vat charges, stamp duty charges,electronic transfer level charges, #6.98 charges for ussd transfers as well as sms charges .
Is there an end to this milking you might want to ask ! . It's really just appalling that when most countries now are trying to develop and make life better for their citizens, my country is a million steps backward . I just wonder what manner of suffering this government is waiting to inflict on the masses next. Times right now are indeed hard!