The Nigerian government is seeking retribution claims from Binance, no less than $10 billion.
The government has stated that Binance is not officially registered.
The government has confirmed that Binance is actively collaborating by sharing valuable information and has already halted transactions involving the naira on its platform.
Nigeria is, however, requesting Binance to settle a minimum penalty of $10 billion
This was confirmed by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to President Bola Tinubu, on Friday morning in an interview with the BBC.
The presidential aide said the fine was demanded for the illegal operations of Binance which contributed hugely to the devaluation of the country’s currency, naira in recent times.
“The platform fixes the exchange rate for the country and it is an illegal rate. The CBN is the only authority that can fix the exchange rate for the country,” Onanuga was quoted as saying by BBC.
He added, “Binance platform harbours people who fix the exchange rate which quickly affects the Nigerian economy for the time when Nigeria is trying to stabilize the economy.”
“Binance staff cooperated with the government to provide information.”
Bayo Onanuga had also said if not stopped, Binance would destroy the Nigerian economy because of the way it arbitrarily fixes foreign exchange rates.
Two employees of Binance were also detained by the office of the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu in Abuja as part of an investigation into the cryptocurrency exchange’s operations in Nigeria.
Their detention in Nigeria was in an attempt to curb naira speculation and steady its free fall by clamping down on cryptocurrency exchanges.
During the week, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso, said $26 billion passed through Binance Nigeria from unknown sources and users in one year.
He stated this on Tuesday in Abuja at the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the apex bank, the first since he assumed office in September 2023.
This followed the free fall of the naira and clampdown on Bureau de Change by President Bola Tinubu’s administration in an attempt to steady the rapid decline.
Cardoso said the government was “concerned that certain practices go on that indicate illicit flows going through a number of these entities, and suspicious flows at best”.
He continued, “In the case of Binance, in the last one year alone, $26 billion has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users who we cannot adequately identify.
