CBN: Bitcoin, other cryptos banned to stop Sunday Igboho from raising funds — lawyer

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) ban on bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies was aimed at stoping Yoruba activist Sunday Igboho from raising funds, a lawyer says.

Igboho, whose real name is Sunday Adeyemo, and his supporters want Fulani herdsmen and settlers, whom they accuse of vandalism, rape, kidnapping and murder, expelled from the South-West.

The CBN ban on cryptos came days after Igboho held a virtual meeting with Nigerians from around the world. During the meeting, he solicited funds to carry out his agenda.

The legal practitioner, Tommy Ojoge-Daniel, however, said the move cannot block bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies cannot stop the fundraiser set up for Yoruba activist.

Supporters of Igboho had set up a Gofundme page for the purpose of raising £100,000 (N51.8 million) for him to buy buses.

The fundraiser, which was initiated by Maureen Badejo, a blogger and activist based in the United Kingdom, had garnered £26, 452 (N13.8 million) as of the time of filing this report.

Cryptos was one of the major ways through which funds sourced through crowd funding are accessed.

On Friday, the CBN directed banks in the country to close all cryptocurrency-related accounts.

“It (CBN policy) does not affect it (Igboho’s funding) in any way in as much as crypto currency is an open source platform for peer to peer (P2P) exchange of value and it is largely untraceable,” Ojoge-Daniel told Punch on Friday.

“The open ledger (block chain) only tracks activities in wallets and cannot hinder or hamper individuals who have crypto in their wallets from sending it to the recipient wallet.

“They can only track the payments but can never track the payers.

“The only issue will be exchanging the crypto on a direct platform to a Nigerian account,” he said.