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Bayo Onanuga, spokesman to President Bola Tinubu, has warned that Binance will cause the destruction of the Nigerian economy if arbitrary fixing of foreign exchange rates on the cryptocurrency platform is not checked.
Onanuga's remarks come amid reports that two executives of the Chinese company had been detained by the Federal Government in connection to an alleged fraudulent transaction to the tune of $26bn on the platform.
The Federal Government placed Binance under the microscope following allegations that currency speculators and money launderers were using the crypto website to execute criminal activities.
While insisting that its platform is not for currency pricing, the company, last week, declared its willingness to support the government's efforts at stabilising the foreign exchange market.
But, speaking on Channels Television's 'Politics Today' programme on Wednesday, February 28, 2024, Onanuga insisted the platform will spell the death knell of the Nigerian economy if its activities are not stopped.
“If we don’t clamp down on Binance, Binance will destroy the economy of this country. They just fix the rate.
“We have saboteurs. Look at what Binance is doing to our economy. That is why the government moved against Binance. Some people sit down using the cyberspace to dictate even our exchange rate, hijacking the role of the CBN.
“They just sit down and fix anything they like. It’s a sabotage and we are trying to prevent that from happening henceforth,” the presidential spokesman stated.
Onanuga also urged Nigerians to desist from patronising the parallel market for forex rates, noting that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) website remains the only legal platform.
“The parallel market is not the real gauge of Nigeria’s economic health. The parallel market is an illegal market.
“I don’t even know why Nigerians and the media are feeding on the parallel market. That is not where we should go; what’s the CBN rate? As at Friday, the rate for the dollar was about N1600.
“Even in the so-called parallel market, the exchange rate is stabilizing there and that is what this needs. Our economy is too much dollarised. Importers are looking at the exchange rate and using it to fix prices, some of them arbitrarily, some of them actually profiteering,” he stated.