NAIJAFEED

Friday, March 26, 2021

Nigeria’s crackdown on Bitcoin echoes global crypto conundrum

Lagos, Nigeria – When the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular in early February warning banks and financial institutions that “facilitating payments for cryptocurrency exchanges is prohibited” and that they needed to identify and close accounts associated with them, it set the country’s crypto community alight.

“I was in a danfo [a yellow public transport bus that operates in Lagos] heading home when my phone started buzzing with WhatsApp notifications regarding the CBN ban on cryptocurrency transactions,” said David Akinwale, a 25-year-old financial analyst who trades in cryptocurrency. “It was really disappointing and sad. While other countries are embracing the use of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, Nigeria is doing the reverse.”

This week, a representative for Nigeria’s central bank chief Godwin Emefiele reportedly sought to clarify the February 5 directive, telling reporters that it was not aimed at discouraging people from trading in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but served to enforce orders in place since 2017 banning crypto transactions in the country’s banking sector.

But the 2017 directive did not prohibit crypto exchanges from using banking and payment channels. It simply required banks and financial institutions to ensure that their crypto-exchange customers have effective anti-money laundering and “anti-terrorism” financing controls in place.

The backlash and confusion echo a crypto-drama unfolding around the world as virtual currencies like Bitcoin grow in popularity and scale new heights during a time of unprecedented financial uncertainty stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, as well as uniquely domestic challenges.

In the United States this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raised concerns about the role cryptocurrencies play in facilitating criminal activity, as well as their infamous volatility, calling Bitcoin “more of an asset for speculation” than a substitute for the US dollar.

In Iran, officials recently targeted crypto exchanges and even pinned blamed for high levels of air pollution on Bitcoin mining.

The developments illustrate the regulatory conundrum governments face with crypto assets that by design are intended to be decentralised and beyond their reach, but which are part of a rapidly evolving sector of global finance that pivots on innovation.

Africa’s biggest Bitcoin market

Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy, its most populous country, and home to one of the youngest populations in the world. Throw in a burgeoning tech sector and it’s easy to see how Nigeria has become the continent’s largest Bitcoin market by trading volume, according to UsefulTulips.org, which gathers data from crypto exchanges Paxful and LocalBitcoins.

That ascent to Bitcoin prominence is rooted in a sharp fall in remittances during the pandemic, as well as the country’s state coffers and local currency, the naira, being ravaged by the twin blows of COVID-19 restrictions and plummeting crude prices.

In an effort to keep increasingly scarce US dollars from leaving the country last year, some Nigerian banks reportedly placed curbs on offshore debit card transactions and limited cash withdrawals.

Against this backdrop, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies soared in popularity last year, as both a hedge against the eroding purchasing power of the naira, as well as a way to move money around more easily.

‘With Bitcoin, I could bypass the $100 limit on my naira debit card and do all my transactions seamlessly,” Bola Williams, a 33-year old software developer, told Al Jazeera. “But the ban on crypto has now made it even more stressful.”

But it does not appear to have curbed appetites for crypto. Bitcoin trading volumes on Paxful and LocalBitcoins topped $9m in the seven days ending March 8, according to UsefulTulips.org, compared to roughly $7.55m in the seven days ending February 8.

The data suggest that despite the CBN directive, Nigerians are determined to leverage cryptocurrencies to increase their earnings, especially with rising inflation and limited access to foreign exchange liquidity.

“The ban was never going to stop a ship that is far gone on sail,” Eric Annan, co-founder of cryptocurrency trading platform KuBitX, told Al Jazeera.

Annan said if anything, the CBN directive only served to amplify the popularity of Bitcoin and pique the curiosity of crypto sceptics.

“No single government can stop an idea whose time has come to a generation who have added to the GDP [gross domestic product] of the internet,” he said.

Political pushback

The CBN directive also met pushback from some Nigerian politicians.

After the order was released, the Nigerian Senate summoned CBN chief Emefiele to explain the opportunities and threats cryptocurrencies pose to the nation’s economy and security.

During the February 23 briefing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Emefiele highlighted the role cryptocurrencies play in money laundering, “terrorism” financing, illicit arms purchases, and tax evasion.

“Cryptocurrency is not legitimate money because it is not created or backed by any Central Bank,” Emefiele said. “It has no place in our monetary system at this time and cryptocurrency transactions should not be carried out through the Nigerian banking system.”

That assessment drew criticism from crypto proponents.

“Whatever reason that necessitated the move for the current restriction of banking services to crypto traders and exchanges by the CBN could have been resolved through dialogue and collaboration,” Chimezie Chuta, the founder/ coordinator of the Blockchain Nigeria User Group, told Al Jazeera.

“In saying that ‘cryptocurrencies are not legitimate money’ he obviously has forgotten the origin, what money is, and its purpose,” he added, noting that “cryptocurrency is a property or commodity and thus not an illegal asset class.”

Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has also called for a less heavy-handed official approach – one that would vigorously regulate cryptocurrency transactions to address serious concerns “without necessarily killing the goose that might lay the golden eggs”.

“We’ve seen in many other sectors disruption makes room for efficiency and progress,” he said.

Al Jazeera

Bitcoin ‘Can’t Be Stopped’: Nigerians Look to P2P Exchanges After Crypto Ban

Nigeria is Bitcoin Leader in Africa, Says Paxful

The growing phenomenon of Christian insurgents in the Southern Nigeria

While Boko Haram monopolises the attention of politicians and specialists in northern Nigeria, in the south, Christian insurgents are becoming increasingly inspired by the terrorist group’s methods.

Nigeria is often portrayed as a country on the “frontline” between a predominantly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. From this perspective, observers concerned about religiously motivated violence are mostly preoccupied with Boko Haram’s bloody episodes in the Lake Chad region.

They are so preoccupied with the issue of terrorism in Africa that they pay little attention to the insurgents in southern Nigeria who also claim to be God’s followers when they take up arms.

Like the Jews led by Moses

Those nostalgic for the Republic of Biafra often use religious arguments to justify their rebellion. They have taken up the legacy of the secessionists who, between 1967 and 1970, posed as victims (essentially Catholics) of a genocide committed by Muslims, even though the head of the Nigerian state at the time was Christian.

Surrounded by an enemy with a much larger and superior army, who was also being supplied with arms by Arab countries, the Ibo of the Biafra region had set their sights not only on Rome, but also on the Holy Land. Since then, some of them have presented themselves as belonging to one of the lost tribes of Israel.

For example, Nnamdi Kanu – one of the leaders of the Biafran protest who was detained by President Muhammadu Buhari’s government in 2015 – says he converted to Judaism while in prison. Others have founded a Biafran Zionist Movement.

Generally speaking, protestors of all stripes denouncing the misdeeds of the ruling Muslims in northern Nigeria have found some resonance within the Ibo diaspora overseas. In fact, they have a global audience on social media and on ‘Voice of Biafra’, Kanu’s pirate radio station, which broadcasts from the UK.

Further south, along Nigeria’s Atlantic coast, the insurgents fighting the government in the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta were not left out either. Like the Ibo, some Ijaw in the region have, for example, compared themselves to the Jews who, by following Moses, freed themselves from the chains of “slavery” – from the yoke of the Muslims in the north, in their case.

The Niger Delta Avengers – which emerged in 2016 – has, among other things, denounced the “tyranny” of Abuja and called President Buhari an “Egyptian pharaoh”, rhetoric not unlike that of jihadist Salafists, who have criticised ruling dictators in the Arab world.

On a more peaceful note, the Ogoni of the Delta have also anchored their struggle around religious rhetoric. Before being hanged in 1995 by a junta then led by a Muslim from the north, writer Ken Saro-Wiwa led the first protest marches of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (Mosop), organising masses, prayer vigils and nightly Bible readings.

In direct reference to Judaism, he evoked the prophet Jeremiah’s ‘Book of Lamentations’ to equate the repression of the military regime, as well as the pollution caused by the oil companies, to the destruction of Jerusalem and the persecution of the Jews.

Caliphate and greed

The difference, one might say, is that the protesters in southern Nigeria are not seeking to impose a Christian state, unlike the Boko Haram jihadists who dream of establishing a caliphate.

However, there are several indications that the political is strongly influenced by the religious. The celestial cities that developed in enclaves on the edge of the large cities of the south ended up having the characteristics of proto-states within a state. In 1990, mutineers financed by evangelical churches in the Delta attempted a putsch to “cleanse” Nigeria by expelling the predominantly Muslim northern states from the federation.

Today, even drug traffickers and gangster syndicates called ‘cultists’ imitate jihadist practices. In Ibo country, for example, rival groups lay the severed heads of their enemies in front of churches to send a message to the population.

Their criminal motives certainly distance them from any religious agenda. This is not very surprising as many Boko Haram fighters are also driven by greed, much more than by Islamic ideals.

The rebels and mafiosi in the south use religion to disguise petty materialistic concerns. But it is very easy to lose oneself in it. Asari Dokubo, founder of one of the main armed groups in the delta in the early 2000s, has just proclaimed himself head of a virtual Biafra government, even though he converted to Islam in the 1990s.

By Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos

The Africa Report

The Biafra secessionist movement in Nigeria

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Nigeria develops two coronavirus vaccines

Nigerian scientists have developed two vaccines against COVID-19, the government secretary announced Tuesday.

Boss Mustapha, who is also chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, said clinical trials for the new vaccines are underway.

“The vaccines will be used after completing clinical trials and obtaining certification,” said Mustapha.

“This is a welcome development that will open a new vista in scientific breakthrough and will boost the morale and image of the medical industry in the country.”

He called on all relevant agencies to provide the required support and enabling environment for the smooth conduct of the remaining protocols for the certification of the vaccines, with a view to encouraging and motivating other researchers.

At least 162,000 virus-related cases have been observed in the country and 2,031 people have died from the virus, while over 148,500 people have recovered from the disease.

CGTN

Boko Haram brutality against women and girls needs urgent response

Boko Haram fighters targeted women and girls with rape and other sexual violence, amounting to war crimes, during recent raids in northeast Nigeria, new research by Amnesty International has revealed.

In February and March 2021, Amnesty International interviewed 22 people in a cluster of villages in northern Borno State that Boko Haram has repeatedly attacked since late 2019.

During violent raids, Boko Haram fighters killed people trying to flee and looted livestock, money, and other valuables.

“As Boko Haram continue their relentless cycle of killings, abductions and looting, they are also subjecting women and girls to rape and other sexual violence during their attacks. These atrocities are war crimes,” said Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

“The targeted communities have been abandoned by the forces that are supposed to protect them, and are struggling to gain any recognition or response to the horrors they’ve suffered. The Nigerian authorities must urgently address this issue.

“The International Criminal Court must immediately open a full investigation into the atrocities committed by all sides, and ensure those responsible are held accountable, including for crimes against women and girls.”

After repeated displacement, the affected communities have mostly moved to military-controlled areas, but many have yet to receive any humanitarian assistance.

Rape and other sexual violence

Survivors and witnesses described attacks involving sexual violence in at least five villages in the Magumeri local government area of Borno State. During raids, usually at night, Boko Haram fighters raped women and girls who were caught at home or trying to flee.

One woman was physically assaulted by Boko Haram fighters as she fled from an attack in late 2020. She crawled to a home and hid there with her children, and saw fighters return and enter a nearby home.

She said: “In the next house, I started hearing some women were shouting and screaming and crying. I was very afraid. After some minutes, maybe 30 minutes, I saw the men come out of the house. There were five or six of them with their guns. Then afterwards, the women were confused. Their dresses were not normal.”

Amnesty International interviewed three other witnesses who similarly described the same attack, including hearing women’s screams and seeing them extremely distressed after Boko Haram left. A traditional healer said she cared for several women following the attack who had been raped.

The same healer had previously treated two other survivors, including one who was under 18 years old, after a Boko Haram attack on another village. She said: “I could see the pain on their faces. [The first survivor] told me what happened. I saw her private parts. They were very swollen. So I understood it was more than one or two people who had raped her. She was suffering.”

Another woman told Amnesty International that during the same attack fighters shot people who were running away, then came to her house and sexually assaulted her. She said: “The men entered my room. I asked what they wanted. They took my jewellery and belongings. Then they fell on me.”

Some witnesses also described Boko Haram abducting women during several attacks, taking them away on motorbikes. The women were returned to their village days later, showing clear signs of trauma.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence constitute war crimes in the context of the conflict, as defined under the Rome Statute.

No survivors Amnesty International interviewed appear to have accessed formal health services. Stigma and fear of repercussions mean such incidents are significantly underreported, even within affected communities. At least one of the survivors continues to suffer health complications some months later.

Access to abortion is illegal in Nigeria, except when life is at risk, which means survivors of rape do not have access to safe and legal abortion.

Killings and looting

During raids, Boko Haram fighters stole almost everything they could find. Witnesses consistently described fighters arriving on motorbikes and on foot, before firing into the air. In several attacks, Boko Haram targeted and murdered civilians as they fled; in one attack, several older people who were unable to flee were killed inside their homes.

Fighters often went house-to-house, rounding up livestock and stealing valuables including money, mobile phones, jewellery, and clothes. Witnesses described fighters loading the looted property onto their motorbikes, or on donkeys from the village. To steal livestock, fighters often forced young men to herd the animals into the forest.

A 40-year-old man whose village was raided told Amnesty International: “Before, if you came to our house, you’d see we had cows and goats. I didn’t have many, just a few, but with that I was content. Now, we have nothing… They took everything from us.”

Some fighters wore Nigerian military uniforms, while others wore traditional dress of the region. Witnesses said they knew the perpetrators belonged to Boko Haram, and not the Nigerian military, for several reasons. They could hear the fighters speaking languages common among Boko Haram members; the fighters came on motorbikes, not military vehicles; and the fighters dressed in a combination of attire. Even those fighters wearing stolen Nigerian military uniforms often wore sandals or had bare feet, instead of military boots.

Many witnesses also reported that some children, aged between 15 and 17, were among the attackers, along with men in their 20s.

Urgent response needed

After repeated attacks in recent months, communities from this cluster of villages fled to areas within the Nigerian military’s established perimeters. Many people settled less than a kilometre from an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp outside Maiduguri. Some tried to move into the camp, but were told it was full.

Officials from the nearby IDP camp visited and took people’s names, reportedly around two months ago, but no-one had returned since, according to everyone displaced to that location whom Amnesty International interviewed. Many women remain frustrated that no-one from the government or the humanitarian community has spoken with them to understand the targeting of women during attacks, and what support is needed now. Many added they wished the government would acknowledge and apologize for what happened, and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Months after settling near the IDP camp, the communities have still not received any assistance, including food, shelter, or health care. In early March, a young child died, and her family told Amnesty International she was malnourished and that they believed that factor contributed to her death. Everyone displaced near the camp described widespread hunger.

One woman told Amnesty International: “We need food assistance. All around us are malnourished children. Some of the women go to the camp, [but they’re] told to go away. Some are begging. Some [of us] are selling our things.”

“This is a humanitarian crisis that is getting worse day-by-day. The Nigerian authorities and partners must act now to support those most in need, and ensure this horrendous situation doesn’t continue to deteriorate,” said Osai Ojigho.

Background

The conflict in northeast Nigeria has created a humanitarian crisis, with more than 2,000,000 people now displaced. Boko Haram has also frequently targeted aid workers trying to respond to the crisis.

Amnesty International has repeatedly documented crimes under international law and other serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in northeast Nigeria.

The Nigerian authorities have not taken any genuine steps towards investigating and prosecuting crimes by Boko Haram or the Nigerian security forces, including crimes of sexual violence. Last December, the chief prosecutor of the ICC announced that her office had concluded a decade-long preliminary examination into the situation in Nigeria, saying that it had found sufficient evidence of crimes to open a full investigation. No formal investigation has yet been opened.

The conflict continues to have a dire impact on civilians, as documented in Amnesty International reports on the experience of women, children and older people.

Amnesty International

Nigeria’s booming kidnap-for-ransom enterprise threatens security

Lagos, Nigeria – It was early in the morning when Aliyu Kagada received the distressing news.

An armed gang, known locally as bandits, had just stormed a dormitory at the Government Science College in Kagara, a town in Nigeria’s Niger state, kidnapping his 18-year-old son, Nurudeen.

Twenty-six other students, as well as three staff members and 12 of their relatives, were also snatched in the raid, while one boy was killed.

The days that followed were agonising for Kagada, a father of 12. “I felt really sad,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep well … I couldn’t eat well; we only prayed.”

After days of tense negotiations with the bandits, the authorities announced on February 27 that all 42 abductees had been released from their 10-day captivity.

‘Economic survival’

Since December 2020, gangs of bandits seeking lucrative ransom have kidnapped a total of 769 students from their boarding schools and other educational facilities across northern Nigeria in at least five separate incidents.

The region has long been afflicted by violence fuelled by disputes over access to land and resources, among other factors. Criminal gangs have taken advantage of the lack of effective policing to launch attacks, pillaging villages, stealing cattle and spreading fear.

But with climate change affecting livestock in the arid north and herdsmen migrating down south in search of pasture and water, these groups – believed to largely be comprised of Fulani pastoralists who collaborate with other nomadic tribes – have recently turned to mass abductions for financial gains.

In the Kagara case, authorities did not disclose if a ransom was paid for the abductees’ release. However, experts agree that the growing instances of mass abductions of boys and girls in the region are an offshoot of a booming kidnapping-for-ransom criminal enterprise that has become one of Nigeria’s main security challenges.

At least $18.34m was paid to kidnappers as ransom – mostly by families and the government – between June 2011 and March 2020, according to a report by SB Morgen (SBM) Intelligence, a Lagos-based political risk analysis firm.

“The motivation of these groups appears to be purely economic,” Ikemesit Effiong, head of research at SBM, told Al Jazeera. “They don’t seem political. The high rate of poverty in this country has led many to resort to such criminal activities for economic survival.”

‘Schools are soft targets’

Kidnapping for ransom in Nigeria can be traced to the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta region in the early 2000s, mainly targeting expatriates. It then spread across Nigeria, where 40 percent of people in Africa’s most populous country live below the poverty line.

Abductors have historically targeted the country’s middle- and upper-class, demanding ransoms between $1,000 and $150,000, depending on their victims’ net worth and capacity to pay, according to police.

In other cases, however, the sums are much larger.

In 2017, authorities announced the arrest of Chukwudi Onuamadike, popularly known as Evans and often referred to as Nigeria’s “richest and most notorious kidnapper”. Police said ransom money was paid to him in “millions of dollars”, with some victims being kept for up to seven months “until the last penny is paid”.

High-profile Nigerians have long been a target. In 2018, John Obi Mikel, the captain of Nigeria men’s national football team, received the news of his father’s abduction just a few hours before a crucial World Cup match against Argentina. Police later rescued his father following a shoot-out with the abductors in a forest in southeastern Nigeria.

In 2015, the family of James Adichie – a renowned professor of statistics and father of award-winning novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – paid an undisclosed amount of ransom for his release following his kidnapping on a highway, also in southeastern Nigeria.

Such main roads, especially the notorious Kaduna-Abuja highway, have long been a hunting ground for kidnappers. But in recent times, as the industry took hold in northern Nigeria and the number of casualties associated with it grew, the bandits have turned their attention elsewhere: learning institutions located outside of cities and town where security is often lacking.

“Schools are soft targets,” said Ikemesit. “They target school children as well as women because the incentives behind securing their release are much higher. Also, men are always considered to be in much more position to possess the finances to secure the release of their wives and children.”

Thirty-nine college students are still being held hostage by bandits after being taken from hostels in a March 11 raid outside the northwest city of Kaduna.

The latest bout of kidnappings began in December with the seizure of more than 300 boys from their boarding school in the town of Kankara, in northwestern Katsina state.

The incident evoked memories of Boko Haram’s 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls in the northeastern town of Chibok that garnered global outrage. More than 100 of the girls seized by the armed group – whose name means “Western education is forbidden” are still missing. Boko Haram said it was behind the December 11 abduction in Kankara, but that claim later proved to be wrong. The boys were released after six days but the government denied any ransom was paid.

While there is no known link forming between the groups, the growing threat of abductions has terrified parents and forced authorities to briefly shut down schools.

“These [abductions] will affect school enrollment in the coming months,” said Henry Anumudu, founder of Sharing Life Africa, a nonprofit that supports quality education and women empowerment in low-income communities, calling school kidnappings an attack on the fragile education system in the country’s north.

Some 10.5 million children in Nigeria are not in school – one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children. The majority of them are in northern Nigeria, according to the United Nations.

“If we can’t solve the problem of insecurity and safety, ensuring that children will go to school and get back home there’s going to be a big problem,” Anumudu told Al Jazeera. “Security is the basic thing right now.”

‘Criminality must be eliminated’

In the past, the government has launched military operations involving the bombing of suspected hideouts to tackle banditry and rescue victims of kidnappers.

But since the kidnappings spiked in December, there have been no arrests or prosecution. This lack of accountability, combined with the authorities’ failure to step up security and intelligence operations, contributes to a deep-rooted sense of mistrust among vulnerable citizens that puts them at odds with the government, analysts say.

Many have also criticised certain state authorities such as in Katsina and Zamfara for negotiating with bandits and introducing amnesty schemes, saying they should instead focus on protecting citizens in the first place. Negotiations and impunity, critics say, end up encouraging criminal activity as perpetrators know they will be able to at least negotiate conditions for safety or even get paid huge ransoms.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who took office in 2015 on the back of promises to tackle insecurity, has also blamed local and state authorities for the increase in mass abductions. In a Twitter post last month, he said they must improve security around schools and warned the policy of “rewarding bandits with money and vehicles” could “backfire with disastrous consequences”.

But his federal government has also come under fire. Experts say the members of the country’s security agencies are overstretched, poorly paid and underequipped, while the police forces are largely centralised and unable to handle internal security challenges. Others have also criticised the government after it commended “repentant bandits” for playing a role in the recent release of Kankara schoolboys.

“Criminality must be eliminated, not mitigated,” said Dickson Osajie, an international security expert. “Sadly, the government does not have the political will power in Nigeria to achieve that,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Bargaining with the enemy [the bandits] is a sign of weakness,” Osajie added. “Even if you want to bargain, do it from the side of strength by carrying out a risk analysis of what is happening, then you prioritise the risk by attending to each security threats as it comes.”

Anumudu agreed. “We just have to invest in the security of schoolchildren by setting up checkpoints and deploying military personnel across the affected regions,” he said.

By Festus Iyorah

Al Jazeera