It has been announced that the Central Bank of Nigeria will track the owner of Aboki FX., an online platform that gathers and displays parallel market rates in Nigeria and stop the website’s operation in the country.
CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele announced this after the two-day meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee on Friday.
The CBN governor has announced that Oniwinde Adedotun, a Nigerian residing in London, who owns the website, should explain how he obtains its rates.
This is based on the rate of the naira’s rise on the parallel market, which is currently trading at N570/dollar.
He said, “On Aboki FX, yes, unfortunately, the Central Bank wrote a memo to banks and asked those banks to provide information about AbokiFX. We have been studying the activities of AbokiFX for the last two and a half years.
“There was a particular time I called our colleagues to contact the so-called owner of AbokiFX. We want to understand his model and the basis of how he came about advertising those rates.
“We found him as a Nigerian who lives in England and produces this nefarious and criminal activity on our economy. It is economic sabotage, and we will pursue him wherever he is.
“We will report him to international agencies; we will track him, Mr Oniwinde. We will find you because we cannot allow you to continue to conduct an illegal activity that kills our economy.
“For those who think they are smart and they want to continue to sabotage the efforts of the Central Bank in running this economy for the good of Nigerians and this government, we will make life very difficult for you.”
Emefiele stated that the UK company registered in November 2015 has other Nigerians with significant interest in the company.
“But he does not want to name them. So, who are these significant persons behind him? Why are they hiding? This is on UK’s finding records, and we will go there and conduct those investigations.
“Since the inception of this business, it has continued to file the same accounts to the UK Government. The same 100 pounds cash at hand is its balance sheet and 100 pounds total net asset consecutively for four years.
He said in Nigeria, “He and the company have over 25 bank accounts with about eight banks in both naira and dollar with significant turnover also showing him simply milking the system through speculative activities on the naira and collecting his proceeds in cash through a particular ATM in London.”
Emefiele said that the bank would not go back on its previous stance on the ban of forex sales to Bureau the Change operators.
Based on preliminary findings of the CBN, he claimed that AbokiFX was built to carry out foreign exchange manipulations and speculations.
“He gets naira notes and uses them to purchase dollars, take a position, change the rates over a given period, sell the dollars they purchased, and make a profit. This is completely illegal; it is unacceptable, and we will pursue them.”
According to Emefiele, Oniwinde is an illegal FX dealer who directly benefits from rates quoted daily on his website.
He explained that according to Section 2 of the CBN Act, the bank reserved the sole power to determine the value of the naira.
“Other findings reveal that Mr Oniwinde, the owner of AbokiFX, is an illegal FX dealer. Between February 2020 and May, he sold millions of naira in FX to several Nigerian companies, and we will find those companies as well,” Emefiele said.
Moreover, the bank had given instructions to shut down the Aboki FX website.
He said, “I have given instructions to our experts to go after his website and let it be clear that we will go after him because we can’t allow this to continue.”
According to him, these BDC operators generate foreign exchange for criminals who buy weapons to harm Nigerians and promote different kinds of terrorism.
The CBN boss said, “It truly beats my imagination that Nigerians continued with this type of practice (selling dollars to BDC) that tended to promote illegal activities that are involved in graft and corrupt practices.
“We won’t support the corrupt tendencies of those who illegally buy dollars from our forex market, carry them in aircraft, buy arms and ammunition and bring them back into the country and conduct crimes. Whether it is Boko Haram, banditry, and other nefarious activities.”
“Why will CBN give people our forex to go and buy arms? And that is what people want us to continue to do. We cannot do that.”
According to him, anyone who has a legitimate need for forex should make their transactions at the bank.
However, abokiFX, in a statement on its website on Friday titled ‘Temporary suspension of rate publication.
Abokifx’ said, “AbokiFX has taken the decision today, the 17th of September 2021, to temporarily suspend rate updates on all our platforms until we get better clarity of the situation.
“Final rates have been posted this evening, but the abokiFX news section and the crypto rates section will still be active.”
