Nigeria's Presidential Candidate, Bukola Saraki, Pledges His Support to Digital Currency

The presidential candidate, Bukola Saraki of the People's Democratic Party of Nigeria in an interview voiced his support for Digital currency and thinks the adoption of digital currency in Nigeria could be of huge benefit to the country's economy.

According to the former Senate President of Nigeria, Bukola Saraki, the digital currency has greatly provided opportunities for youths (jobs opportunities) as he said, ”I also think it has helped especially the young generation in creating jobs and opportunities. And anything that creates jobs and an enabling environment for people to do their businesses, I am in support of that. So, yes, I am in support of that...” but he also emphasized the need for regulations on the space to prevent illegal activities such as money laundering and other criminal activities that could be done in the space.

The Unending Rise in Crypto Trading in Nigeria

According to reports, the Nigerian central bank has since February 5, 2021, place a ban on cryptocurrency transactions and restriction was given to financial institutions and financial private sectors from authorizing crypto transactions in the country. And to this effect a fee was passed into law against the act of crypto trading to any financial institute, hence, forcing all financial sectors in Nigeria to shut down all angles of crypto trading.

Nevertheless, this hasn't in any way reduced the trading activities of cryptocurrency to wanned off, but instead, a report has proven that the number of users participating in crypto trading has increased above 2,400% from January 2021 to January 2022 according to Punch Nigeria. While techpoint survey states that over 70 million Nigerians have traded cryptocurrency in the last six months while still ranked as the top crypto trading country in Africa.

Due to the ban, users have resulted in peer-to-peer transactions through trading platforms such as Paxful and Binance exchange, and roughly a trading volume of over $400 million

Meanwhile, in the interview, Saraki believes that regulating the space is what is needed to accommodate adoption in Nigeria rather than the ban placed by CBN.