Shutting Crypto accounts can’t stop Igboho’s funding, says lawyer

Activist lawyer, Tommy Ojoge-Daniel, says the recent warning issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria to Deposit Money Banks, Non-Financial Institutions and other financial institutions against doing business in crypto and other digital assets cannot stop the fundraiser set up for Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo, better known as Sunday Igboho.

Ojoge-Daniel said this during a chat with The Punch on Friday shortly after the CBN issued its directive.

Supporters of Igboho had set up a Gofundme page for the purpose of raising £100,000 (N51.8m) for him to buy buses to implement his project of ridding the South-West of killer herdsmen.

The fundraiser, which was initiated by Maureen Badejo, a blogger and activist based in the United Kingdom, had garnered £25, 589 (N13.2m) as of Friday evening.

The PUNCH learnt that crypto currency was one of the major ways through which funds sourced through crowd funding are accessed.

Speaking with The Punch correspondent, however, the lawyer said, “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.

“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.”