I suppose in the end, the wonder was that it took so long. How would Godwin O. Emefiele, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, sit and watch young Nigerians build an economic and financial system almost entirely out of the control of the Nigerian State, which thinks of them as its inanimate property? What on earth would his boss in Aso Villa think if someone explained the word “cryptocurrency” to him in his native language? Imagine His Imperial Buhari’s reaction upon reaching the terrifying realisation that young Nigerians actually intend to do significantly more with their lives than till the ground and gratefully bleed to death on their subsistence farms after being attacked by Fulani herdsmen…no herdsmen…no bandits…no terrorists from Libya?
We can’t be having any of that now can we? Of course not. Leaving young Nigerians to their own devices as the Nigerian state does, has always come with a caveat – as long as said devices do not threaten the natural order, as God surely intended. Imagine a Nigeria with a population of economically independent and internationally relevant young people. Wouldn’t that be a hop and a skip away from becoming a Nigeria with *shock, gasp* a politically emancipated majority? A Nigeria where Emperor Buhari and Lord Emefiele would merely be an elected representative and a bureaucrat, both subject to the wishes of an empowered, confident majority? The horror!
October 2020 lives on…rent free
When I was writing this article on Friday evening, I happened to be hanging out with a fellow Nigerian exile who was deeply involved in the #EndSARS protests. Something he said while responding to the CBN’s latest policy somersault struck me as undeniably true. He said “Every policy decision these people have taken since October has been to prevent a recurrence of #EndSARS.” The absurd decision to force millions of Nigerians to queue up physically in the NIN-SIM linking debacle amid a pandemic and create a superspreader event is one example.
The even less believable decision to impose an illegal and undebated top-down ISP ban on the People’s Gazette, preventing Nigerian readers from accessing it is another. This decision to effectively outlaw cryptocurrency trading is merely the latest in a series of policy blunders since October that only prove that the unfamiliar sight of defiance, self confidence and independence displayed by young Nigerians last October is living rent free in the minds of Emperor Buhari and his courtiers.
The unfamiliar sight of defiance, self-confidence and independence displayed by young Nigerians last October is living rent free in the minds of Emperor Buhari and his courtiers.
At this point, the occupying regime in Abuja has given up all pretense of acting like a duly elected legitimate government and has decided to fully commit to being what it has always been behind the pathetic series of fig leaves floated by the Tolulope Ogunlesis and Femi Adesinas of this world. In its trademark madcap, incompetent fashion, this ban on crypto trading has not accounted for the fact that a) It is functionally impossible to ‘ban’ crypto trading because there is no single point of issuance to throttle it, and b) It could actually end up backfiring massively.
By taking off the gloves fully this early, Major General Buhari’s Imperial Project has displayed all its cards and showcased its strategic weakness – it is filled with people who just cannot take off their cultural parochialism long enough to actually make real friends or build non-monetary alliances. While a well-educated, youth-friendly Corona School alumnus with lovely grey hair occasionally pretends to occupy the VP’s office, the real people in power continue to make it clear that nothing makes their blood boil like seeing young people live outside of their control. Here’s why this is a losing strategy.
Old people always die – eventually
The cryptocurrency ban in itself is likely to become yet another example of woeful policy failure because not only is crypto trading fully outside of any government control, but as the example of Venezuela shows, it is very possible for people to respond to this repressive government policy by making crypto a default medium of exchange. The technology to do this already exists. Cryptocurrencies like XRP and LTC already offer speed and scale. Their volatility can be accounted for using a mix of stablecoin storage and point-of-sale Dynamic Cryptocurrency Conversion, similar to the type used by Visa when processing card transactions in different currencies.
Furthermore when Facebook launches its Libra stablecoin or China’s Digital Yuan CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) becomes widely available, the existential purpose of the naira itself will be severely threatened. Short of removing all mass internet access from Nigeria altogether, which is materially impossible, the Nigerian state cannot answer these questions with its usual ban hammer. Examples abound from Argentina to Venezuela to Zimbabwe of how incredibly resistant to government policy people are when the value or cross-border fungibility of their money is involved – it is a stupid fight to pick, and an impossible battle to win.
More than all of this however, the single biggest reason why this and the other policies inspired by #EndSARS government PTSD are doomed to failure is that they are being championed by people who simply do not have long left. As South African politician, Julius Malema recently remarked while speaking about Bobi Wine’s travails in Uganda, “Museveni is a problem that nature will solve.” Muhammadu Buhari is a problem that nature will solve. Godwin Emefiele is a problem that nature will solve. The Nigerian state itself – existentially threatened as it is – is likely also a problem that nature will solve.
Picking a fight with a country’s youth is ultimately a losing strategy. You don’t need to believe me. Just watch the next few years happen.
