CBN Names Aboki FX, BDC As Sponsors Of Boko Haram, Bandits

By Fola James

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele has now confirmed that Bureau De Change, BDCs operators are  fueling terrorism and Banditry in the country. The criminals, the apex bank said receive funding from BDCs operators.

He particularly mentioned Aboki FX, an online Forex dealer as one of the syndicates promoting the activities of terrorists and kidnappers. The CBN has last week vowed to shut down the UK- baesd popular exchange rate website.

Godwin Emefiele, the CBN Governor stated this at the monthly monetary Policy Commission, MPC meeting held in Abuja the nation’s capital.

Last month the CBN stopped allocating Forex to the BDCs over allegations that they are fuelling Forex speculations. The apex bank has since been allocating Forex to banks to sell to customers.

Many had expected that the CBN will rescind the action after some weeks, but the way things are going, particularly the recent revelations that BDCs funnel Forex to the criminals, analysis insist that the apex bank will continue to harmer the operators hard.

Unlike the situation in the past, Emefiele said after the meeting the bank’s decision not to allocate Forex to BDCs is final, despite pressure from the powerful operators. He gives reasons.

The apex bank Governor bsaid “we have decided that this will stop and it has stopped for good. It beats my imagination that Nigeria carried on with this kind of practice that tended to support illegal activities of people who are involved in graft and involved in corrupt practices.“instead of collecting Naira as a bribe you tell the person to exchange it to dollar so that you can have some packet of dollars in your pocket.”

“We have unwittingly supported activities of those who illegally buy foreign exchange from this illegal market, carry them in aircrafts out of the country and go to buy arms and ammunition and bring them back into the country and conduct crime whether it is Boko Haram, kidnapping or all sorts of nefarious activities.

“We the CBN take our country’s dollar and sell to people to go and buy arms ammunition to come and hurt us. That is what we are saying that people want us to continue to do. We cannot do that any longer.”

Emefiele said the bank will provide Forex for legitimate request because “your bank will speak to us and we will give you what is even more than the limit. We will continue to monitor the banks.

“We conducted a study, one of the banks sold in one day  forex to 52 people who wanted to travel. After two weeks, they went to check, 40 out of the 52 have cancelled their ticket. They will have to return the forex or we will pursue you if you are involved in this nefarious activity. We are not going to go back there again.”

Meanwhile, Emefiele said the CBN has already launched a manhunt for the owner of Aboki FX an online forex dealing platform. The bank had earlier in the week accused the operator of fueling Forex speculations and frustrating it’s efforts to stabilise the Naira.

According to Emefiele the bank  “wrote a memo to banks and asked those banks to provide information about Aboki FX. We are have been studying the activities of Aboki FX in the last two and a half years.

“The CBN once invited the owner of Aboki FX that they want to engage him to understand his model, basis and how he came about advertising those rates.”

He said the owner of the firm is unpatriotic because he is “a Nigerian who lives in England and conducts this nefarious activity and criminal activity on our economy.

“It is an economic sabotage and we will pursue him. We will report him to international security agencies. We will track him. We will find you because we cannot allow you to continue to conduct illegal activities that kill our economy.”

The CBN governor disclosed that “preliminary finds reveal that the company was registered in the UK in November 2015 and it is owned by one person who claims in his regular filings that there are other people with significant interest in that business but he does not want to name them. So, who are these significant people? Why are they hiding?”

“Preliminary findings suggest this website was built and is being used purely for the purpose of foreign exchange manipulation and speculation.  They get Naira notes,  use it to purchase dollars, take a position, change the rate over a given period, sell the dollars they purchase and make a profit. This is completely illegal and we will pursue them.”

He said Aboki FX owner “is an illegal FX dealer. Between February 2020 and May 2021, he had inflow and sold tens of millions of Naira in FX to several Nigerian companies, and we will find those companies as well, in contravention of our FX laws because he is an illegal FX dealer.”

Aboki FX “directly benefits from the rates quoted daily on his website. We are finalizing our investigation and we must warn these companies that patronize him that they are also going to face our wrath,” Emefiele said.