“There is no question that blockchain technology generally and cryptocurrencies in particular, will in the coming years challenge traditional banking, including reserve banking, in ways that we cannot yet imagine. 

“The point I’m making is that some of the exciting developments we see, call for prudence and care in adopting them. And this has been very well articulated by our regulatory authorities. But we must act with knowledge and not with fear,” Vice President Yemi Osinbajo cautioned, hours after Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, stormed the senate to declare cryptocurrencies the worst thing since advance fee fraud.

Of course acting with fear is what the CBN and Emefiele have been doing since they heard about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It's what we've been doing as a nation since independence.

"Cryptocurrency is used to describe the activities of traders in an electronic dark world where transactions are extremely opaque, not visible and not transparent,” Emefiele barked.

So, let’s ban it because we do not understand it. 

Typical of people who don't have a worldview and who reside in echo chambers.

On February 5, 2021, the apex bank did issue a circular to Deposit Money Banks (DMB), non-bank financial institutions and other financial institutions, effectively banning cryptocurrency trading in Nigeria. 

The CBN has spent a better part of the year labelling cryptocurrencies as opaque, extremely volatile, a gambling device, and a catalyst for drug peddling and money laundering. Everything but understanding how cryptos work.

It is how we’ve run our country for all of 60 years: ban what we don’t understand, cower in the face of new technology, be slow to adopt new technologies, shy away from empowering our tech ecosystems and baulk at innovation. 

A country whose leaders make so much noise about diversifying the economy away from energy should be quick to encourage technologies that promise to put more money in the pockets of a bulging youth population and demography.

The CBN should have taken its time to study what blockchain technology really means and its capacity for changing the financial sector in the future in ways we can only imagine, rather than rush to ban. 

Which is why Osinbajo’s open rebuke and rebuttal of the CBN is a welcome development and intervention.

Yes, the cryptocurrency world can be gamed by criminals and dubious persons, but so has the traditional monetary systems. Banks are still being used to launder money across the world and to purchase hard drugs, as you read this. But we haven’t banned the banking system or thrown away our legal tenders. 

It doesn’t make sense that while the likes of Elon Musk and much of the business/developed world are opening their doors and minds to cryptos, Africa’s largest economy is acting on impulse and is deploying scare tactics. 

“Let’s regulate, not prohibit…there's a role for regulation here, and it is in the place of our monetary authorities and SEC to provide a robust regulatory regime that addresses these serious concerns without necessarily killing the goose that might lay the golden eggs," Osinbajo says.

We should have those words plastered across all government facilities and bureaucracies in Abuja, our nation’s capital.

Those who know and work with the vice president often share tales of how at home he is with new technology and how innovation excites him like nothing else. He is friends with the young men and women who are using the internet to change our society, one app at a time.

It is why he walks around with an iPad, writes his own speeches on his gadgets and monitors social media trends like no political leader does.

He’s got an open mind--the kind of mindset our political leaders and regulators should possess in a fast paced, ever evolving, digitalized world. 

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*Pulse Editor's Opinion is the viewpoint of an Editor at Pulse. It does not represent the opinion of the Organisation Pulse.