Nigeria’s Federal Government has reportedly traced not less than N83 billion in cryptocurrency and fiat money channelled towards the recent nationwide protests against bad governance and hunger in the country.
Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser, reportedly stated this while making his presentation at the inaugural meeting of the Council of State convened by President Bola Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.
The funds it was said, include $50m of cryptocurrency — $38m of which were blocked in four cryptocurrency wallets — and N4bn contributed by various political actors in Abuja, Kano, Kaduna and Katsina.
Punch quoted multiple sources with knowledge of Tuesday’s meeting proceedings to have said that Ribadu, who presented on the topic ‘The Nationwide Protest As It Affects National Security,’ also revealed that an European has been identified as the mastermind of the proliferation of foreign flags during the protests and will soon be declared wanted by the Police.
One of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, disclosed that local conspirators traced to capital city Abuja, Kaduna and Kano have been arrested.
“In his presentation, the NSA said the government was able to trace $50m to crypto wallets that were made as donations to the protests. They succeeded in blocking four of those wallets containing $38m,” Punch quoted one of the sources to have said.
“They also found out that some political actors contributed N4bn to fund the protests.”