Nigeria's financial watchdogs are under pressure right now, and the cracks are starting to show. Suspicious public funds are moving through a chain of banks, fintechs, and private companies before landing in cryptocurrency, and regulators are struggling to keep up with the pace of it all.
The route is deliberate. Money that originates from public sources is being pushed through multiple layers of the formal financial system, using institutions that are supposed to catch exactly this kind of activity. Instead, those same institutions appear to be part of the pipeline.
What makes this particularly pointed is the timing. Nigeria's crypto regulatory framework is still finding its footing, and bad actors seem to know where the soft spots are. The gap between the speed of digital finance and the speed of regulatory response is wide enough to drive serious money through.
The pressure is now on Nigeria's oversight bodies to close those gaps before the pipeline becomes a blueprint.
Originally published by BusinessDay.