Ask what the exact crypto numbers are for Nigeria and the government cannot give you an exact answer. All they know is that people are not using the banks for dollars anymore. They forget that two things caused that. The pandemic and government policies.

The pandemic forced banking business to tank and people were forced online. Nnamdi in Isolo could not die of hunger because bank branches were closed and he could not transact with China. Nnamdi became a digital use case but more than that, he became an exchange.

Nnamdi needed dollars outside and Okey had dollars. Nnamdi has Naira in Nigeria from sales. All they needed to do was agree on a rate and the deal was done. Okey also didn't need to use remittance rails anymore to send money home, he had nnamdi and local agents in the village.

Everything bypassed regular dollar inflow channels and the government couldn't find anyone to blame until they figured out that maybe remittance companies were also the problem because they didn't credit people with fx. The remittance companies on the other hand had to survive.

Bolanle could send money straight to her mother's account using a remittance company and all she needed to do was withdraw using her card at an agent location. Mummy didn't need to go beg the closed bank branches to open. That is why agent transaction numbers jumped too.

Once people found these rails convenient, they used them. That is how innovation works. Even crypto is largely used for trading by people who wanted an option to protect their wealth from impending depreciation. Truth is that it actually helped reduce pressure on the Naira.

I don't know the people who give the Nigerian government advice but it is obvious that they don't visit the streets or have people who live in the real world.

Nigerian banks also have to innovate or die. Propping and them up artificially will make the fall harder.

The government created room for round tripping with the dual exchange rates. All the "protect the Naira" policies were flawed and we are now feeling the desperation. People are now scared to even send money home as fx because they don't know what happens next to Dom accounts.

Investing in Nigeria will take the biggest hit. Why will anyone invest in a Nigerian fintech startup when their future could be terminated with a typo ridden memo? This is the same for all other regulated spaces. Other African countries will win. There is AfCTA now.

If you want more dollars, make things easier and not harder. That is logic. In Nigeria, things happen the other way round. The government believes in force. This time around, the genie left the bottle. People will keep bypassing regular channels. This will make more people do it.

More people will now need dollars outside to fund activities and overwhelm regular channels and drive the rate of devaluation. If the government wanted to pay up debts, they should have tried to figure out the new economy first. They are still living in the past.