Crypto-Currency Market Not Regulated In Nigeria, Says SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission has cautioned Nigerians about making investments in the cryptocurrency market, saying that the market is yet to be regulated in Nigeria.

The Director General of the commission, Lamido Abubakar Yuguda, in a seminar lecture for Participants Course 29 of the Defence College, held in Abuja on Wednesday,

He also said that Nigeria has not made significant progress in its industrialisation journey, despite several attempts.

He harped on the need for government and other stakeholders to leverage on the technology and innovations to boost industrialisation as well as improve its contribution to Gross Domestic Product.

He explained that with the current manufacturing output to gdp ratio of less that ten per cent, Nigeria is lagging behind in the global space.

The SEC Boss said, “Government is still working on developing a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency market, we advise Nigerians to be careful while investing.

“Nigeria has made several attempt at industrialisation in the last 6 decades, but has not made significant progress.

“To this end, there is need for us to increase the contribution of industries to the economy by creating the enabling business environment, leveraging on innovation and technology.

The DG also said there is need to promote Public Private Partnership to foster investment in infrastructure, proper coordination of fiscal and monetary policies, and the design of appropriate industrial policy for cost recovery and competition.

“There is need for us to utilise all available resources to actualise the industrialisation goal of our nation and one of such resources is the capital market.

“However, the challenges of using the capital market includes, loss of privacy, regulatory and compliance requirement, cost associated with rising capital and the economic environment.

Air Commodore A.G Kehinde, Director, ICT, Defence College, noted that the role of Securities and exchange commission cannot be overemphasized when considering long term capital.

He explained that the continuous rise in inflation, unstable economic environment among others have impeded the ability of commercial banks to offer long term loans to customers.

He said, “Financial education, promoting ease of doing business is critical to achieving industrialisation in Nigeria.

“As we now know, banks do not give long term capital to businesses anymore, due to increasing inflation rate and unstable economic environment in the country”.