Popular Nigerian foreign exchange company AbokiFX has resumed operations now that former CBN governor Godwin Emefiele has been removed from his position.
On Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s orders, Emefiele was suspended from office in June, promptly arrested, and bundled away by Nigeria’s secret police, the State Security Service (SSS).
Before he was suspended, Emefiele had requested an investigation into Oniwinde Adedotun, the proprietor of AbokiFX. According to Businessday, the suspended Governor of the CBN accused Mr. Adedotun of forex fraud at the September 2021 Monetary Policy Committee meeting.
“Some Nigerians offer the CBN no benefit of the doubt. They believe that all we do here is hunt humans. They neglect that there are many unscrupulous economic actors,” Emefiele’s CBN stated at the time.
According to the report, unlawful trader Emefiele stated that Adedotun used AbokiFX for forex fraud, manipulations, and speculations by acquiring forex in order to make a profit, labeling him a fraudster.
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Emefiele had said, “There was a time when we asked our coworkers to call AbokiFX and ask how he sets the rates.” He also said that Mr. Adedotun lives in the United Kingdom and puts out rates that he chooses without talking to BDCs.
Emefiele said that the owner of AbokiFX is a criminal foreign exchange dealer who has taken in and sold tens of millions of dollars worth of foreign currency to several Nigerian companies, which is against the law. So, he says, Mr. Adedotun directly gains from the rates he puts on his website every day.
“He is from Nigeria, but he lives in England. Mr. Oniwinde, we’ll find him. We’ll follow you. Emefiele said at the time, “We can’t let you keep killing our economy.”
Mr. Emefiele said that the I&E window is still the only market for exchange rates.
“I’m sorry to say that I don’t recognise any fx in the market, and I don’t plan to,” he said.
After the call for a probe, AbokiFX stopped doing business and kept a low profile to avoid more accusations from the suspended CBN governor.
AbokiFX is back
The platform showed one dollar at N790 and N795 for buying and selling, respectively, on Monday, July 10, 2023. On the same day, the buying and selling rates for pounds were N1,005 and N1,015, while the buying and selling rates for euros were N845 and N850.
After President Bola Tinubu suspended Emefiele and the different foreign exchange windows collapsed into the Investors and Exporters (I&E) forex window last month, there were reports that the parallel trader had started up again.
Launched in 2014, AbokiFX is branded as a research and information service interested in conducting market research and gathering data on parallel market rates. With a strong desire for transparency around the parallel market through information technology, it has risen to be very popular amongst Nigerians.
The platform gives users in almost 200 countries around the world detailed information about benchmark parallel rates. The owner is a professional accountant from South Ockendon, Essex, named Mr. Oniwinde. His birthday is September 25, 1975. He was born in England and lived there with his family.
In 2015, he listed the company in the UK as the only owner. However, Boaz Associates Limited, Esther’s Limited, ES Merchant Limited, and AbokiFX, a company he started six years ago, are also major owners. As of January 2020, he held 75–100% of the company’s shares and could fire and hire directors.