The great crypto caper

If you had pitched this story to a Nollywood screenwriter, they would have laughed you out of the room. Picture this, a cryptocurrency executive being detained by the Nigerian security forces.

And then, in a scene straight out of a heist movie, making an audacious escape while being escorted to a mosque for Ramadan prayers? It’s almost too far-fetched to be believable.

And yet, this is precisely what has unfolded in the increasingly bizarre case of Nadeem Anjarwalla, the Binance regional manager for Africa who was being held by Nigeria’s Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).

His disappearing act on March 22nd in Abuja has caused an international embarrassment to the country.

Let’s rewind and look at how we arrived at this point. For weeks, the Nigerian government and Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, have been locked in an escalating battle. It began with the stunning arrest of Anjarwalla and his American colleague Tigran Gambaryan by ONSA operatives on February 28.

The reason? Nigeria was demanding a staggering $10 billion from Binance as restitution for allegedly profiting from illegal crypto transactions within its borders.

Then came last week’s incredible jailbreak, or “mosque break” if you will. Somehow, someway, the 37-year-old Anjarwalla managed to slip away from the security personnel who had been assigned to guard him while being escorted to a mosque for Ramadan prayers. In a nation plagued by the scourge of terrorism, this lapse is an embarrassing and unacceptable breach.

How are we sure that soon, we won’t hear stories of bandits and terrorists escaping from custody? We have not yet recovered from the Kuje prison break.

Sadly, the entire episode of the Binance director escaping would be almost comical if the implications weren’t so serious.

Similarly, allowing a high-profile detainee to simply wander off while in custody mocks the country’s judicial system and commitment to the rule of law.

The fallout has been as mishandled as the initial incident itself. Beyond a few lame statements of dismay, we’ve seen no true accountability, no substantive investigations, no dismissals of those directly responsible for this unforgivable security failure. It’s the same shameful script Nigeria knows all too well – a culture of zero consequences enabling repeated bouts of incompetence.

By now I would have expected to see mass resignation of all those responsible for guarding him from top to bottom. But this is Nigeria where nobody resigns.

In the words of James Hardly Chase, if you believe the Binance director escaped, then you will believe anything. If I were a betting man, I would wager that well-placed bribes are what allowed Anjarwalla to make his getaway. Big money may have exchanged hands. By now he will be sitting somewhere sipping his tea and laughing at our faces.

For Binance, this saga could not have gone worse from a public relations standpoint. How can we take ourselves seriously on any front when even something as basic as detaining a suspect becomes a national punchline?

No doubt, having such a high-profile and farcical incident play out in the full view of the world is an embarrassing self-inflicted wound for Nigeria. We need to start taking things seriously in this country. People need to be accountable. We need to start punishing bad behaviours. People get away with many things in this country.

Until we start treating matters of national pride, security, and governance with the utmost seriousness they deserve – through sustained competence, fierce accountability for failures, and a relentless raising of standards – we will remain a global laughingstock painfully incapable of inspiring confidence.

The great crypto caper is indeed the stuff of slapstick farce. But the real tragedy is that it’s a stigma we’ve brought upon ourselves through continual complacency with mediocrity.

When will the humiliation be enough to finally drive substantive reform? Or will future outrageous blunders simply become more fodder for derision rather than a catalyst for true corrective action?

Nigeria’s dignity and standing as a respectable nation continue to erode with every fresh punchline we provide to the world. We are long overdue to start taking ourselves seriously before there’s nothing left to respect.

The great crypto caper, while staggering in its audacity, is no laughing matter.

Nollywood may one day option the rights, but for now, this tragicomedy remains a reality that seems to grow more unbelievable by the day.