Nigeria’s financial markets regulator has formally declared the country’s readiness to accommodate stablecoin businesses, provided they align with a clear regulatory framework designed to protect market integrity and empower its citizens.

The announcement was made by the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr. Emomotimi Agama, at the inaugural Nigeria Stablecoin Summit held in Lagos.

The summit, the first of its kind on the African continent, brought together policymakers, developers, and digital finance players to map out the future of regulated stablecoin adoption across Africa’s largest economy.

In a keynote address titled “Building a Regulatory Framework for Stablecoin Innovation: The Nigerian Perspective,” Dr. Agama declared that Nigeria is open to stablecoin enterprises—but only on terms that prioritize financial integrity and long-term national development.

“When history documents Africa’s financial revolution, today will be remembered as the moment we moved from potential to action,” Agama said.

He emphasized that the SEC’s position is not merely about embracing digital assets for their novelty, but ensuring they serve Nigeria’s broader economic goals, especially in improving financial inclusion, reducing remittance costs, and stabilizing value for users exposed to the volatile naira.

Stablecoins As A Hedge Against Volatility

Agama noted that stablecoins are increasingly being used by Nigerian freelancers, traders, and tech-savvy youth to escape inflationary pressures and carry out cross-border transactions efficiently. As Nigeria’s digital economy grows more decentralized, stablecoins have emerged as a reliable means of securing and transferring value.

“The Nigerian digital economy is youthful, dynamic, and increasingly decentralized. Stablecoins are playing a central role in facilitating secure, borderless transactions,” he stated.

He acknowledged, however, that the lack of local regulation has allowed some bad actors to flourish. With the rollout of new legal frameworks, the government hopes to separate genuine innovation from fraud.

ISA 2025: The Legal Backbone of Nigeria’s Digital Finance Future

Central to Nigeria’s new stablecoin policy is the Investment and Securities Act (ISA) 2025, a legislative upgrade that Dr. Agama described as “forward-looking.” The law grants the SEC wide-ranging powers to oversee digital assets, including stablecoins, cryptocurrencies, and decentralized finance platforms.

“The ISA 2025 strengthens our ability to manage innovation responsibly. It provides the legal clarity the industry needs,” Agama said.

The Act also gives regulatory backing to the SEC’s regulatory sandbox, a controlled environment where startups can test financial technologies under supervision. According to Agama, the sandbox has seen increasing interest from international stablecoin ventures seeking regulatory clarity on African soil.

Dr. Agama offered a bold vision of Nigeria not only becoming a stablecoin hub for Africa but also positioning Lagos as the “stablecoin capital of the Global South.” He called on developers, investors, and financial institutions to think beyond national boundaries and tap into regional trade.

“Five years from now, I want to see a Nigerian stablecoin powering cross-border trade from Dakar to Dar es Salaam. This is not just finance—it’s nation-building,” he said.

Industry leaders praised the SEC’s proactive stance. Nathaniel Luz, President of the Africa Stablecoin Network, called the summit and the regulatory posture a landmark moment.

“This is a pivotal moment for digital finance in Africa. Friendly regulation and strategic vision are exactly what emerging markets need,” Luz remarked.

He emphasized that clear policies help weed out fraudulent actors while attracting credible players who can contribute to economic growth and financial stability.

What Lies Ahead: ‘Crypto Smart, Nigeria Strong’

To bolster its efforts, the SEC is launching the ‘Crypto Smart, Nigeria Strong’ initiative—a public engagement program focused on building blockchain literacy and regulatory awareness among Nigerian youth. The project will target schools, universities, and online platforms, aiming to teach the basics of digital finance, how to spot scams, and promote a culture of long-term investing.

This move signals Nigeria’s intent to not only regulate from the top but to co-create policies with its tech community, offering startups a seat at the table in shaping the country’s digital finance future.

TAJ Bank Ltd has suffered another major system failure, resulting in the unauthorized transfer of nearly N957.4 million to customer accounts across 26 commercial banks and fintech platforms, a development that echoes a similar incident last year.

However, in a surprising legal twist, the bank has withdrawn its lawsuit against the affected institutions after the Federal High Court in Abuja declined its request for interim freezing and reversal orders.

This latest glitch occurred in March 2025, marking the second time in under a year that TAJ Bank’s internal systems were compromised. In 2024, a separate system error saw N139.6 million wrongly credited to multiple accounts—a matter which at the time received a favorable interim ruling from Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, who ordered the reversal of funds from institutions like FairMoney Microfinance Bank.

Court Declines Freeze Request, Bank Backs Down

In court filings dated June 11, 2025 (Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1132/2025), TAJ Bank had argued that the affected financial institutions were obligated under the CBN Regulatory Framework for Banking Verification (BVN) Operations and Watchlist for the Nigerian Banking Industry (2017) to freeze the disputed funds and reverse them to TAJ Bank.

The bank claimed that unless its applications for post-no-debit orders, freezing directives, and fund reversals were granted, it would face “untold hardship and dire financial loss.” According to the suit, the N957.4 million was traced directly to customers’ accounts with the 26 institutions following a “system glitch in the Plaintiff’s server” on March 9 and 10, 2025.

However, during a session on June 27, Justice Muhammad Umar rejected the motion for an ex-parte freezing order, stating that the financial institutions must first be put on notice and properly served with TAJ Bank’s legal documents.

TAJ’s lawyer, Rilwanu Idris, argued passionately for the order, saying, “The money had already been deducted… and if you ask them to produce this money, they will,” warning the court that the funds might otherwise disappear. The court disagreed, instead scheduling the case for a full hearing on July 21, 2025.

But at the resumed hearing, TAJ Bank abruptly backed down. Represented by T.O. Nworie, the bank filed a Notice of Discontinuance dated July 17, 2025, withdrawing its request for fund recovery and abandoning the case without explanation.

Justice Umar accepted the withdrawal and struck out the matter.

Previous Incident and Legal Precedent

TAJ Bank’s 2024 case had ended quite differently. That earlier incident involved a Federal High Court order instructing fintechs to freeze and return N139.6 million mistakenly sent to multiple customers due to a similar system error. Then, the court approved the motion, provided that the bank would indemnify affected institutions in case facts later contradicted the basis of the reversal.

In contrast, the 2025 ruling signaled a shift, with the court choosing not to issue any interim relief unless all parties were heard, reflecting a more cautious stance amid the rising number of digital transaction disputes.

Rising Threat of Digital Banking Frauds

The TAJ Bank saga underscores the growing fragility of digital financial infrastructure in Nigeria’s banking sector. According to data from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) cited by Nairametrics, Nigerian banks lost a staggering N52.26 billion to fraud across 70,000+ transactions in 2024—a fivefold jump from N11.61 billion in 2023.

The spike is attributed largely to vulnerabilities in electronic payment channels, where fraudsters often use social engineering tactics, including phishing, fake websites, and malware. Insiders also reportedly enable some of the institutional-level fraud.

Dr Tope Fasoranti, a banking expert and consultant on digital transformation, noted that collusion, weak cybersecurity protocols, and reactive response systems have worsened the threat. “Banks need stronger frameworks, deeper inter-institutional collaboration, and proactive risk-monitoring to curb this trend,” he said.

The Challenge This Exposes

TAJ Bank’s quiet withdrawal raises serious questions about enforcement capacity, responsibility sharing, and legal remedies in Nigeria’s financial ecosystem, especially when glitches result in large-scale unauthorized debits.

The incident also puts pressure on regulators and stakeholders to tighten banking system protocols, ensure traceability of electronic funds, and review legal processes that govern digital fraud disputes.

While the CBN’s existing regulatory framework empowers banks to flag and block suspicious accounts, enforcement remains murky in practice, especially when courts demand due process over urgent intervention.

This video podcast provides a timely and critical perspective on the transformation of the labor market in the age of artificial intelligence. It highlights that traditional labor, once a cornerstone of production, is becoming increasingly commoditized and susceptible to automation by AI systems. This shift is exemplified by recent layoffs at major tech companies like Microsoft, which are retooling their workforce to adapt to the new market dynamics driven by AI.

The core argument is that in this AI-driven economy, “knowledge” has emerged as the most valuable and durable factor of production, surpassing the traditional significance of mere labor. Unlike labor, which is finite and “expires,” knowledge possesses a regenerative quality, akin to capital. Companies are now making significant investments to acquire and retain individuals with specialized domain knowledge and “defensible moats,” recognizing that these experts can build and enhance enterprises in ways that AI cannot easily replicate.

Ndubuisi emphasizes that career longevity and success in the future will depend not on merely performing routine tasks or following established workflows, but on cultivating deep domain expertise with the ability to continuously curate and introduce new, impactful knowledge that can redesign core business systems. Microsoft’s strategy of compensating and retaining those who demonstrate this higher-level knowledge, even while reducing general labor, serves as a clear illustration of this paradigm shift. The message is clear: the future belongs to those who possess and can continually generate valuable knowledge.

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Comment on Feed

Comment: Is it truly a knowledge problem? I can only see experience and execution emerging as the most valuable and durable factor right now. The knowledge gap has already been blurred by AI.

My Response: Labour has both experience and execution components. In natural philosophy, Labour could be seen as a scalar quantity. Knowledge is a vector quantity. In the context of this post, knowledge is not the same as intelligence. AI might have blurred “intelligence” but not “knowledge” which itself is a factor of production.

Knowledge is what you know while intelligence is the capacity to learn and use what you know. Out of knowledge, intelligence should flow. So, AI cannot have more knowledge than those who made it because intelligence is a subset of knowledge. In other words, someone must have knowledge before these intelligent systems are created.

The young men Meta is paying $200m are not just intelligent people, they are Knowledgeable people, recruited to create the next intelligent systems. It is their knowledge , and not the intelligence, that Meta is paying for.