Attorney-General of the federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami’s Twitter deactivation screenshot which he shared on Facebook listed a major cryptocurrency platform and a Virtual Private Network, (VPN) icon on his mobile phone.
Malami shared the screengrab on Tuesday evening to confirm to Nigerians that he had deactivated his Twitter account in line with Federal government’s ban on the social networking app.
The Minister of Justice had threatened on Saturday that Nigerians still using Twitter after a press release announcing a ban on the social media platform would be arrested and charged, even though no law prohibiting such action has been enacted in the country.
Although, Malami’s deactivation of his Twitter account was a violation of the ban order, since he clearly has had to access the platform in order to deactivate it, some people are also seeing potential illegality from the crypto icon on his mobile.
The administration had previously banned all trading in cryptocurrencies in Nigeria, saying it was being used to launder money, fund terrorism, amongst other corrupt and nefarious activities.
Banks were also banned from accepting cryptocurrency transactions while some bank accounts that had been used to trade crypto in the past were frozen or restricted.
Although the CBN, which imposed the ban, said it was working to review it, no new guidelines authorising Nigerians to trade in cryptocurrency have been issued.
It was unclear why the attorney-general was running a crypto account.
See screenshot of the crypto and VPN icons below:
