In what could be termed a revelation, the Binance executive detained in Nigeria for the better part of the year has revealed what he went through in Nigerian custody. The American was taken into custody by Nigerian law enforcement officials in the country in January 2024. He gave full details of his ordeals in a long social media post, detailing the shady dealings, international tensions, and important figures involved, especially Nuhu Ribadau.
Recounting how a meeting was set up by some lawmakers where a bribe of 150 million Naira was demanded of him, he reported that the payment was made in cryptocurrency to their personal wallets. In his post, he also wrote that the DSS was involved in the House of Representatives matter.” He explained how he and his fellow detainee met them at their office on the 5th of January for what he calls “a prerequisite to the meeting with the House of Representative members.
During the prerequisite meeting, Gambaryan mentioned that there were three House of Representative members; Peter Akpanke and Philip Agbese, both working under the leadership of Ginger Obinna Onwusibe, with a third person whose name he couldn’t recall. He recounted that there were fake cameras and media set up to make the meeting look official, but the façade was made obvious by the cameras which he noted weren’t plugged in. The American also added that it was at this meeting that the bribery took place.
Giving further details, Gambaryan reported that the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu had invited them to the official meeting, but functioned through Sa’ad Abubakar. According to him, another key figure in the case was Hamma Adama Belloji, and he also mentioned one Ogunjobi who he said was a pawn moved around in the game. He further noted that the meeting was advertised to them as a friendly meeting with the NSA, the Central Bank’s Governor, and the SEC.
About the money that was the bone of contention, The foreigner wrote that the $26million that was alleged to have escaped from Nigeria was a “complete BS, that it was the cumulative trade data of Nigerians on the Binance platform” According to him, “it was just people buying and selling crypto.”
While talking about his fellow detainee, Nadeem, who they claimed escaped during prayer at the mosque, Gambaryan asserted that it was also another lie, because, “he returned and escaped afterward.” Recording further details, Gambaryan mentioned a letter by his detainees to the US Embassy and the British High Commissioner in Nigeria claiming that they were voluntarily involved in “strategic talk” which he called, “a blatant lie.” Questioning why a person participating in a voluntary activity would need to escape, he further revealed that they were held illegally and that Belloji admitted to fabricating evidence that was used to get a 14-day detaining court order, which after the expiration, they remained in custody.
Towards the end of his post, Gambaryan reported that his detainee tried to use them to break one of the International privacy laws “by demanding user data on all Nigerians to target opposition members allegedly “manipulating the price of the Naira,” while knowing that the Naira’s devaluation was a direct output of president Tinubu’s monetary policy
Concerning the aforementioned monetary policy, Gambaryan concluded that he was not asserting that it was bad. However, though everybody knew that the government retracting itself from such policy would lead to an extreme situation, however, “instead of acknowledging it, “they used Binance as the scapegoat.“
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