Tinubu orders CBN to crack down on crypto fraud – here’s what it means

Sixteen months ago, Nigeria handed its Securities and Exchange Commission the keys to crypto regulation. The Investments and Securities Act, 2025, was unambiguous about it: virtual assets were securities, and the SEC, not the CBN, was the apex regulator, full stop. Director-General Emomotimi Agama built out an entire onboarding pipeline around that mandate, the Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme, and exchanges and crypto protocols queued up to get licensed under it.

On Friday, 17 July, President Bola Tinubu signed something that quietly complicates that picture.

The Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026, announced by presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga, sets up a new Virtual Asset Council. It is chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria. The SEC sits as vice-chair, one seat among several, alongside the Nigerian Revenue Service, the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit and the Office of the National Security Adviser.

That single detail, CBN in the chair rather than SEC, is the story behind the story.

What the CBN-led Virtual Asset Council really means

Read straight, the presidency’s statement is careful to say this changes nothing structurally. No new regulator is being created. No agency loses its statutory powers. What’s being built is a coordination layer sitting on top of an already fragmented system, where digital assets have been sliding between the definitions of currency, commodity and security faster than any single regulator could keep pace with.

The mechanics, according to the Statehouse release:

1. A Virtual Asset Council, chaired by the CBN, with the NRS and SEC as vice-chairs and the NFIU and ONSA as members, is tasked with policy direction and works alongside the Attorney-General to build a harmonised legal…