Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00at the time, so you would have seen large transactions in terms of
00:00:03remittances as well as you know p2p
00:00:07transactions, um, but once people have
00:00:10adopted it, it has come to stay, and if you cast your mind
00:00:14back, you
00:00:16of know, a when of the current
00:00:18administration harmonized
00:00:21the um, exchange
00:00:24of rate, um, they identified and rightly
00:00:28so ' 'um transactions in the
00:00:32crypto space as one
00:00:34of the areas um that regulation need needed to be
00:00:38strengthened
00:00:39of um and subsequent to that um there was there
00:00:43was
00:00:44in one very high profile crypto exchange that was in the
00:00:47news um that was being prosecuted for
00:00:51of um certain breaches in the market as
00:00:54of well as
00:00:55you know much more recently um establishment of huge
00:00:58tax bill'. um that they have been
00:01:02alleged to to be owing to the government,
00:01:06so that tells you that there's a lot of
00:01:09transactions going through that space, and
00:01:13government is interested, and if you look at the
00:01:16recent investments and securities
00:01:20act that was introduced very
00:01:24recently, it defined
00:01:27digital and virtual assets as security. and that has
00:01:31been the approach the securities and exchange
00:01:35commission have been given to it over time because they believe it's
00:01:39something that has to be regulated and they need to pay attention
00:01:43to it as part
00:01:44of the tax reforms um both from
00:01:48a disclosure perspective as well
00:01:51as
00:01:53of identifying taxable
00:01:54transactions
00:01:58on digital and virtual. assets as well, now what the tax
00:02:02authorities have come to do is to then say, well, sometimes it
00:02:06seems like there's some ambiguity, um, let us bring a
00:02:09bit of certainty of how we will approach these transactions from our
00:02:13perspective, um, and they've set out these guidelines as a
00:02:17guide,
00:02:18of and one thing I'll tell
00:02:20of you, um, the tax administrators are not the
00:02:24policy setters, they are simply
00:02:27there implement the law, that has been passed by the
00:02:31national assembly, but sometimes they have to give
00:02:34interpretation or bring clarity to the tax payer
00:02:37of the positions they will take, but tax
00:02:41payers at liberty and have the right to say, well, I do not agree
00:02:45with this interpretation, this is my own interpretation,
00:02:49but
00:02:49you know it doesn't mean that what the actions the
00:02:52of tax authorities have taken, I i believe it's in the right direction, because
00:02:55it gives everyone certainty of how the tax authorities intent.
00:03:00to treat
00:03:00of those of transactions um and that is supposed to
00:03:03of strengthen
00:03:06of um you know the sector and allow for more people to be able to say these will be the
00:03:09outcomes when i trade.
00:03:13good breakdown as always, but i would ask that for many
00:03:17a nigerian to invest in or trade cryptocurrencies and other virtual
00:03:21assets, what are the key tax obligations
00:03:24uh you don't understanding introduced under this guidelines and who will be
00:03:29of affected? All right, I think the first thing is to
00:03:32of und you, because it sort of gets technical, but I'll try to
00:03:36of simplify as much as I know, right?
00:03:39of So one
00:03:40of of the technicalities is the fact that
00:03:44um, you know,
00:03:46there were
00:03:48of two different definitions, depending
00:03:52on seen,
00:03:53the version but a
00:03:56there definition of the, was of the act that assets, you've um...
00:03:59for in digital the Nigerian tax administration
00:04:03Act and
00:04:04there was a definition of virtual
00:04:07of assets in the Nigeria Tax Act and those terms
00:04:11are used interchangeably and that
00:04:15could create
00:04:16of significant ambiguity because on the one hand it was defined as
00:04:20any digital means
00:04:22of of exchange irrespective of class or type
00:04:26right and then in the other legislation it's
00:04:30excluded certain types of transaction, which I think is
00:04:34important, because when you look at the approach, the Nigerian
00:04:38tax authorities have taken, they have taken a practical approach
00:04:42to this to say that you
00:04:44of cannot categorize all cryptocurrencies
00:04:47exactly
00:04:48of the same, so they have put them in different
00:04:52a buckets, so there are
00:04:53of cryptocurrencies, right,
00:04:56you know, the likes of bitcoin and so on,
00:05:01um
00:05:01of and then
00:05:02they there's what we call the stable coins and those stable
00:05:06of coins are simply reference to
00:05:09you reserve banks or central banks. currency so the
00:05:13USDT for example is a stable con and
00:05:16then they also defined security and
00:05:20investment tokens which derive their underline
00:05:24value from
00:05:25you know stocks, shares and other security, so there's more
00:05:29like play like derivatives and then you have the
00:05:33utility and government tokens, you have the
00:05:36NFTs um which
00:05:39you know are essentially digital digital.
00:05:43um representation of value like art and then you have the
00:05:46sovereign digital currencies now each of
00:05:49those um you know digital
00:05:52assets have been defined in these guidelines
00:05:56around how they would be treated and let me give you
00:06:00some examples so um for all
00:06:03them right baseline if they if
00:06:07their value changes right you would
00:06:10have an appreciation value, but as long as you
00:06:14hold them,
00:06:16you know, even though their value has gained, from a
00:06:20market perspective, you will not be charged any
00:06:23capital gains tax, so this specialized
00:06:27role was clearly articulated in the guidelines,
00:06:31particularly in relation to um
00:06:34defi, the decentralized finance
00:06:36protocols, wrapped tokens and receipt tokens
00:06:40and you know
00:06:44they this sort of understands that if you are moving
00:06:48you know um same digital asset from
00:06:51one wallet to another
00:06:55taxable event has not occurred, but
00:06:59when you convert them to other currency or you trade them and
00:07:02somebody pays you cash, at that point you need to determine
00:07:06the capital gain that has accrewed to you as an
00:07:10individual trading in the... crypto assets
00:07:14um and then there are other things you need to look at depending on the type
00:07:18of digital asset, but let's stay on the income tax, so at that point
00:07:22a taxable event occurs, um, so if it is an
00:07:25individual, you put it through the tax band, and you
00:07:29tax it in the hands the individual. one the
00:07:33innovation the government has brought in, which i think
00:07:36helps, is number one, the
00:07:39ability to settle the... tax
00:07:42liability in digital currency as well, so if you have
00:07:46determined that you know you that there is gain in
00:07:50value on this asset, you can settle it um
00:07:54using um you know the reference to
00:07:58the us dollar as an example,
00:08:00you know that way it avoids a situation where in the hands the
00:08:04holder you know the any
00:08:08devaluation in currency is not then subjected to tax.
00:08:12which I think um is a good thing um
00:08:16the the other element which I think is is
00:08:20actually key um is
00:08:24the ability to
00:08:26you know for the virtual asset providers on who on
00:08:30whose exchanges these things are being traded they've also
00:08:34putting some obligations for them to report transactions
00:08:38of of different types to to the
00:08:41government um As you can imagine to do one
00:08:45the biggest challenges and by
00:08:48design,
00:08:49you know, crypto assets particularly and digital
00:08:53assets, they run on blockchain technology, um,
00:08:56and crypto coins,
00:08:59particularly, one the advantages they
00:09:03have is their confidentiality, but government is now
00:09:07imposing some obligation on the crypto
00:09:10exchanges to... provide certain
00:09:13disclosures of transactions, the individual trading on
00:09:17their platforms, the details the transactions, how much they
00:09:21bought, how much they sold, the
00:09:24value, their tax identification number and
00:09:28things like that, those will be collected by the
00:09:32virtual asset service provider, which is
00:09:35essentially the cripto exchange and provided
00:09:38to the tax authority, there are other elements that
00:09:42one needs to think about um depending on the type of
00:09:45cryptoasset, are they securities for tax
00:09:49purposes or are they fiat
00:09:53currency for tax purposes? because these have
00:09:56implications, because depending
00:09:59on the nature these crypto assets, they could be
00:10:03subjected to that, but there is clear exemption for
00:10:06exchange of money from that and
00:10:10securities so... once you can classify them out the
00:10:14security bucket, for example those
00:10:18currencies that are issued by
00:10:20you know central banks, so the central bank, digital
00:10:24currencies, you know, an example in our own context is
00:10:27the inira, those would
00:10:31be ignored or exempted from that, but if
00:10:35you're trading in NFTs as an example, which
00:10:39has an underline transaction that is being you know
00:10:42sold, then that underline transaction should be
00:10:46vitable, and you know, so so those are some
00:10:49the dynamics and apart from that, there's also the stamp
00:10:53duty,
00:10:54you know, so if it is security, you know,
00:10:57it is it, does it qualify as a marketable security or does
00:11:01it qualify as a conviance
00:11:04you know or transfer which attracts stamp duty depending on the type
00:11:08for marketable security 0.22 something and
00:11:12then you know for conveyance or
00:11:15transfers that is 1.5% so those are some the
00:11:19dynamics like i said it's quite complicated um
00:11:23and even though it sets baseline, i think there's a
00:11:27lot of learning that people would have to go through, and specialist
00:11:31consultation, because the issues are not exactly
00:11:35straightforward despite the guidelines that have been provided
00:11:38by by the Nigeria Revenue Service, indeed and and a big
00:11:42technical just like you said, but now almost finally,
00:11:46because this is really interesting and I think this
00:11:49conversation uh, it has to be a continuous one, because
00:11:52Nigerians need to be educated and... really
00:11:55understand uh all of this and details of
00:11:58this um uh uh regulation now how
00:12:02do you expect this guidelines now to impact innovation and
00:12:06investments in Nigeria's Fintech and digital assets
00:12:09ecosystem now is there a risk that higher tax
00:12:13obligations could discourage participation because sometimes when it gets too
00:12:17complex do you think some these guys will not start looking for ways out of
00:12:20this how does that come to
00:12:22you right thank you very much for that question
00:12:25tolu um um
00:12:29um let me let me put it this way you
00:12:33know even before the guidelines and
00:12:36before these transactions came out it
00:12:40was clear that these transactions were taxable right
00:12:44they were always taxable the only issue is that if you do not have a
00:12:48proper enforcement mechanism um
00:12:52people will evade taxes right? so it meant that
00:12:55people were not paying their taxes on these transactions before now,
00:12:59so the guidelines is not really introducing new tax
00:13:02obligations, um, it's just trying to say this is the tax
00:13:06authorities perspective, and like I said, you're at
00:13:10liberty to disagree, and the way our laws have been
00:13:13structured, you can actually appeal to, you can actually
00:13:17appeal to the tax appeal tribunal or go to the federal high court
00:13:21if you're uncomfortable, so there's protection of rights of tax.
00:13:25years um, but I must congratulate and appreciate the government in the first
00:13:29step, because
00:13:31you know this move of issuing out the guidelines is move from
00:13:35regulatory ambiguity to formal
00:13:38recognition or you know and structured taxation of virtual
00:13:42assets, and I think that that's important, other jurisdictions
00:13:46have come up with different approaches
00:13:49and some work, some do not work, so if you look at India for
00:13:53example, they put a flat i think
00:13:5530% on digital assets um
00:13:59and and that is very honorous um and then there are
00:14:03some jurisdictions that have tried a withholding tax on digital
00:14:07assets which is again quite
00:14:09honorous um so different countries
00:14:12depending on their tax policy and their approach have looked at this as
00:14:16something you know should we encourage it should we discourage it and sometimes they want to
00:14:20discourage it um but experience shows us that when
00:14:23designing tax policy sometimes you know
00:14:27you may not necessarily
00:14:29discourage the um
00:14:32the consumption or the usage of of those assets, so if I give you the
00:14:36example of excise that we impose on
00:14:39sugar um or we impose tobacco and
00:14:43alcohol, does it really reduce the
00:14:46consumption these products? in the end it's a balancing
00:14:50act of
00:14:51you know the moral angle of government, you know,
00:14:55discouraging certain transactions or encouraging them, but
00:14:59the balance of revenue generation on the other hand, so it
00:15:03is important in my view that you
00:15:07know while the government is applying this, because
00:15:11you know it seems to me like certain um obligations
00:15:15that have been introduced, and guess maybe because the
00:15:19maturity of economy with you know
00:15:22with monitoring these things some of... it
00:15:25has a bit aggressive
00:15:29you know when you look at
00:15:30it from the perspective the taxpayer um i would
00:15:34say you know virtual assets
00:15:36you know ' service providers, they have so many obligations
00:15:40right now, but normally their obligations should not be more
00:15:44than a burrow for example, you
00:15:47know, um, otherwise there's no equity, because you
00:15:51know, for for for many these virtual assets service providers,
00:15:55they are not doing much different from what a burrow is
00:15:59doing or what a stock exchange is actually
00:16:03doing, so I think that is the equity that needs to be
00:16:07brought in. but in my mind i do not think it's going to
00:16:10you know affect the broad digital
00:16:14economy or the fintech ecosystem all right
00:16:17because you know apart from digital
00:16:21assets there's a lot of other spaces where people
00:16:25play um but this is just one
00:16:28area um and then there would also be
00:16:31innovation coming into this area as well to ensure that you know
00:16:35people in that space. supported to actually
00:16:38comply, so you'l be seeing quite a lot coming from
00:16:42you know the established fintechs and crypto
00:16:46exchanges that are regulated by sec to assist
00:16:50their clients with complying with the provisions of this
00:16:54law, of this guideline, it's not
00:16:56law. all right
00:17:00then, well that's um it on this conversation, must thank you
00:17:04so much, i still have some questions, but
00:17:07i think we need to have a part two of this conversation because this
00:17:11is indeed key, I must say so, partner tax
00:17:14reporting
00:17:15and strategy, prized water house coopers, my guest has been Mr.
00:17:18Kennet erikume, thank you so much uh for your time,
00:17:22even me, I was able to get some new stuffs, new deals, new
00:17:26stuffs to you know to understand around the regulations and all of it, thanks
00:17:30as always enjoy the rest of your day, thank you tolu um,
00:17:34but I mean we can keep the conversation going, thank you, thank you.
00:17:38Thank you, thank you so much, thank you, thank you very
00:17:40much.
00:18:17I am lumba here at the
00:18:20Lukenya Hill camp in
00:18:24Machacos County in Kenya and today
00:18:27we discuss a contentious
00:18:31yet interesting subject
00:18:35the French. and their
00:18:38models operating in the continent of
00:18:42Africa, you now, several
00:18:46years ago, the former
00:18:48president of Mozambique, Samora,
00:18:52Marshall said that sometimes we
00:18:55compare colonialists and
00:18:59say one was better than the other,
00:19:02and he told us, don't
00:19:04engage in that comparis. and what does it
00:19:08matter when a person stabs you when he is smiling and when he's
00:19:12snearing, at the end the day you are dead. the
00:19:16same is to be said the French, the colonizers,
00:19:19they were perhaps the most vicious, the most vicious,
00:19:23particularly in Africa, because they came to
00:19:26loot, plunder and never leave, and this
00:19:30is so self-evident that when you look at the
00:19:34manner in which they came in to African
00:19:38territories, the one that they
00:19:41acquired primarily by dent of
00:19:44conquest of patient such as
00:19:48Senegal,
00:19:51Niger, Mali,
00:19:54Burkinafaso, which was upper Valter, Central
00:19:58African Republic and even little islands like
00:20:01Mayot and Benin, and the one that they subsequently
00:20:05received after the treaty of Versaale. like togo, their mother's
00:20:09operanda was to convert people
00:20:13into French, and young people
00:20:16in schools were told to say, our
00:20:20ancestors, the girls, the policy
00:20:24was assimilation, to make you
00:20:26little French
00:20:28people, that is the manner in which they
00:20:32governed their territories, and if you visit
00:20:36any of this... cities they were made in the
00:20:39image of Paris, that is how
00:20:43Abijan or to have look like, that is how
00:20:47that car was meant to look like, that is how near may
00:20:51was meant to look like, and the net effect therefore is
00:20:55that their system of administration was to make them
00:20:58french territory, and the word, the
00:21:01description in in french
00:21:04was the territoir, the foreign
00:21:07territories of France, which were effectively being
00:21:11administered from Paris, this of
00:21:15course could not continue for all
00:21:18times, when the struggle for
00:21:22independence and the decision in San Francisco in
00:21:251945 that colonization was a crime against
00:21:29humanity and that people should decolonize, France
00:21:33itself was a crisis and shall degal had
00:21:37to be called back as a war general and in
00:21:401958 he came back and of course the gollist
00:21:44constitution and still at that
00:21:47time France was not prepared to leave their
00:21:51territories and some have argued that in fact the
00:21:55referendum that was held in
00:21:571958 was
00:21:59designed to tell the former
00:22:02colonies you regain your independence or those
00:22:06aspects of it that we want you to regain, but you still
00:22:10remain within a colony, you still remain within
00:22:14the French colony, your budget will be dealt
00:22:18with in Paris, you "currency will be pagged upon the
00:22:22French frank, your leaders will be
00:22:25directed by France, your foreign policy will be
00:22:29dictated to by France, and when the
00:22:33decision was then made to do that, and
00:22:37the countries voted with Guine voting no,
00:22:41many French colonies actually remained under the
00:22:44tutelage of France. There were of course three individuals
00:22:48who did not like this." number one was ahmed
00:22:52ben bell in Algeria who was very
00:22:56clear that you cannot allow this situation to
00:22:59continue and the French literally left
00:23:03Algeria destroyed because they did not like what Benbehla
00:23:07was doing. The second one was in Mali or what was then called
00:23:11the French Sudan Modibo Keita. Mudibo keita
00:23:15actually extracted himself from that environment and for a
00:23:19short time. there was meant to be a unity between Mali and
00:23:23Ghana, and of course the most famous in this
00:23:27regard was Ahmed Sekuture of
00:23:30Guine, so that when you look at the
00:23:33French, they continue to stay in those
00:23:36territories, and what they did was to have
00:23:40individuals leaders who are their uncles,
00:23:43Felix, remained
00:23:47anchor the French in that particular. part the world and
00:23:51of course later in Gabon, the Omar Bongo
00:23:55was one the boys that was kept by the French and of
00:23:59course Denisa songweso in Congo Brazaville,
00:24:02so when the French left, they ensured that
00:24:06they continue to control their countries, and the
00:24:10currencies in those areas are
00:24:14currencies that were controlled from France even to
00:24:17date in the case of some them, individuals such as
00:24:21Jah Bedel Bokasa in Central African
00:24:24Republic who are tolerated by the French were simply doing
00:24:28France's building and how has French or
00:24:31France continued to dominate their former
00:24:35colonies, first the creation of la francophonie. la
00:24:39francophonie is a union of former French
00:24:42colonies, the essence of which
00:24:46is to ensure that they have their...
00:24:50economy dictated to by France, their
00:24:54currency, the CFA Frank, the West African version and
00:24:58the Central African version, until the French went to the
00:25:01euro, they had to keep a
00:25:05certain portion their money in the French
00:25:08bank, and that continues in respect of certain countries up
00:25:12to today, they have to midwife all their
00:25:16economic activities through Perry, that is one.
00:25:20economic domination, the second one is political
00:25:23domination, and one sees that in places such as
00:25:27Cameron, with individuals such as Paul Beer,
00:25:31who once they are elected spend most their time in
00:25:34Paris, and beyond the political domination
00:25:38is also military domination, when we recently
00:25:42had wave of protest against elected
00:25:46leaders, what has happened is that in the...
00:25:50Sahalian region, what has happened is that you have
00:25:54insurgents in northern Mali, you have
00:25:57insurgents in Churd, in sergents in
00:26:01Niger, in sergeents in Burkina
00:26:04Faso, you having sergents in in
00:26:08Central African Republic, and you have the base as
00:26:12la Codivor, and of course when the cou started
00:26:16happening, it was rejection the French, in the year
00:26:20in the 2022, we started seeing wave
00:26:24of young leaders emerging in the sahalian
00:26:27nations, it started with the guiné, and after
00:26:31Guine you have... had Niger, after Niger you had
00:26:34Mali, after Mali you had Bukina and an
00:26:38electoral process in Dhaka in Senegal, and one
00:26:42the first thing that they did was to disconnect, we are no longer
00:26:45using CFA Frank, we want your
00:26:49armies to leave, we are going to
00:26:53be in charge of our foreign policy, so
00:26:57this then leads us to the mother
00:27:00question: "do the French ever want
00:27:04to leave?" "No, they don't. Someone
00:27:08said, a commentator once said that if
00:27:12the French were to leave
00:27:16their territories, to cut the umbilical
00:27:19cord with their territories, within
00:27:2320 years France would be a third world, whatever third world mean, but I
00:27:27think it meant that France would no longer be playing in the
00:27:31league in which it played." and
00:27:33you can see it, why do they want to control these territories? one may
00:27:37ask, cheap uranium, they get it almost
00:27:41for a song, sheep gold, they get it
00:27:44almost for a song, sheep
00:27:47earth, you almost get it for a
00:27:50song, french culture, remember
00:27:54that language is a multi million dollar
00:27:58industry, so when countries are beginning to
00:28:02migrate. from the use of french,
00:28:05like some countries in the sahel have now made bambara the
00:28:09official language, it means you are no longer supplying books
00:28:13in french, it means your supply of
00:28:17students to the sobone and other french institution, so it means
00:28:21that the economic lifelines that keep France
00:28:24alive are being cut, and this is why
00:28:28France must continue to dominate our colonies and
00:28:32You can see that in order to remain in Africa, France is
00:28:36now to recruit trying to recruit countries that were
00:28:40not formally within the French colony. There is
00:28:43major meeting that is going to take place in Kenya in the
00:28:47year 2026. Kenya was never a colony of
00:28:51France, but they are beginning to have this dallions. In other
00:28:54words, if we lose one here, we are going to recruit one
00:28:58here, and you see very active French president try.
00:29:02to dictate what is happening in particularly in the sahil, one the
00:29:06areas that is disturbing them, and today, I
00:29:10think only, if I'm talk to give it context,
00:29:14only in the month of November, actually the on the fourth day of
00:29:18November, the year 2025, timi goita, the president of
00:29:21Mali is on record as saying, we know they are
00:29:25doing everything in their power to ensure that they
00:29:29destabilize the Sahel, that is what France is going to do. They
00:29:33are going to do everything and anything
00:29:36diplomatically, militarily, economically to
00:29:40ensure that they remain in their colony former colonies,
00:29:43because in their mind these colonies are still
00:29:47the territoir, these are
00:29:51still territories that ought to be dictated to
00:29:55from France, these territories are still
00:29:59territories which ought to have french legionaire.
00:30:02and these are territories that ought to be directed from
00:30:06Paris, that is how french people think,
00:30:10that is how french administrators think it is sad
00:30:13thing, the beauty
00:30:15is: