The leadership of Stakeholders in the Blockchain Technology Association of Nigeria (SiBAN) is locked in a tussle with current president Obinna Iwunno. SiBAN, an advocacy association recently appointed to implement Nigeria’s first blockchain policy, expelled Iwunno after a dispute over company registration.
They also expelled Emeka Ezike, Rabiu Jibia, Dania Narudeen, and Mela Claude Ake, all association executives.
On Wednesday, SiBAN’s board of trustees claimed Iwunno and the expelled executives named themselves “The Registered Trustees of SiBAN” in a recent company filing.
The board of trustees described the registration as fraudulent because Iwunno and the executives he listed as trustees were suspended in May following allegations of financial mismanagement.
In a petition seen by TechCabal, Ophie Rume, SiBAN’s former executive secretary, alleged Iwunno tried to withdraw SiBAN from the Blockchain Industry Coordinating Committee of Nigeria (BiCCON).
“BiCCON was a younger organisation but they had strong connections in the crypto community in the North which SiBAN lacked, it made no sense to withdraw,” Ani told TechCabal.
However, according to the petition by Rume, the then executive secretary, Iwunno applied for the exit of SiBAN without going through due internal process. “And rightfully, BiCCON rejected the application as it didn’t carry the requisite signatures from other executives,” Ani said.
The former executive secretary also accused him of moving company funds into his accounts to make payments for expenses—a job reserved for the treasury and finance department. Rume claimed it allowed him to mismanage the money. Iwuno insists the allegations are unfounded.
“[The CAC registration] was an act of treason,” said Toritseju Kaka, a founding member who returned to SiBAN after a two-year break, to head the caretaker committee that led the association during the investigation of the claims against Iwuno.
“We had been asking him to register the association for a long time but he only found time to do it in the middle of an investigation against him,” Ani said. He claims it is a ploy to overturn the pending judgment from the investigation.
Iwuno who has continued making public appearances as SiBAN president including a conference co-organised with Nigerian publication, Business Day, maintains that the board of trustees and caretaker committees are non-members trying to usurp his power.
“I am taking appropriate legal actions against them,” he said.
“The whole thing is a display of crypto godfatherism by illegal members of SiBAN,” Iwuno, who was elected as president in 2022, said on a call with TechCabal. “They want to remove me and install a puppet president.”
He claims that the board of trustees was self-appointed and that their efforts to impeach him traced back to 2023.
“They said they were the fathers of the industry and started asking me to report to them, something that no other president before me had done,” said Iwunno, who had previously been appointed Secretary to the previous president after he lost the presidential election.
Ani who claims that the board has been recognised since 2019 refutes Iwunno’s suggestions that they are not legitimate members of the organisation. He said SiBAN was ideated in 2018 by Tony Emeka, the current chairman of the board of trustees, at a time when the crypto community was under a lot of pressure from the federal government.
“We came up with the name, grew the community virtually and organised the first physical meeting [in July 2019.]” He also said that their donations alongside others funded the association in the early days and even now.
“[Iwunno] didn’t join until 2020,” Ani said. “And right after he joined he began contesting for positions.”
Even though Iwunno does not appear in the photograph taken of the first physical meeting of the association, then known as the Nigerian Blockchain Association, his LinkedIn profile says he joined SiBAN in November 2018.
Iwunno claims he was with the association right from the start. “SiBAN was not created by one or two persons,” Iwunno insisted on a call with TechCabal. “There are no founders of SiBAN. It was created by people in several crypto WhatsApp groups.”
At the moment, the board of trustees have revoked his administrative access to the association’s website, and virtual group on WhatsApp, and are currently trying to recover the database of email information of the SiBAN members which includes enthusiasts, professionals and blockchain companies.
In an email to SiBAN members, Iwuno said that actions by the board of trustees and caretaker committee “have cast a shadow on the association.”
If this tug-of-war is not settled amicably soon, it may mark the premature end of an advocacy group that has lent the loudest voice in the blockchain’s fight for legitimacy in Nigeria.
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