“Next week is our son’s first birthday. He has started whispering Papa and has had his first tooth appear in these two weeks since Nadeem was detained,” said distraught Elahe Anjarwalla, wife of British Kenyan crypto currency expert Nadeem Anjarwalla, who has been detained in Nigeria for two weeks now.
Elahe told the Star her husband “is devastated to have already missed these two beautiful milestones and I hope our son’s first birthday is not added to that list.”
Nadeem, 37, who is both British and Kenyan, lives in Nairobi with his family.
The former general manager of Uber Eats Kenya is working as the Africa manager for Binance, a global blockchain and crypto currency.
When Nadeem, travelled to Nigeria on the Sunday of February 25, 2024, he planned to be a brief engagement and jet back to Nairobi.
In Abuja, Nigeria, he was to team up for the engagements with his colleague Tigran Gambaryan who is Binance’s head of financial-crime compliance who is based in Georgia, US.
The following day, the two went to their first meeting involving various members of government agencies in the finance flow regulatory sector, including its Central Bank.
His family told the Star this meeting was largely hostile, and after the second meeting Nadeem and his colleague got escorted to their hotel, asked to pack their belongings and moved to another guest house with reinforced security.
Nigerian authorities quickly obtained a court order allowing the detention for 14 days, which expired on March 12.
The family still does not know the charges levelled against the two and what crimes were being investigated.
Nadeem and his colleague had made efforts to have the embassies of US and UK in Abuja notified of their predicament but no much help has come forth.
Kenyan embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also got notified of Nadeem’s situation.
Reflecting on the anxiety the family is currently going through, the wife said “Ramadan has just started and as a Muslim, it is Nadeem’s favourite time of the year [during which] he welcomes friends and family to our home for Iftar almost daily.”
“This year his Ramadan has started very differently and my heart breaks thinking about him unable to break his fast with all of us,” she said.
She said whatever the case which her husband was being investigated, he has no wrong doing because he is merely “a middle management employee of Binance with no decision-making authority.”
Elahe said Nadeem joined Binance in East Africa about a year ago, and only recently assumed responsibility for government affairs in West Africa.
“When summoned for a meeting with government agencies in Nigeria, he dutifully attended, never thinking it would lead to his detention,” she said.
“All I want is for Nadeem to be allowed to come back home to us. I am hopeful that negotiations between Binance and the Nigerian government can continue without Nadeem and Tigran being held there. I am praying every day that our families can be reunited soon,” she said.
The family complains the two are not allowed sufficient access to their lawyers and medication.
American news outlet Wall Street Journal has reported that the two could have been detained by Nigerian authorities due to the operation of the crypto currency amid a troubled exchange rate for its Naira currency.
Because the government rationed who could exchange the local currency for the dollar and at what exchange rate, the paper reported, many sought refuge in digital currencies pegged to the US dollar, known as stablecoins.
The stablecoin trade in essence became a black market, displaying an unofficial exchange rate between the local currency, the naira, and the dollar that was much weaker than the government’s rates.
Binance, the most popular exchange, became the go-to place to check that black-market rate, according to currency traders.
Top officials have accused Binance of setting the exchange rate for Nigeria and hijacking the role of the Central Bank.