PONZI SCHEMES AND THEIR NEVER LEARNING VICTIMS

One would have thought that after MMM crashed in 2016, Nigerians would have learnt their lessons when it comes to this quick return on investment schemes. But this is not the case as we have seen the growing cases of ‘crashed’ or ‘frozen investments’. 

What is even more worrisome is that despite the repeated warnings by Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) Nigerians still get to ‘invest’ or buy into these schemes with the hope of ‘cashing out’ before it crashes.

A lot of people have attributed the high and zealous patronage of these schemes to poverty. Recent report by the World Bank noted that the number of poor persons in Nigeria will rise to 95.1 million in 2022. This would mean that 6.1 million more persons would have fallen beneath the poverty line between 2020 and 2022, a 6.7% increase.

There’s no doubt that people are becoming increasingly desperate to looking for alternative sources of income to augment their mainstay. Regrettably, oftentimes these ‘investors’ are swindled. 

Late October 2021, Nigerians woke up to the news of the Ajetumobi Couple whom it was alleged had swindled Nigerians of over N22 billion.  Till date, they are still at large.  In March 2022, it was the news of Chinmark Group, who was alleged to have swindled over 4000 investors to the tune of undisclosed billions of naira. Like the Ajetumobis he also conveniently ‘successfully disappeared’ leaving behind sad tales of loss, sorrow, tears, and even death. As some ‘investors’ have reportedly committed suicide.

Just as Nigerians were trying to catch their breath the news of a ‘famous’ Facebook entrepreneur – Imu Ovaioza Yunusa broke on how she has defrauded Nigerians of over N3 billion.

 But she was rather unlucky unlike her fellow ‘compatriots’. She was arrested just before she could sneak out of the country. In another quick succession there was the announcement of the crash of investment platform of 86FB sports betting investment scheme.

 In the wake of this announcement, we saw Nigerians asking questions they should have asked ab initio such as who owns the company? Where is it located, what is their track record? I would have thought a serious investor would have at least carried out some due diligence before deciding to invest.

It is even sad to see very literate people fall for these scams over and over again. Then it begs the question if these repeated instances are cases of sheer ignorance, blind trust or heightened greed based on the 30%- 50% ROI promised.

Whatever the case maybe, I think financial experts must continually lend their voices as we cannot take away the place of financial education, although we have seen bankers withdrawing their money to put into these schemes like in the case of Ajetumobi. Then contentment and adverse effect of greed must continually be drummed into the ears of all and sundry.

 We cannot continue to fritter away our already lean resources just to fund the lifestyles of few greedy individuals.

 Ijeoma Njoku, Lagos