Fejiro Agbodje: In the Eye of Storm

HighLife

Money will surely be the undoing of many in this generation, as has been the case since the start of human civilization. Fejiro Agbodje should have been warned ahead of time. Now, his brainchild, Patricia Technologies Limited, is in trouble, again.

It has been a while since crypto news broke on the internet in Nigeria. But this situation is rapidly changing with reports of Agbodje’s Patricia on every major social media newsfeed. The gist is that Agbodje’s company breached the customer-confidence code, leading to a loss of about N2 billion.

According to the reports, Agbodje’s crypto exchange firm experienced a security breach. As a result, the breachers allegedly made away with Bitcoin and naira assets worth N2 billion (or the equivalent of $2 million in any other currency). Consequently, customers of Patricia and related subsidiaries are running all over the place to secure their assets with Agbodje’s company.

Crypto breaches are nothing new in many areas of the world. Cybersecurity has always been a big deal, especially in banking where the digitalisation of assets has taken over. But these stories have always been a faraway thing for the average Nigerian, not something to worry about. Not anymore.

In reality, the reported security breach at Patricia happened in 2022. Back then, social media was replete with the news of the company’s retail trading arm experiencing a security breach. Although Patricia reported that everything was under control, clients were still scared.

Presently, the Nigerian economy is slightly harsher. As a result, the reemergence of old videos of that incident at Agbodje’s company has customers allegedly running to withdraw their assets from OPay, Moniepoint, Palmpay, and others affiliated with Agbodje and other technopreneurs like him.

Furthermore, Agbodje has proposed converting some of the N2 billion debt to shares. But few customers are allegedly not interested in such a move. The majority just want out.

Unless Agbodje does something about the current situation, his reputation will take a severe hit. Once that happens, he might start facing the same level of harsh criticism that certain American youngsters are currently facing for developing unreliable crypto trading platforms.