Sad reason why Nigerians keep falling prey to Ponzi Schemes

By
Emmanuel Abara Benson
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1
MMM Ponzi Scheme

Ever heard of a Ponzi Scheme? Of course, you have! As Nigerians, most of us love the idea of earning unrealistic returns on investments. This explains why Ponzi Schemes remain popular in the country, despite the disappointing aftermaths often associated with it.

Not too long ago, many people were entranced by the euphoria of MMM. Lured into the process by its many false promises, these people chose to ignore the red flags; precisely the fact that the entire scheme called MMM was premised on a false foundation.

Bua group

And then in December 2016, everything came crashing down. Many people lost millions, including some newly-convinced participants who were gullible enough to fall prey.

Now here is the unfortunate thing — the fact that many people have  gone ahead to participate in other forms of Ponzi Schemes since the collapse of MMM. Some notable examples of such schemes are Ultimate Cycler, Pennywise, HelpColony, and Dantata Success & Profitable Company, Twinkas, etc.

So, why do Nigerians keep falling victim to Ponzi Schemes?

Well, let’s just go ahead and clearly state it right here and now that people keep falling victim to Ponzi Schemes because they are greedy.

Last week Friday, our very own Ugo ‘Ugodre’ Obi-Chukwu, the Founder and Publisher of Nairanmetrics, asked a financial literacy question on Twitter which garnered a few comments that got us a bit worried.

According to Mr Obi-Chukwu, how much would you expect to be your minimum Return on Investment (RoI) per annum, should you invest the sum of N100,000?

Some of the responses were debatable

Majority of the comments that followed this question were simply unrealistic. Now, it is unclear whether some of these respondents were joking. However, considering the nature of the question, we believe they were serious with their responses.

Coronation Research

It is, however, a debatable issue. This is because a number of those who expect very high RoI are expecting such from small trading businesses and not organised investments. Take for instance, Mr Mark Essien of Hotels.ng said he would anticipate an 80% RoI because there are some trading businesses that can be taken advantage of to this effect.

While this may seem very ambitious, it is important to note that Mr Essien was specific about the type of investment. And he was not the only one who shared this perspective. Another respondent, Fevent Magna, believes that retail food sellers can, indeed, earn even more than 100% RoI.

However, he warned that this would be unachievable to people expecting such returns from more organised forms of investment.

But some were simply unrealistic

Somebody actually said he would expect 500% minimum Return on Investment on a N100,000 annual investment.

Meanwhile, majority of the comments were realistic, with many expecting between 15% RoI to 40%.

In any case, the need for Nigerians to be realistic with their investment returns cannot be overemphasised. This is important because as some respondents noted, greed is the only thing that fuels Ponzi Schemes. And Ponzi Schemes seldom augur well for a lot of people.

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1 COMMENT

  1. I love this.

    Asides from the fact that this is well captioned, it is backed up with accessible data.

    Keep it up, Team Nairametrics! 💯

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