In November 2015, a website launched in Nigeria describing itself as a "mutual aid fund where ordinary people help each other", in simpler terms it was a Ponzi scheme sold in a glorified manner, It promised to give 30% percent interest for money invested and it was a big hit in Nigeria, over 3 million people had their money invested when it crashed in December 2016 leaving people suicidal and depressed.
I wish I could say I wasn’t part of the 3 million people but that would be a lie, you see in a country like Nigeria every single person is looking for a way to gain more money due to the economical situation we have found ourselves in and even at the age of 17, I was also looking for a way to have a bit of financial independence so I took all my saving and placed them in this scheme hoping to make a few bucks or two.
With my knowledge now and my overall skepticism in these kinds of schemes, I would have asked a few questions if it happened now but then I knew nothing about investment or how things like that worked and I walked into and left with less than I started with. I even had it good compared to others because I knew people who took loans, sold their cars and lands, and were broken and in debt after.
You would think people would learn after going through that but in the later parts of 2020, a new trend and easy way of making money was birthed through Forex investments and when something starts in Nigeria and is considered successful, everyone jumps on it.
It got gradually worse when on February 5, 2021, the Nigerian government put a ban on cryptocurrencies making it almost impossible to trade and immediately there was a boom in Forex investments. A whole lot of companies sprung forth offering different plans and investment returns and it didn’t take long before the same cycle in 2016 began happening once again.
I cannot even count the number of people I know who took loans, use their savings, sold their properties, and all trying to invest in an avenue they couldn’t even take time to gain knowledge about and for months a lot of people did gain from these companies but greed made most of them reinvest both their capital and profits over and over again.
I had a conversation with my programmer friend around March 2021 and he kept on saying he suspected that it wasn’t going to last because most of the companies he had researched didn’t bother having an online trace and the ones who had websites didn’t pay for their domains names for even up to 6 months and he found it suspicious.
It didn’t take up to a month after we had this conversation for most of the “so-called” forex investment companies to start closing up, I know someone who had invested over 10 million and is currently finding it hard to even buy food.
Yesterday I heard that a few of the companies were shut down in my state by the economic and financial crime commission which meant even the promises that these companies have made for repayment are looking more and more improbable.
Obviously, forex investments aren't bad but I could remember asking a few people how they thought these investments were working and where they felt the money was coming from, and in most cases, no one could give me a straightforward answer and all they cared about was getting their money.
I ask the question are they going to learn and my answer is without gaining knowledge on investments and getting to the point of financial literacy, the cycle would most likely occur again especially with the economy getting worse, and eventually more people would get sucked into it.
REFERENCES
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Premiumtimesng.com
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