The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sounded a serious alarm — Nigerians have lost nearly ₦316 billion to Ponzi schemes and fake fund managers over the years. The revelation came from AbdulRasheed Dan-Abu, Head of FinTech and Innovation at the Commission, during a presentation in Abuja.
He explained that most of these schemes never had real business operations. Instead, they simply recycled money from new investors to pay old ones — a cycle that always ends in collapse. “When there are no new investors, everything crashes and the operators vanish,” he said.
Dan-Abu blamed the unending greed for quick wealth as the major reason people still fall victim. He recalled infamous scams like MMM Nigeria, where people lost billions but still reinvested after the first collapse, blinded by the hope of easy money.
The SEC also revealed heartbreaking cases such as Women in Oil, which deceived over 155,000 rural women into selling their properties for fake empowerment programs. From smaller scams like Now-Now Alert to larger ones such as Galaxy Construction and Nospecto Oil, the combined losses exceeded ₦315 billion.
Many of these fraudsters, Dan-Abu said, operate on social media and WhatsApp, luring investors with promises of “huge profit, zero risk.” He urged Nigerians to always verify any investment with the SEC before committing funds, emphasizing, “If it’s not registered, it’s already illegal.”
He also appealed to journalists to help expose these fraudulent platforms through constant public awareness, noting that “even smart people fall victim when greed takes over.”
In his closing remarks, Dr. Emomotimi Agama, the SEC Director-General, emphasized that the future of finance is digital — but it must be ethical and trustworthy. He stressed that regulation is not meant to restrict innovation, but to build confidence and protect investors from exploitation.
Agama concluded, “In this new frontier of finance, trust is the ultimate currency — and our highest duty as regulators is to preserve it.”
