Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Lamido Yuguda said that the Commission will continuously collaborate and engage relevant agencies to eliminate completely all Ponzi schemes operations in the capital market.
Yuguda who spoke in Abuja weekend, said the SEC has been fighting a serious war against Ponzi schemes, and been engaging and alerting Nigerians on the need to only deal with operators that are registered with the Commission.
“Unfortunately, a lot of people continue to patronize this Ponzi schemes, we have had cases that have been reported to us, our Enforcement Department and the police unit have been on many of these cases that have been reported to us trying to resolve them.
Yuguda emphasized that it is not very difficult to identify a Ponzi scheme as they usually promise unreasonably high returns just to lure people.
He said, “I will like to use this opportunity to say that it is not very difficult to recognize a Ponzi scheme and the people that go to Ponzi scheme many of them are probably aware that there is a type of risk that they are taking, because when somebody tells you that I will pay you a 10% per month on your investments, that means if you invest a million naira, every month you get 10% of that which is N100,000.00. If you see something like this, it is probably too good to be true. Because when you compound the annual rate of return, you find out that it is way higher than any decent investments can give you.
The SEC DG disclosed that the Commission has been working with other agencies of the government in terms of reducing the access of Ponzi schemes to the advertising platforms, the print media or electronic media i.e. the radio and television.
Yuguda stated that the Commission has stepped up enlightenment on Ponzi schemes to ensure the message gets to the street while also working with various state government, local government and different agencies of government including non-governmental organizations to make sure that the message gets to the nooks and crannies of our country
