By John Ikani
A joint operation spearheaded by the Federal Competition Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has raided Offices of loan sharks in Lagos over consumer rights abuse.
This is coming some months after the government set up a joint committee to investigate rights violations and unfair practices in the money lending industry and subsequently shut them down.
The loan app companies include GoCash, Okash, EasyCredit, Kashkash, Speedy Choice and Easy Moni, operating on the third floor of a four-storey building in Ikeja.
The Executive Vice Chairman of FCCPC, Babatunde Irukera, who led the enforcement exercise, condemned the exploitation of Nigerians by unlicensed online money lenders in the country, noting that most of them were not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and do not have any license to do their businesses.
According to him, the activities of the company were against the rights of Nigerian consumers.
In the course of the operation, 800 employees of the loan app companies were informed by the task force of the purpose of the raid and their rights.
Speaking to newsmen after the exercise, Irukera said many of the online money lenders came into existence during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.
He said, “More so, because people were on lockdown due to the pandemic, people started needing small easy loans, which is understandable.
“However, over a period of time, people started complaining about the malpractice of the lenders. So, we started tracking it.
“The key two things that were subjects of concern were what seems to be naming and shaming, violation of people’s privacy with respect to how these lenders recover the loans.
“Secondly, the interest rate seems to be a violation of the ethics on how lending is done. So, those were the two things that we set out to look for.
“We started an investigation trying to determine the location of these people and that has been a very difficult thing.
He went on to note that most of the companies do not have physical addresses, all they had was an App, and that led the commission to gather and engage people who had been their victims for more information.
Irukera said that in addition to the sting operation carried out, the FCCPC had also issued multiple orders.
He noted that vendors, App Stores and Google Stores where some of the apps were available would be shut down so that people would not be victims anymore.
The FCCPC boss said the commission had made efforts to freeze some of the accounts being used by the managers of the online money lenders.
“I must add that though not all money lenders are operating illegally, and that is why it has been taking time for us to track these people, it doesn’t mean that the people we are proceeding against today are the only ones.
“No, we want to start with them. We also understand that they are between five to seven companies operating at the same location,” Irukera stated.
