Loan Sharks: Lawyer Reveals ‘Shocking’ Discoveries In Over 6,000 Emails From Nigerian Victims

Following activities of online loan sharks who have continued to criminalize Nigerians who patronize them, a lawyer, Pelumi Olajengbesi, Managing Partner of Law Corridor, on Tuesday, made startling disclosures about the operations of many of these online loan platforms in Nigeria.

He revealed his findings after receiving over 6,000 requests via email from people who recounted terrible stories regarding several online loan platforms in Nigeria, generally known as loan sharks.

Olajengbesi claims to have discovered that numerous victims attempted suicide after investing their life wealth.

He also observed that the majority of these internet loan platforms have no physical presence and rely on a small number of mobile employees.

According to the lawyer, such platforms are not properly registered in accordance with the country’s legal and constitutional provisions.

He wrote on Facebook: “Recently, I decided to take up a matter of public interest to provide legal representation for persons who have been bedevilled by the untoward and offensive conducts of Loan Sharks who have whimsically taken hold of Small and Medium scale businesses in Nigeria.

“Contrary to my expectation that this situation would only affect a few numbers of Nigerians, I can confirm that till date I have received several mails in excess of Six Thousand requests and appeals all seeking help and deliverance from the stranglehold of these loan shacks on their lives, families and businesses.

“More appalling is the records of persons whom these Loan Sharks have so frustrated to the point of resorting to take their own lives. This reality has contributed abysmally to the increasing spate of suicide recorded within the space of the last three years.

“…I have embarked on a diligent search of these companies and proceeded further to scrutinize their legal personality status as well as their compliance with extant laws granting them license to operate in a moneylending capacity and I have found from my preliminary research that most of these companies operate like shell edifices: not properly registered and also not possessing the requisite registered business address for their activities.”

Oriental Times once reported how a particular loan app declared one of their customers dead and published his obituary after he reportedly defaulted on payment.

Meanwhile, the federal government has finally decided to checkmate the excesses of these loan sharks. This is as the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission stated recently that it had obtained an order from the Federal High Court to search and seize “certain digital money lenders.”

“As part of the operation, the JRETF together with the Nigeria Police Force and bailiff of the Federal High Court searched locations of the money lenders, extracted valuable evidence and in some circumstances prohibited or restricted continuing operations.

“In addition to the physical operation noted above, the Commission entered and served Orders on multiple financial institutions freezing or suspending operations of certain accounts which some of the money lenders have used to conduct implicated business or transactions subject of investigation,” the FCCPC had stated.