₦airaland Forum

Somewhere in Lagos right now, a young Nigerian earning N75,000 a month is about to destroy somebody’s life.

They have your mother’s phone number. Your pastor’s contact. Your boss’s email. Your village people’s WhatsApp group. They have everything. And they have something even more dangerous: a government-issued license that tells them they are untouchable.
The FCCPC calls it “regulation.” They call it “consumer protection.”

A Special Investigation
“Go and report us. We are government-approved. What will you do?”

That’s the line now. That’s what recovery agents say when they call your mother at 5 AM, calling you a ritualist. When they message your employer claiming you’re a fraudster. When they send your photograph to every contact on your phone, branding you a thief over N15,000.

They’re not hiding anymore. They’re bragging. And the painful truth is, they have a point.

Because the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission gave them the stamp that makes them untouchable. The government created a whitelist. Nigerians trusted it. And now that same list has become a weapon aimed directly at us.

I have spent months investigating Nigeria’s digital lending industry. What I found is not just regulatory failure. It is regulatory complicity.

It starts with a ping at 11:34 PM. You haven’t even defaulted yet. Your loan is due tomorrow. But the email isn’t a reminder. It’s a threat. And worse, it’s not just sent to you.

In a display of incompetence so staggering it feels like wickedness, the loan app has ‘CC’d you alongside 49 other ‘defaulters.’ You can see their full names. You can see their email addresses. And they can see yours. With one careless click, a fintech company has just exposed you to strangers, labeling you a debtor before you’ve even missed one kobo.


The company responsible? Singularity Tech Limited, the operators behind[i] Grola and Lairaplus[/i], two apps that many Nigerians have downloaded, trusting they were dealing with a legitimate business.

Here is the kicker that should make every Nigerian angry: This wasn’t some shady, backyard lender operating through APK files on Telegram. Singularity Tech is a company on the FCCPC’s Whitelist, a government-approved, fully registered entity.

Welcome to the era of Humiliation, where the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) doesn’t just fail to protect you. It hands your abusers a license to operate and looks the other way while they tear your dignity to shreds.

Is the Government lying to us?
The FCCPC, with its ‘Limited Interim Regulatory/Registration Framework,’ promised to clean up the mess. They delisted Soko Loan with plenty of media noise. They raided some offices in Ikeja and took pictures for the newspapers. They handed out licenses to ‘compliant’ Digital Money Lenders like they were sharing chin-chin at a party.

But let us ask ourselves: What does ‘compliance[/i]’ actually mean in this country?

To the average Nigerian, a trader in Onitsha, a civil servant in Kaduna waiting for a salary, a graduate in Lagos hustling between jobs, an FCCPC approval stamp appears to be a guarantee. It tells you: “This app is safe. The government has checked them. They won’t disgrace you.”

[i]Na lie.

The reality is that the approval process is pure paperwork. They collect the certificate of incorporation. They take directors’ details. They collect their license fee. Finish. Nobody is checking whether these apps will protect your data. Nobody is verifying that their recovery agents won’t call your pastor at midnight to tell him you’re a thief. The FCCPC essentially created an exclusive club for digital loan sharks, dressed them in fine clothes, and released them on suffering Nigerians.

Singularity Tech, operators of[b] Grola and Lairaplus[/b], passed through this system. They got their stamp of approval. And then they exposed the personal data of dozens of Nigerians in a single reckless email.

Government-approved, government-protected, government-enabled?

What These “Approved” Apps Are Actually Doing
The Singularity Tech bulk email incident, where dozens of borrowers were exposed to each other, is not a small mistake. It’s a criminal violation of the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023.

Section 24 of that law says clearly: if you collect people’s data, you must protect it. You cannot expose someone’s personal information to strangers. By copying 50 people on one email and showing everyone’s addresses to everyone else, Grola and Lairaplus’s parent company committed a breach that should land someone in court.

But here’s what will shock you: This kind of recklessness is common among these so-called approved apps.

Why? Because nobody checked their technology. Many of these apps are cheap copies running on databases so weak that a secondary school student with basic coding knowledge could break into them.

These companies don’t employ data security experts. What they have instead are aggressive recovery agents sitting somewhere in a stuffy office, armed with Excel spreadsheets containing your mother’s phone number, your office address, and zero conscience.

The N75,000 Soldiers of Destruction
During my investigation, I uncovered something that puts the entire system into perspective.

The recovery agents who call you at 6 AM to threaten you, the ones who message your boss claiming you’re a fraudster, the ones who send your photograph to your WhatsApp contacts calling you a thief, these people earn approximately N75,000 per month.


Seventy-five thousand naira.

That’s the salary of the person given the power to destroy your reputation, your relationships, and your mental health. Someone earning less than many drivers and gatemen in Lagos is handed your personal data, your contact list, and told to “recover the money by any means necessary.”

These agents are often young, desperate for work, and incentivized by commissions. The more they collect, the more they earn. The company doesn’t care how they do it. Only that the money comes in. So they harass. They threaten. They defame.

And when they make a catastrophic mistake, like CC’ing 50 people on a threatening email, there are no consequences. Not for them. Not for the company. Not for anyone.

Meanwhile, the executives at the top are making billions. Singularity Tech and companies like it rake in massive profits from interest rates that would make traditional loan sharks blush. But they pay their foot soldiers N75,000 to carry out psychological warfare against fellow Nigerians.

This is the industry the FCCPC has approved and protected.

Is the FCCPC working for Nigerians?
Let’s stop dancing around the issue and call it what it is: The FCCPC has become a silent partner in this crime.

Think about it. If I pay to get a license, and I use that license to break the law and humiliate Nigerians, and the government refuses to immediately shut me down, what does that make FCCPC?

An accomplice? A beneficiary? A co-conspirator?

I’ll leave you to judge.

The FCCPC’s ‘Whitelist’ has become nothing but a marketing tool for these predators. When their recovery agents call you at 6 AM to insult your family, they now have a new weapon: “Go and report us if you like. We are government-approved. What can you do?”

Singularity Tech’s Grola and Lairaplus are on that whitelist. After exposing dozens of customers’ personal data in a single email, are they still operating? Check the Play Store. You’ll find your answer.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC) says it is investigating over 400 cases of privacy breaches. Four hundred! Yet, how many of these apps have had their FCCPC licenses permanently revoked?

Count them. I’ll wait.

The silence tells you everything. They announce fines of N50 million or N100 million with plenty of press releases and Twitter posts. But to a lending operation making billions from desperate Nigerians through 300% interest rates, N50 million is change. It’s just the cost of doing business. A small tax on harassment. It doesn’t stop anything.

This Is Not “Aggressive Recovery.” This Is Warfare Against Citizens.
We need to stop using polite language for what these apps are doing to Nigerians. This is psychological terrorism.

In the old days, a local moneylender might come and knock on your door or embarrass you at the market. Today, they can destroy your reputation globally, instantly, and permanently. And they’re doing it with government approval in their back pocket.

Grola. Lairaplus. Singularity Tech. Government-approved.

The approval means nothing. It protects no one except the people making money from your suffering.

What Must Change
Let’s be honest: the current regulatory system is useless. It’s a paper tiger with no teeth. We don’t need more “Interim Frameworks” or “Guidelines” or press statements. We need action that will make these people afraid.

1. Send Executives to Jail
Stop fining companies. Start jailing people. The directors and executives of loan apps that engage in doxing and harassment, including those at Singularity Tech, should face criminal prosecution under the Cybercrimes Act and NDPA. When a CEO knows that they personally could go to Kirikiri for what their company does, behavior will change overnight.

2. One Strike and You’re Out
Forget ‘Three Strikes.’ One confirmed case of mass data breach, like that Grola/Lairaplus bulk email, should result in immediate, permanent revocation of the FCCPC license. The directors should be banned from operating in the financial sector for 10 years. No appeals. No second chances.

3. Compensate the Victims
Every fine the FCCPC collects from these apps should go directly into a Victim Compensation Fund. Nigerians whose lives have been destroyed by these apps deserve more than press releases. They deserve money in their accounts.

4. Regulate the Recovery Agents
People earning N75,000 should not have unchecked power to destroy lives. Recovery agents must be licensed, trained, and held personally liable for harassment. Any agent found to have defamed or threatened a borrower should face criminal charges, not just lose their job.

The Bottom Line
Until the FCCPC starts treating these apps as the criminals they are, instead of tax-paying partners to be protected, the ‘Whitelist’ will remain nothing but a menu of government-approved predators.

Singularity Tech. Grola. Lairaplus. These names should be headlines. These companies should be facing prosecution. Their directors should be answering questions in court, not counting profits in boardrooms.

And you, the Nigerian consumer just trying to survive, will continue to be the meal for as long as the government keeps setting the table for these predators.

The Federal Government has the power to stop this tomorrow. The FCCPC could revoke licenses with immediate effect. The NDPC could pursue criminal charges. The police could make arrests.

The question is: do they want to? Or are they comfortable collecting licensing fees while Nigerians suffer?

After months of investigating this industry, I already know the answer. The question now is what we, the Nigerian people, are going to do about it.

Talk is cheap. If you think those loan sharks are being unfair to their borrowers, then start your own lending company, keep pampering your borrowers and let's see if your company will last for more than one year.

If you read comments on Nairaland and see how Nigerians are advising people who borrowed money from loan sharks to break their sims, instead of advising them to pay back their loans, you'll understand the kinds of humans you are dealing with.

If you can't breath properly, blame president Tinubu

SmartPolician:
Talk is cheap. If you think those loan sharks are being unfair to their borrowers, then start your own lending company, keep pampering your borrowers and let's see if your company will last for more than one year.

If you read comments on Nairaland and see how Nigerians are advising people who borrowed money from loan sharks to break their sims, instead of advising them to pay back their loans, you'll understand the kinds of humans you are dealing with.

Lol. The Loan companies are breaking the law before the lenders are due.


Did you read the article at all?

Ignyte:
Lol. The Loan companies are breaking the law before the lenders are due.


Did you read the article at all?

I had a friend who worked with a loan shark and had to resign from the job because she struggled with recovering money from people.
People default on loans and have no apologies for it. They'll tell you that the FG owes billions of dollars and that nobody has arrested the president for that.

You see, fairness and due process apply when you are dealing with sane humans, not the opposite because the vast majority of Nigerians are insanely dubious. I suppose those loan sharks apply those strategies because they understand the kinds of people they are dealing with. Nobody forced them to borrow money from loan sharks.

SmartPolician:
Talk is cheap. If you think those loan sharks are being unfair to their borrowers, then start your own lending company, keep pampering your borrowers and let's see if your company will last for more than one year.

If you read comments on Nairaland and see how Nigerians are advising people who borrowed money from loan sharks to break their sims, instead of advising them to pay back their loans, you'll understand the kinds of humans you are dealing with.

It has nothing to do with Nigerians.
Why will you have a system where you give people loans without properly carrying out a risk analysis and checking their credit history to assess their ability to pay back then start using draconian means to chase defaulters around.
There's no decent country where such loan system exists
So stop gaslighiting people. Being indebted is not a crime

SmartPolician:
I had a friend who worked with a loan shark and had to resign from the job because she struggled with recovering money from people.
People default on loans and have no apologies for it. They'll tell you that the FG owes billions of dollars and that nobody has arrested the president for that.

You see, fairness and due process apply when you are dealing with sane humans, not the opposite because the vast majority of Nigerians are insanely dubious. I suppose those loan sharks apply those strategies because they understand the kinds of people they are dealing with. Nobody forced them to borrow money from loan sharks.

So who forced the loan sharks to lend them money?
Being a lender comes with risks and competent lenders put safeguards in place to mitigate the risk. The lawful route is a civil suit not turning yourself to a tax collector

SmartPolician:
I had a friend who worked with a loan shark and had to resign from the job because she struggled with recovering money from people.
People default on loans and have no apologies for it. They'll tell you that the FG owes billions of dollars and that nobody has arrested the president for that.

You see, fairness and due process apply when you are dealing with sane humans, not the opposite because the vast majority of Nigerians are insanely dubious. I suppose those loan sharks apply those strategies because they understand the kinds of people they are dealing with. Nobody forced them to borrow money from loan sharks.

This makes sense. But the article is not discussing why the lenders owe. It discusses why the government is approving companies that are in a clear breach of Section 24 of the NDPA Act of 2023.

These stories are touching, but compliance with the law is not dependent on the customer's reaction.

The law must be observed. The company didn't break the law after they were owed. They broke the law BEFORE the lenders were due. The lenders can take this anywhere and be well within their rights. If the lender pays before the threats can be issued, their data is still out there.

These emotional excuses cannot undermine the rule of law. The loan companies have broken the law.

And as they pay license fees but are not being punished for the lack of compliance with the NDPA, the next investigation is to find out who is taking their money and why.

Ojuntana:
So who forced the loan sharks to lend them money?
Being a lender comes with risks and competent lenders put safeguards in place to mitigate the risk. The lawful route is a civil suit not turning yourself to a tax collector

If you write grammar finish, you go rest! Better still, go and start your own loan shark. Talk is cheap.

PS: I won't reply again

SmartPolician:
If you write grammar finish, you go rest! Better still, go and start your own loan shark. Talk is cheap.

PS: I won't reply again

Lol. You will reply. I know your type.