Apostle Johnson Suleiman is a renowned Prophet. If you don’t
believe him because he said El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna state will die and
he still walk the street, at least his church members believe him. Not only
that, it is a credit to his C.V for been the only Man of God invited for prayers in the white house for now.
This prophecy didn’t in any way deter the participants of the
Ponzi scheme in expressing their joy in open celebration at the news of the resurrection
of the scheme. I wouldn’t blame them because anything that could awaken hope in
this era of recession can’t be wished away easily. Despite the nationwide
celebration, one question is common in all their hearts
- when will the scheme fold again?
- when will the scheme fold again?
But why would we need a prophet for what every normal
thinking man can figure out. it is no longer news that the economy is hard and
every good Nigerian would do anything legitimate not to sink with the economy,
that makes our innate survival instinct to naturally push us into investing the
little we have to yield profit despite the glaring risk. This is coupled with
the fact that, there are no intensive labour, no calling for customers, no
competing with other traders, neither would you be disturbed by factory noises
or dust when you join a Ponzi scheme. All you have to do is wave at your money
for few days and in less than a month 30% of it worth is escorting your cash
back to your bank account. What a plausible genius initiative. So tell me, how
can someone give up such especially when others cried of lose, he/she was lucky
to have made some gains before the scheme went on Christmas break?
Before you start thinking it’s greed or sin to participate in
such Ponzi schemes, I will say if you are in any way involved in a thrift or
cooperative society then you are guilty of a similar sin too. This is because it’s
like an online cooperative society where people give and pay money to assist
one another. Only in this case, all you need to know is the person’s phone
number, name, account number and if need be the person’s picture where the
system acts as referee on deciding when and how much you are paid.
Most things that starts well, if not properly handled ends up
woefully to the hurt of all those involved.
That is why it is said that whatever you are not sure of handling well
or ending well, you better don’t start. It leaves you with shades of bad name
irrespective of your altruistic intentions. That could be said summarily of
what has happened to our darling MMM from which many people are today millionaires,
many trekkers had cars, some tenants are landlords, not to forget that so also
some people who depended on people to buy them drinks in beer parlours are now
depended on all for an increased income from MMM.
While it is a good initiative I want us to x-ray the
following to see what had made it develop cracks and may remained cracked if something
is not done.
Poor crises Management ability
of the Guiders
Guiders are like leaders, not in role per se but in
earnings. They are like the referrer of
the referrers; they earn at least 10% of what all their downlines earn.
The crises, not fomented by anybody but the leadership of the
MMM in Nigeria points to a lot that we need not ignore. It all started with the
obvious fact that they anticipated but least prepared for the massive cash
withdrawal that most Nigerians do in December (a friend joked that most Igbos
work from January till December only to go, flaunt and spend their earnings in
December in the village). Chuddy, an Igbo, the number one Guider, should now that
better than all of us put together but he or they didn’t prepare for it.
After it happened, what did they do? They first of all
announced a promo for 50% commission instead of 30% that the participants were
used to. Before you say jack, they froze the accounts and posted their flimsy
incomprehensive reasons, I wonder what they were thinking.
Their first mistake was that they panicked and expressed it
by freezing the accounts. Who will hear that his/her account is frozen and
wouldn’t want to remove his/her money at the slightest opportunity. And if
everybody is withdrawing, who will pay into the system. That was what
compounded the shock. Instead of looking for ear friendly or better initiative
at resolving the crises freezing the accounts was the least they should have
done.
The next question would be, what other shock may likely erupt
that the leadership of the Ponzi scheme will mishandled again? Don’t get me
wrong, the system was good but the wrong leaders created a shock that the
system can hardly wake from.
Donation in wide margins
Imagine this simple analogy, Mr A gives 10,000,000 Naira to
the system. He is to be paid 13,000,000 Naira. He was paid and instead of
giving same amount, he gave 10,000 Naira. Who are to pay the people that paid
him? Where will the money come from? Worst still, what if it was only 80% of the
persons that he paid continued in the Ponzi scheme, who will pay their share of
the 20%. If the founders of the scheme foresaw this, which they were supposed
to have known, they would have said nobody is supposed to provide help less
than what they previously provided. Secondly, no one will be allowed to provide
help to the extent that would result to shock of the system if the person
decides to discontinue.
Guiders with Fat Pockets
Saying someone has fat pocket literally means they give out a
lot of money, but in this case the reverse is the case. The guiders in MMM
rather receives a lot more than they give. Guiders are like leaders and as the
name implies are supposed to guide their downlines and map out strategies to
make the business grow, which was a good initiative. But why should they be
paid 10% of the total earnings of their downlines investment? That is to say
some of them have a take home of about 10,000,000 (Ten million Naira) and above
in a month.
Surprisingly, some of their pledges are as low as 0.00001% of
their monthly earning in the Ponzi scheme just to keep their account active.
Who is to pay the excess? What if a good nepotistic Nigerian like president
Buhari who prefers to work with his kinsmen, chose to make his best friends
guiders. He would make his wife a Guider, Children and siblings Guiders. Who will
ask him of the criteria he used? It will still take us to our initial question-who
will pay the excess money that they earn? I bet you will forget your mouth
agape when you know the number of Guiders we have in Nigeria and there is
currently calls to make more people guiders.
According to a friend in the Ponzi scheme, the guiders are
useless because you can’t access them to ask them questions despite the
provision is made on the site. Go to the
site and type a question if a chat box pop up to see if any of the guiders will
be available to answer you. So they are useless and should be scrapped. If that
is not done and you are still thinking of investing, then it is like throwing
your money into the wind.
Too much leakages:
You stand the chance of earning 10% of the earnings of those
you refer, no matter their number and the amount they offer to pay irrespective
of the amount you pay as your contribution, that is apart from the ambiguous
earnings of the guiders. Who will pay all the money that goes out through these
leakages back to the system.
To make sure that the recovery of the system is as quick as possible the leaders have resorted to various promotions to lure people into the system without fixing this fundamental flaws. In case you, the reader of this post are incidentally ruminating on the possibility of putting your funds into the system, I will urge you to think again.
we are not posting this to rubbish the effort of the guiders but for they to fix the fundamental flaws that resulted to the previous shock.
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