Cash-strapped and in dire need of N30,000 (about $20), Mariam Ogundairo turned to a loan app, downloading it and registering her phone number.
The money was quickly sent over but came with a 21.6 percent interest rate, due in two weeks.
Like many in Nigeria, battered by inflation, Ogundairo was too broke to pay back what she owed.
Then came a deluge of harassment — a tactic that has become the hallmark of many loan apps in Africa’s fourth-largest economy.
They started calling my phone contacts when I couldn’t pay back on time, saying I owed them.
“I lost my security, and it makes me so sad and scared,” Ogundairo told AFP.
Such loan apps in Nigeria, branded “predatory” by campaigners, are texting threats and leaking sensitive photos to their mobile phone contacts when people squeezed by the country’s ongoing economic crisis cannot pay up.
Often enticed by false promises of low interest rates, thousands of Nigerians have turned to personal finance apps seeking quick access to short-term loans as galloping prices put pressure on incomes, with inflation standing at 21.8 percent at the end of July.
Ogundairo struggled through the embarrassment for weeks until she was able to pay off her balance.
Quick fix’ gone wrong –
“A friend recommended it because I needed a quick fix,” another victim, a 24-year-old who took out a loan two years ago as a university student and asked his name not be used, told AFP.
After spending more than N300,000 conducting laboratory investigations for his final thesis and still needing more funds to complete his research and beat submission deadlines, the money seemed like a lifesaver.
He took out N70,000 when he was a final-year student in 2023. He was meant to pay back about N110,000 within a month, but was too broke.
The loan app then began sending messages to his phone contacts that he was a “ritualist killer”. He said he was not aware he had given the app access to his contacts.
“A couple of my coursemates got the messages.
“It wasn’t the case of unwillingness to pay; it was just a case of impossibility,” he told AFP.
An increasing number of Nigerians have turned to personal loans following reforms by President Bola Tinubu to shock the country’s moribund economy and remove costly subsidies.
Though some economists have voiced approval for the measures, Tinubu’s policies have sent inflation skyrocketing and the value of the naira plunging, hitting many ordinary Nigerians in their pockets.
