THE IMPERATIVE OF PROTECTING NIGERIANS DIGITAL RIGHTS IN THE POST COVID19 ERA

#Covid19 affected and is affecting the poorest of poor livelihood more than any in Nigeria, thereby exposing very high numbers to vulnerabilities of exploitation and deepened inequalities. The pandemic brought the new normal and bolden online activities including online financial transactions as best alternatives to the masses.          

App-based microlending is popular in Nigeria, both because banks generally require collateral for loans and because the bureaucracy involved with lending can be overwhelming. So there’s a flock of new lending sites springing up, like Okash, Gocash, Credit9ja, Lcredit, Sokoloan, Kash Kash, Fastmoney, Newcredit, Cashlion, 9jacash etc. These online loan app companies in Nigeria operates as financial institutions aka Fintech; targeting very low income earners and the poor with very high interest rate and shortest time for repayment date plan, pushing many people into deepened poverty instead, while the FinTech companies inconsiderably continue to exploit and dig gold out of the poor masses.

The poor keep getting poorer, become helpless and voiceless given this situation while FinTech companies in Nigeria keeps getting richer and richer at the detriment of the weak and vulnerable in our society. Worrisome, these FinTech companies uses defamation and tarnishing of customer’s character to the public as strategy for debt recovery knowing very well the customers are vulnerable, weak and voiceless. During application for loan, they will capture your contacts on your phone and use it against you at loan repayment default with several messages of defamation sent to your contacts. In other words, fail to pay your loan(s) with these online loan app companies, they will begin sending defamatory notes and tarnishing sms to your captured contacts on your phone: that you are a criminal that made away with their company’s money, on police wanted list and nobody should deal with you henceforth. In another case, they will select names from your contact and tell them you used them as “Guarantors” to collect the loan whereas not. They will impersonate as lawyers, using pictures of lawyers as their profile pictures on their whatsapp social media accounts to threaten customers with falsified and disjointed letters and legal suits, record police siren sound and play at the background when calling customers that they are coming for arrest. This entire act is embarrassing, unethical, and unprofessional and amount to violation and abuse of customer’s digital rights, Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) 2019, Guidelines for the Use of Personal Data by Public Institution, May2020.

OKash for instance (made by the same Chinese company behind the Opera browser) has a clause in the terms of service that reads “In the event we cannot get in contact with you or your emergency contact, you also expressly authorize us to contact any and all persons in your contact list.” In other words, default on a loan and we tell your parents, your friends, your boss… OKash has raised eyebrows in Kenya, where there’s no financial regulatory structure to protect what seems like an obvious privacy violation. But these loans are what people can access and worst is, accessible to the populations that are left behind. Their wrongful justification is merely that, customers agreed to the terms and conditions of the loan before collection. So I asked, can two agree to unlawfulness and expect it to stand? Your guess is as good as mine.     

Indeed, these app online loan companies explain its need for personal information in terms of determining your eligibility for lending: that they will access your mobile device for the permission of (but not limited to) contacts, location, SMS, calendar and camera to estimate the suitable loan offer for you. It is a very important part of evaluation process.” But can you trust these app online loan companies with your data? “We promise that we will never disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent. (exempted late refund and service requirement).” Oh yeah, that little exemption…

Unthinking to me is the mandatory collection of loan applicant’s ATM card number, BVN, PIN, CVV which they later use start direct deduction, continuous deductions at intervals and over deduction of monies from customer’s bank accounts without authorization. All this are abuse and violation of customers because they are voiceless and weak. Many customers of these online loan companies in Nigeria are at crossroad.  

Recognizing that there are regulations guiding the operations of FinTech companies/ app online loan companies in Nigeria, I hereby challenge the concerned authorities that the operations of FinTech companies in Nigeria is abusive, contrary to stipulated guidelines and amount to continuous infringement of consumers rights. Aware that nobody is above the law, and that FinTech companies cannot be above the law in Nigeria, then they cannot use and continue to use defamation of defaulters as tool for debt recovery. This have caused many poor Nigerians to commit suicide, mental health, stress and distress, depression, deepened poverty, lost of jobs, broken marriages, family and relationship instability, diluted trust  of victims in the eyes of the public etc. And surprisingly these FinTech companies will do all these without any consequences in Nigeria?

That’s why I am writing this article for the hurt souls including those that have died as a result of this misconduct, those who have no voice to voice the pain/injury these unlawful actions have caused and cost them, and as a whole seeking for justice for all. This article is also a concrete attempt to bring to fore what Nigerians are going through in the hands of  FinTech companies and call on Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), National Human Rights Commission(NHRC), Security and Exchange Commission(SEC) and other relevant regulatros  to address this unethical practices and to order Fintech companies to stop the use of defamation as tool for debt recovery and sanction those involved to serve as deterrent to others before this becomes another #ENDSARS protest. Enough is enough!

#Fintech #FintechinNigeria #DigitalRights #DigitalRightsViolation #OnlineLoans #Defamation #Financialinclusion