Nigeria: An Epidemic Called MMM

19 December 2016
opinion

At least three million Nigerians will not have a merry Christmas this year. They are among the 200 million participants in the made-in-Russia online Ponzi scheme administered by Mavrodi Mundial Moneybox (MMM) which recently suspended operations "for one month" in Nigeria. Some of the most unlikely and otherwise respectable people have fallen victim. They believed the yarn about defeating the ruthless greed of capitalism with a more humane sharing formula that guarantees the rotation of wealth from one person to the other. MMM was established in 1989 by Sergei Mavrodi, his brother Vyacheslav Mavrodi, and Olga Melnikova. The name of the company was taken from the first letters of the three founders' surnames.

You would wonder how founders of MMM convinced so many people to send their better judgement on holidays and subscribe. Well, it is all stated in their so-called ideology - conspicuously advertised on MMM website - which demonises conventional banks and the international monetary system as serving only the rich. The way out for the poor or the not-so-rich is to come together and share wealth in such a way that wealth is distributed round instead of poverty. The world is unjust and unkind as it is; only a scheme like MMM could redeem the situation.

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