The Federal government, through the office of the Secretary to the government of the federation, has stated that the lottery sector in Nigeria is by far, bigger than the oil sector, adding that Ponzi schemes are responsible for the bad image that the industry has.
The Permanent Secretary for Special Duties, Festus Dauda, made the assertion while speaking with journalists during a National Lottery Regulatory Commission training.
Dauda mentioned that the government has in fact begun to look into ways in which the industry can become more acceptable by making sure that illegal gambling bodies are eradicated in different parts of the country.
He stated, “the Federal Government is doing everything possible to make sure that the illegal operators and quacks in the industry are eliminated. That is why we have empowered the regulatory commission with modern technology that would enable them to apprehend all the illegal operators and quacks with a view to prosecuting and sending them to jail.
“Lottery is bigger than the oil industry that the nation has in stock, a lot of wealth that is yet to be tapped. I believe that we should focus our energy on lottery. I also believe that if the entire citizenry are well aware of the activities of lottery and the gains that are abound in it, the sky will be our starting point and lottery will even overtake the oil industry in contributing its quota to the treasury.
“The Federal Government is trying its best to make sure that lottery gets its rightful place so that we would be able to tap into the abundant resources that are there in lottery.”
In his address, the Director-General of NLRC, Lanre Gbajabiamila, emphasized that the commission would begin to enforce laws which would see to the proper regulation of lottery bodies in the country.
He said, “We still carried out some enforcement last week and we will continue to do that. We are actually after the online operators because many of them are operating illegally.
“We have signed a Memoradum of Understanding with the National Communications Commission to knock out any illegal operator that is not registered with the NLRC. The NCC has been mandated to shut down the illegal operators on our behalf. The Federal Government is losing billions of naira to the illegal operators.
“We are sanitizing the industry because it will be unfair to allow the Ponzi scheme scammers to continue to defraud Nigerians. If we allow the scammers to continue, it will affect the operators. Our zonal offices across the country have been fully equipped to monitor the activities of the illegal operators.”
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