The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other financial regulators to tackle the menace of loan sharks defrauding people in the country.
This is contained in a statement by CAN’s General Secretary, Joseph Daramola, on Wednesday in Abuja.
“Our attention has been drawn to the antics of some faceless people who are unknown in the financial sector but giving out loan facilities to vulnerable people as a result of economic predicaments in the country.
Read Also: Fuel scarcity caused by lack of Forex – PENGASSAN
“According to our findings, some unscrupulous people developed their Apps to extort money from innocent people on the pretext of giving them short loan facilities.
“Their interests are not only higher than the banks, but they use blackmail and other antics to get their money back.”
CAN said apart from the “ungodly interests”, the dubious companies also harassed and embarrassed the contacts of their victims asking them for their intervention to recover their money.
“These are not only against the financial regulation but totally unacceptable, irresponsible, suicidal and unfair,” CAN added.
The association, therefore, called on the CBN, Federal Ministry of Finance and related agencies to urgently intervene to save victims of the loan sharks.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a loan shark is a money lender with shark-like characters -aggressive, angry and greedy. He offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. He often resorts to enforcing repayment by blackmail and threats of violence, Kidnapping or killing.(NAN)