Corps Members serving across Nigeria are set to become frontline advocates against investment fraud, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to establish a dedicated Community Development Service group focused on investment education.
The MoU was signed by SEC Director General Dr Emomotimi Agama and NYSC Director General Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, with both agencies describing the partnership as a direct response to the growing threat that Ponzi schemes and other fraudulent investment platforms pose to young Nigerians.
Under the agreement, SEC will develop and fund educational content, training modules, and materials covering capital market operations, safe investment practices, and how to identify illegal schemes. Selected corps members and NYSC supervisors will be trained as facilitators, enabling the initiative to reach communities across all local government areas in the country. Anti Ponzi education will be integrated into the NYSC's existing Education and Enlightenment Community Development Service programme, with dedicated sessions and awareness campaigns running throughout the service year from the orientation camp onwards.
Agama noted that the SEC currently hosts between 160 and 180 corps members annually, describing this as evidence of the commission's genuine commitment to the scheme. "There is no other institution in this country that can actually boast of that," he said, adding that corps members at the SEC are treated as full staff rather than temporary placements.
NYSC Director General Nafiu said the timing of the initiative matters. "It is good to catch the Corps Members young so they won't patronise Ponzi schemes," he said, adding that the execution phase would be pursued with full commitment to deliver on the terms of the agreement.
For the hundreds of thousands of graduates who pass through the NYSC scheme each year, the partnership offers something beyond a warning about fraud. It provides structured financial knowledge at a stage in their lives when many are earning an independent income for the first time and are most vulnerable to the promises of quick returns that illegal investment schemes routinely exploit.
