Nigeria’s Notorious Instant Loan App Racket Is Made In China

For 27-year-old Priscilla Okoroafor* who works as a cashier in a fashion store in a high-brow area of Lagos, November 17 2020 was Black Friday of the wrong kind.

“I left for work as usual very early in the morning but I entered the wrong bus. I didn’t know they were robbers until I sat down. They took my bag which had my phone and some money before pushing me out,” she recounts.

Priscilla had suffered a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a notorious band of robbers colloquially known as “One Chance.” And unfortunately, it would get worse.

After spending her paltry savings on replacing her stolen phone and retrieving her line, Priscilla was caught in dire straits; there was little left for day-to-day expenses.

To tide over until payday, Priscilla took her first-ever micro-loan: a NGN 6 K (~USD 14.61) loan from NairaPlus, a digital lending app that she had stumbled upon on social media. Within an hour, the ‘quick’ loan was sitting in her bank account. But something strange hap...