From ‘Scapegoated’ To ‘Consulted’: How Chaka Swayed SEC Behind-The-Scenes

Like most of the 5000+ customers who had taken to using the Chaka platform, Kelechi Amanusor heard alarm bells go off in his head when a startling message began to circulate on the morning of Saturday, December 19, 2020.

This was no fake news, it was an official notification from the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Nigeria.

In simple terms, the message was that Chaka Technologies Limited - a Nigeria-based invest-tech startup which, starting from October 2019, has been operating a tech-enabled platform that provides access to stocks of blue-chip companies in the U.S., U.K., China, Nigeria, and 40+ countries - was operating a business that was not permitted by law and must be restrained.

Amanusor, a 26-year-old keeping body and soul together with small gigs in Graphic Design while awaiting call-up for the compulsory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme, feared for his money.

“It was strange and unexpected. At that moment, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen but I feared the worst,” he recalls.