A lot of you think you are not doing anything wrong by participating in MMM. You think you are better than the armed robbers, thieves and corrupt politicians, but you are actually doing the same thing they are doing. The only difference between you and the thieves and robbers is that they attack with guns and weapons…While you and your MMM companions don’t carry guns..yet carry a more subtle and dangerous weapon of deceit, lies and cunning.
7. To my gullible and ignorant compatriots who innocently claim that MMM is God’s answer to the economic crisis of Nigeria, the truth is that with MMM, it is no more going to be economic crisis, it is going to be an economic graveyard. Right now in this economic crisis that the country is going through, people don’t have money and they don’t have jobs, but MMM has not created jobs, it has not provided production, it has not brought any money into the country, so nothing has been done to improve the economic situation, which means nothing has changed. The only thing it has changed is that the little money you had to use for one thing or the other, is now been collected from you to be given to another person who uses that money as he sees fit. This is equal to robbing Peter to pay Paul.
8. The participants of MMM network claim to just give money to each other, but where is the money you are giving to each other coming from? Why didn’t you give that money to each other before MMM came if you are so kind? Of course it is because you are getting a mysterious thirty percent from where you don’t even understand. If you are truly an innocent person with integrity and character, you should ask yourself the question – where is this money that I am being given coming from? This is like saying that everyone one who is accepting this thirty percent return will willingly participate in sharing the spoils of thieves and robbers. Do you know that is already a criminal act by itself? Even though you might use other words to justify yourself, but this is actually what you are doing.
9. A lot of you think you are not doing anything wrong by participating in MMM. You think you are better than the armed robbers, thieves and corrupt politicians, but you are actually doing the same thing they are doing. The only difference between you and the thieves and robbers is that they attack with guns and weapons to deprive you of your possessions by force. While you and your MMM companions don’t carry guns and weapons, yet carry a more subtle and dangerous weapon of deceit, lies and cunning.
10. Yes you cannot be arrested and charged directly as an armed robber will be, but so are the corrupt politicians. They too cannot be directly charged as armed robbers and thieves who come with weapons, but they are all as guilty, because they use the weapon of the pen and manipulation of government numbers and budget. In my own opinion, however, the participants of Ponzi schemes and pyramids like MMM are even worse, because the corrupt politicians steal from government coffers, but you steal from already poor and desperate fellow citizens in the most unsuspecting manner.
In the case of the politicians, the citizens never actually know they are being deprived, but with Ponzi operators, they actually come to your pocket to take the last penny from you, making it impossible for you put food on your table. So it is an immediate and personal devastation.
11. If the total amount of public servants in Nigeria is just about a million people, that means the number of people who are involved in MMM is much bigger than the number of our so called corrupt politicians, leading us to conclude that the devastating effect of such pyramid and Ponzi schemes like MMM affects a far larger number of Nigerians than what the politicians will ever do. In the case of the politicians, the citizens never actually know they are being deprived, but with Ponzi operators, they actually come to your pocket to take the last penny from you, making it impossible for you put food on your table. So it is an immediate and personal devastation.
12. Personally, I think the biggest evil that groups like MMM bring to the country is the utterance and negative effects they bring to the culture and the value system of our people. These schemes propagates the culture of GETTING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING. These schemes discourage the virtue of DELAYED GRATIFICATION. Such schemes as MMM compel a large percentage of the population to believe that production is not necessary for prosperity. They cause people to begin to think that what they need for their wellbeing is money, rather than hard work. They stiffen the creative potential of a nation and suffocate its industrial capacity. This is why I believe every Nigerian must raise his or her voice to begin to not just discourage but propagate against these groups as social vices in our nation. It is a social vice that could pollute and have catastrophic consequences not just on the economy, but on the psyche of a whole nation.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” ― Desmond Tutu
This is to help those people who might still be in one sort of illusion or the other for a miracle to know that this is not a miracle matter at all. Whether you pray or you don’t pray, it will collapse. MMM is not coming from God at all, this is not God’s way.
Sunday Adelaja is a Nigeria born leader, transformation strategist, pastor and innovator. He is based in Kiev, Ukraine. He can be contacted at sundayadelajablog@gmail.com.
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The Catastrophic Phenomenon Called MMM – My Take
Be not deceived. All these pyramid schemes (also called Ponzi Schemes) operate what is called an “inverted pyramid). It means the pyramid looks more like a “V” 🔻than an “A”🔺.
The base of the pyramid is always narrower than its head. While the base will always support the pyramid for a while, there ALWAYS will come a time when the base will be too small and weak to carry the load on top and then, the big pyramid will come crashing down!
What does my jargon mean?
These schemes need the following to be successful and sustainable:
a. People must always make financial contributions
b. People must always convince others to join too (the explanation whether contribution, helping, investing, or any other name does not really matter, it’s all the same)
c. You don’t make money until the people under you become active
These schemes are different from cooperatives where you either only withdraw what you saved OR you take a loan from other people’s savings AND PAY BACK WITH INTEREST!
The first set of people to join (or create) these schemes are usually few in number and mobilizing more people to is usually easy. As the scheme grows, it becomes more difficult to find new people to add on and as such, the later joiners will suffer losses
Because the later joiners are usually numerous and in multiples of the earlier ones, when the schemes crash, the number of people crying ALWAYS outnumber those who profited from it.