KEY POINTS

• SEC and NYSC sign an MoU to embed anti-Ponzi scheme education into the corps’ Community Development Service programme.
• SEC will provide training materials, modules, and funding while NYSC integrates the programme into orientation camps.
• Between 160 and 180 corps members currently serve with the SEC, who will act as financial literacy ambassadors.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Youth Service Corps have signed a partnership that will turn corps members into grassroots financial literacy campaigners, deploying Nigeria’s national service structure to fight Ponzi schemes and investment fraud at the community level.

The SEC NYSC financial literacy MoU, signed in Abuja by SEC Director-General Emomotimi Agama and NYSC Director-General Brigadier General Olakunle Oluseye Nafiu, integrates anti-Ponzi scheme education into the NYSC’s Community Development Service programme, specifically through its Education and Enlightenment arm. Consequently, corps members posted across Nigeria’s 774 local government areas will carry financial education directly into communities that have historically been prime targets for fraudulent investment operators.

How the programme will work on the ground

Under the agreement, the SEC will supply training materials, modules, and funding for capacity-building programmes. Furthermore, the commission will train selected corps members and NYSC supervisors as certified facilitators who will then drive financial literacy campaigns within their host communities throughout their service year.

On its part, the NYSC will incorporate the curriculum into orientation camp activities and service year programming through workshops, seminars, and awareness campaigns. Additionally, both organisations will run joint outreach efforts across social and traditional media platforms, and they will establish monitoring mechanisms to measure the programme’s reach and impact over time.

Agama told attendees at the signing ceremony that the initiative builds on a relationship the SEC already maintains with the NYSC, noting that between 160 and 180 corps members currently serve with the commission at any given time. He described corps members as future ambassadors of the capital market and stressed that equipping them with investment knowledge serves both their personal development and broader national economic goals.

NYSC describes partnership as a performance milestone

Nafiu, meanwhile, framed the SEC NYSC financial literacy MoU as a significant institutional milestone rather than a routine administrative agreement. He praised the SEC’s track record of promoting confidence in the capital market and argued that reaching young Nigerians early, before fraudsters do, is the most effective way to reduce the spread of Ponzi schemes across the country.

The partnership arrives at a moment when the SEC has significantly ramped up its enforcement posture. Earlier this month, Agama disclosed that the commission had issued more than 90 advisory notices warning Nigerians about suspicious investment schemes and had intensified prosecution of fraudulent operators in collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force.

With the NYSC now formally embedded in that effort, the SEC gains a nationwide distribution network that no government-to-public awareness campaign could easily replicate on its own.