How Tingo Confidently Scams Nigeria With Backing Of Some Powerful Elites (Part 1)

In an investigation spanning about 6-months, how Tingo Group Inc, came to be the multi-billion-dollar scam it is today, enabled by well-connected and powerful Nigerian elites, to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars out of the country annually.

It will probably not be fully told without mentioning the role played by the current President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, who was one of the earliest backers of the firm.

Adesina who served as Agriculture Minister under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011-2015, was probably inadvertently roped into the Tingo delusion, through a road paved with good intentions.

“Tingo was celebrated as a revolution in agriculture by Adesina but it continues to claim revenues from Nigeria without value to show for it,” one source explained.

Adesina has often boasted that he turned on the power of technology in Nigeria’s Agricultural sector.

According to him, he enabled 15 million farmers to have access to improved seeds and fertilisers and to end corruption in the agricultural sector using their mobile phones.

“It was revolutionary; the first not only in Africa but actually it was the first in the world. It helped to produce in Nigeria a record additional 21 million metric tons of food. It boosted food security and expanded wealth for farmers,” Adesina said in 2022, during the Conferment of Honorary Doctorate of Technology by the Federal University of Technology Minna.

“Rural wealth expanded from the North-East across the North-Central to the North-West.”

The problem for Adesina is that investigators did not find any evidence of widespread use of Tingo-branded mobile phones or Tingo mobile Apps by farmers anywhere in Northern Nigeria or in the country as a whole.

Tingo claims $253.4m in revenues from phones that don’t exist

Tingo Group, headquartered in New Jersey, claims to have several business segments focused on providing mobile phones, food processing and an online food marketplace for farmers primarily located in Nigeria.

Tingo claimed in its First Quarter (Q1) 2023 financials that its Mobile business earned $253.4 million in 3 months, has a large retail subscriber base, and its business model is essentially a business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model.

“Each of our current subscribers is a member of one of a small number of cooperatives with whom we have a contractual relationship, which facilitates the distribution of Tingo Mobile-branded smartphones into the various rural communities of user farmers/agri-workers,” Tingo said.

Revenues from Tingo Mobile are supposedly derived from agri-tech business activities, inter-alia, smartphone leasing, an agri-marketplace, airtime top-ups, utility payment services, bill-pay and e-wallet, insurance products and access to finance and lending services.

However, MonneyCentral reportedly disclosed that it could not find any evidence of widespread use of Tingo services in Nigeria which could have generated revenues of N116.56 billion in 3 months.

Our research which involved speaking with dozens of individuals with knowledge of the farming business in Nigeria showed that among other things, in Nasarawa state the Chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) Samuel Meshi, when interviewed by a reporter said he had not heard of Tingo mobile phones for farmers from either the ministry of Agriculture or Tingo.

The AFAN chairman maintained that if such a program was in existence in the state, he would have been the first person to know about it due to the association’s collaboration with the Agric Ministry.

Meshi doubted the program saying maybe “it is in the pipeline and yet to be announced in Nasarawa state.”

“I don’t know about Tingo mobile phones given to farmers here in Nasarawa state. We have a very strong collaboration with the Ministry and if such a program is in existence here in Nasarawa state, I should be the first person to know about it,” Meshi told our reporter.

In Kwara, farmers said that they don’t use Tingo mobile phones for Agricultural trading.

Hon Umar Mahmud Aboki the state chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria Kwara Chapter said 95 per cent of farmers in the state are peasant farmers, adding that they do not use Tingo Mobile phones for Agriculture.

He added that they do not pay any charges as they do not use the claimed mobile phones.

A farmer in Ilorin Mr. Adeyemi Ambali also narrated that he has not heard anything about Tingo mobile phone for agricultural trading as he does not have anything clues about it.

“I’m hearing about the Tingo Mobile phone for the first time.”

According to our Correspondent, the case is the same in Taraba state where farmers claimed ignorance of such a program.

In Benue State, our correspondent reports that the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) in partnership with Tingo carried out a Close User Group (CUG) for a paltry 115 farmers using 9Mobile.

The chairman of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria, AFAN, Mr. Aondungu Saaku who made the disclosure in Makurdi, stated that currently, AFAN and 9Mobile communication have trained 115 agents from each of the twenty-three local Government areas of the state.

“9mobile has given 10 capturing kits for capturing of farmers at the wards but was suspended due to the just concluded general elections in the country.”

Speaking to our reporter on the program, a cross-section of farmers in Kaduna state, especially the small-scale farmers averred that they are not aware of such a program in the state.

In their separate remarks, they concurred, “We are yet to know of anything like the Tingo program for farmers.”

When asked if they are ready to embrace the program, many were of the opinion that they are ready to key into the program if it is genuine.

Tingo revenues are now laughably larger than BUA Foods

Tingo in its highly suspect financials claimed revenues of $577.2 million from food processing operations of Tingo Foods which allegedly commenced food processing operations in August 2022 and was acquired in February 2023.

The Q1, 2023 revenues of N267.82 billion ($577.2 million) quoted by the upstart Tingo Foods is however 185% higher, (nearly double) the N144.3 billion in revenues reported by BUA Foods, one of Nigeria’s largest and most established food processing firms.

This makes it highly likely that the Tingo numbers are fake, as the firm has no known products on supermarket shelves in Nigeria.

Tingo also has no food processing facility of its own. Rather, it claims its explosive revenue and profitability are derived from acting as a middleman between Nigerian farmers and an unnamed third-party food processor.

In February 2023, the company held a groundbreaking ceremony for a claimed $1.6 billion Nigerian food processing facility of its own, attended by the then agriculture minister and other political leaders.

Who pays for Tingo’s claimed services and how does it get ForeX?

Tingo, which was founded and is spearheaded by “Dozy” Mmobuosi, CEO of the key holding company entity, claims it made $ 260.67 million as profit from operations for the three months ended March 31, 2023.

Dozy made waves earlier in 2023 when he attempted to acquire the Now-Premier League soccer team Sheffield United.

Tingo is free to repatriate most of its profit out of the country, given Nigeria’s fairly liberal foreign exchange (FX) rules for ‘investors’ wishing to move funds out of the country.

However, Tingo did not report paying any sizable amount to the Nigerian authorities as taxes, despite its stated profitability.

In April 2023, Tingo’s Co-Chairman wrote a public letter to Dozy, filed with the United States SEC, saying he could not approve the company’s annual report and felt it “necessary to recuse me by resigning” due to “many critical questions, comments and recommendations” that went “unanswered and unheeded”.

“The real story is how much foreign exchange has been siphoned out of Nigeria by this patently fraudulent scheme, and how does a phony company like Tingo, whose alleged CEO has never stepped foot in the country, get FX allocations from the CBN?” another source told MoneyCentral.

Culled from MoneyCentral.