Inside the GNLD/Neolife Recruitment Trap: How Young Nigerians Are Being Used and Wasted

 

In recent weeks, GNLD/Neolife has trended heavily across Nigeria, not because of breakthrough success stories, but due to growing public outrage over the way young people are being drawn, trapped, and exploited under the guise of a “business opportunity.”

 

My encounters with these young minds have been disturbing and deeply saddening.

 

Almost daily, especially around Oshodi bus park, you meet neatly dressed youths clutching backpacks filled with supplements, desperately negotiating transport fares with bus conductors or begging fellow passengers to help them pay their way to Gbagada, particularly the now-notorious Westex bus stop—a known convergence point for GNLD/Neolife activities.

 

These are not lazy youths. They are hopeful, articulate, and driven. Unfortunately, many of them have found themselves shackled to a multi-level marketing system that promises financial freedom but delivers years of stagnation, embarrassment, and poverty.

 

Backpacks of Supplements, Empty Pockets

 You see them trekking long distances, sun-soaked and exhausted, moving from street to street with their backpacks—packed not with school books or work tools, but with dietary supplements they can barely sell. Months turn into years, yet their lives remain unchanged. No savings. No career growth. No meaningful progress.

 What is most painful is that while these young people struggle to afford transport fares, they are unknowingly making money for their uplines—individuals who sit comfortably, posting motivational quotes online and flaunting lifestyles funded by the labour and desperation of those beneath them.

 “Faith Without Profit”

 One of the most striking things about GNLD/Neolife recruits is how religious they are about the business. They defend it with the zeal of converts. Any criticism is labelled “negativity.” Any warning is dismissed as “lack of vision.”

 This blind faith was clearly reflected in the interview recently granted by a GNLD affiliate to Lucky Udu on social media. Instead of addressing the visible suffering of recruits, the narrative followed the usual script—success is coming, don’t quit, your breakthrough is near. Meanwhile, the streets tell a different story.

 Faith is powerful, but faith in a profitless system only benefits the exploiter, not the believer.

 How Innocent People Are Recruited

The recruitment process itself is deceptive. Many victims recount receiving interview invitations they never applied for—often via WhatsApp or SMS. Curious and hopeful, they show up at the stated location expecting a real job interview.

 

Instead, they are ushered into a small hall where the so-called “business opportunity” is unveiled. Glossy presentations. Luxury photos. Testimonies of “millionaires.” Before they know it, they are told to pay registration fees, buy products, and start recruiting others to succeed.

 

What was sold as employment quickly turns into endless recruitment, unpaid marketing, and financial drain—a cycle that ruins confidence, wastes time, and destroys potential.

 

A System Feeding on Desperation

 

Nigeria’s unemployment crisis has made young people vulnerable. GNLD/Neolife and similar MLM platforms thrive on this desperation, recycling dreams while harvesting human labour. The real tragedy is not just financial loss, but years of wasted youth, lost opportunities, and broken self-worth.

It is time for the Nigerian government and relevant agencies to seriously regulate the multi-level marketing industry. Clear rules must be enforced on recruitment practices, income claims, and accountability. Young Nigerians deserve protection from systems that disguise exploitation as entrepreneurship.

 

These youths are not failures. They are victims.

 

Victims of a system that feeds them hope but starves them progress. Victims of uplines who profit while they beg for bus fares. Victims of a business that sells supplements but consumes lives.

 

Nigeria cannot afford to keep losing its young minds to profitless promises. The silence must end.