Inside the Shadow Affiliate Group Fueling NeoLife’s Illicit Campus Recruitment

Oluwaseun Favour, a 400-level student at the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), returned from Osogbo after one and a half months of training at Oye. She looked leaner and visibly worn, and without the phone she had hoped to afford when she joined the business. 

She did not return to the training sessions in Oye. “I was just tired of everything that was happening,” she said.

A friend’s success story in her second year fueled her passion to join NeoLife in pursuit of financial freedom. 

“I saw that my friend got a lot of things and I felt that if she can do it, I can also do it,” Favour said. “I just wanted to be financially independent as a student. I reached out to my friend and told her I would like to join the business.”

She followed her friend to the office, a three-bedroom flat in Oye Egbo, Oye Ekiti, where she saw about 25 fellow students gathered for the training. 

The friendly welcome she received and the impactful training eased her mind on the first day at the office. 

“Thereafter, I was introduced to the business. It was described as a 2-in-1 business where I would learn digital skills and do network marketing,” she said. The business was presented as Faith Heroic Generations (FHG) in affiliation with NeoLife, with FHG focusing on digital skills training and NeoLife on network marketing. 

According to a document describing FHG’s operations, the group trains members in digital skills, including online store management and e-commerce. NeoLife concurrently provides the structure for selling health and wellness products and recruiting new participants. Members are expected to attend training sessions and reach out to potential clients or recruits as part of the program. 

Findings indicate that the NeoLife-FHG partnership on campus often functions under various subgroups.  Groups, such as Dream Achievers or Fortune 500, operate as units formed through recruitment lines where members build their own teams that expand into separate clusters under different names. Each group remains a subset of the broader NeoLife-FHG network.

Many undergraduates face increasing financial pressure with limited income from stipends or part-time work. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that Nigeria’s annual inflation eased slightly from 15.10% in January 2026 to 15.06% in February 2026. Despite a slight easing of inflation, food prices, which account for the largest share of household spending, remain high, keeping the cost of living a challenge for many Nigerians, especially students who rely on fixed stipends or irregular support from family. 

Some students are turning to NeoLife-linked groups such as FHG, drawn by promises of financial independence and digital skills. However, interviews with students suggest that beyond these promises, participants often encounter intense recruitment demands, academic strain, and, in some cases, emotional and physical distress.

The Cost of Campus Hustles 

The promise of financial independence that drew Favour in slowly gave way to exhaustion and disappointment. 

Favour’s devotion to the programme was undeniable at first. She attended both day and night training. Most training initially focused on NeoLife prospecting, which involved reaching out to people to invite them to join the program. 

“I was told to approach as many people as possible and convince them to sign up and build my team,” she said. 

Later, she was introduced to the digital skill, becoming a Shopify expert and learning to help online store owners. Part of this work involved creating multiple Facebook profiles, one presenting herself as a Shopify expert and another as a store owner she had helped. The store owner’s profile would then refer potential clients to the expert’s profile, which she also managed.

The thrill of the work and the hope of financial independence soon gave way to frustration and disappointment. Despite the long hours she spent prospecting, getting training, and working, Favour struggled to see results. 

“Two months into the business, I was not seeing any results. But the success of my friend, who is also my sponsor, motivated me, and I kept on going,” she said. 

Her determination not to rely on her parents motivated her to make her first trip to the head office in Osogbo for “mind training” against her parents’ wishes. “Although it was not convenient, I endured.  My sponsor handled part of the feeding, and I slept at the office building in Osogbo.” 

Not deterred by the inconveniences of her first visit, she returned to Osogbo for two months after her exams. This time around, she wanted to be more focused. With financial support from her parents, she was able to pull through the first few weeks. 

“During the training in Osogbo, I was beaten twice for not meeting the targets I was expected to hit,” Favour said, “It was painful, and I was embarrassed.” The experience was compounded by the sudden change in her sponsor’s attitude. Verbal abuse became constant, and every mistake was met with anger and criticism. 

The allegation of physical assault could not be independently verified. Efforts to obtain responses from NeoLife and FHG representatives were unsuccessful. Emails sent to both organisations on March 7 received no reply. An FHG representative in Oye failed to respond, despite promising to do so in phone calls and WhatsApp messages between March 23 and 25. A final message was sent on April 9, and no response had been received as of publication time.

A clinical psychologist, Eara Lori, said that the impact of such experience on young adults can result in a constant state of fear, triggering the fight-or-flight response. She added that such people can end up experiencing low self-esteem, emotional numbness, and a deep sense of helplessness.

“When a person’s sense of safety is threatened daily, they may become anxious and hypervigilant, with difficulty concentrating or engaging in normal interactions,” she said. “Over time, such individuals may struggle to trust others, withdraw emotionally, feel unmotivated, and experience shame and symptoms of depression.”

She added that the long-term effects can be more severe. “These may include chronic anxiety and depression, as well as a distorted sense of authority, which can make some individuals either overly submissive or increasingly aggressive and rebellious. In some cases, people adapt by entering survival mode and becoming used to such environments as a coping mechanism.”

Favour disclosed that the relentless schedule, constant pressure, and disciplinary measures drained her physically and emotionally. Although she refused to let the business affect her academics, she admitted that the activities had an impact on her financial, mental, and physical health. Upon returning to campus, she decided to quit NeoLife, stepping away from what she had believed was her ticket to financial freedom.

A Bittersweet Experience 

While Favour’s experience ended in exhaustion, not every student faced such extreme pressures. For Faithia, a student in the Department of English and Literary Studies at FUOYE, the journey with Neolife left her with mixed feelings. 

“I do not totally condemn the business. It was a bittersweet experience for me,” she said. 

Influenced by her roommate in their first year, she joined the business seeking financial independence. Faithia managed to earn money and even purchased a laptop while balancing her academics alongside the business. But she confirmed the process was psychologically taxing.

Faithia learned to help online store owners as a Shopify expert, a role that involved creating multiple fake Facebook profiles. “I had to do this because of the way clients judged me based on my race, although I doubted the authenticity of the method.” Her friends described the method as similar to internet fraud. “I created only three accounts, two for store owners and one as the expert.” 

Unlike other students, she did not attend the intensive training sessions, observing that some of her peers seemed overly influenced by the program.

She said the experience left her with mixed feelings.  “At a point, I questioned the effort required, and whether the energy would have been better invested in my own business,” she said. “Although I gained skills and some financial benefit, I also faced frustration and doubt.”

Experts find these experiences concerning. An educational psychologist, Olanike Adaramoye, said students are attracted to schemes promising financial independence because they seek financial autonomy amid the country’s current economic situation. 

“The fear of unemployment, as well as peer influence and social comparison, also make programmes like this appealing,” she added.

She further explained that the training methods these schemes employed aroused students’ emotions and limited their critical thinking through charismatic leadership, repetition, and persuasive techniques.

Speaking on the psychological effects, she said, “High-pressure environments like this produce anxiety and stress in students, reducing the autonomy in decision-making, leading to identity confusion, especially when the group strongly dictates beliefs and behaviours. It also creates dependency where individuals feel they need the group to succeed.”

Adaramoye also noted that some students remain in such schemes even when they feel uncomfortable or exploited, because they feel stuck and believe they have invested so much that they cannot withdraw. Fear of failure, embarrassment, and the hope of eventual success also keep them in the system.

She advised students to watch out for unverified financial promises and emotional manipulation to avoid falling victim. She also encouraged students to seek legitimate, proven business opportunities as side hustles and to develop financial literacy skills. 

“Students should endeavour to set boundaries and reach out to professional counsellors and career advisors when they need help,” she added.

Institutional Actions

While students have experiences that reflect broader concerns, several Nigerian universities issued advisories or outright bans on Neolife-FHG activities on campus.

The Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) banned Neolife and FHG’s activities on its campus. In a memo signed by the school’s registrar, Charles Adeloye, the university said the groups had created ‘serious discomfort, fear, unnecessary tension and unwarranted pressure’ in the university environment, undermining its academic atmosphere. After reviewing its recruitment practices, the university concluded that its activities were not in students’ best interests and warned that non-compliance would incur serious penalties.

Emmanuel Alayande University of Education (EAUE) had taken similar action earlier, proscribing NeoLife in a January 7 memo. In the memo, the university proscribed Neolife with immediate effect, citing reports that the organisation’s activities were humiliating students and impeding their academic progress. Students who had tried to leave the group reportedly faced harassment and torment. The university directed all students to stop working with Neolife immediately and warned that anyone caught recruiting fellow students, on or off campus, would face disciplinary action.

Attempts to reach FUOYE’s Dean of Student Affairs, Prof Temitope Babalola, were unsuccessful. When first contacted by phone on February 10, he promised to respond via WhatsApp, but subsequent calls and WhatsApp messages made through February 10 to February 28 went unanswered. Multiple visits to his office during the same period were also unsuccessful, as he was unavailable each time.

George Odey, an information officer at the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), said the commission is aware of NeoLife’s controversial recruitment and business practices. He acknowledged a high burden of complaints in sectors involving misleading marketing, with reports detailing how young Nigerians are lured by fake job offers and promises of high salaries, only to be pressured into multilevel marketing schemes. 

Odey noted that on May 6, 2026, the FCCPC and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to specifically target misleading claims and deceptive advertising practices central to complaints against organisations like NeoLife. The Commission warned that failure to comply with the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act (FCCPA) regarding transparent marketing would result in stronger, more coordinated enforcement.

Odey further said that affected students can file formal complaints directly with the FCCPC through its website or mobile app. He also advised students to report misleading health or wellness product claims to NAFDAC, which now shares a coordinated complaint channel with the FCCPC. He cautioned them to be wary of any opportunity that requires an upfront financial commitment or focuses primarily on recruiting others rather than selling a legitimate product.

Efforts to obtain comments from the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) were unsuccessful. An email sent to the Commission on May 14 seeking its position on complaints arising from recruitment-based business schemes had not received a response as of June 3, 2026.