Can't unlock Benji because of glitch

[BigYoshiFan]

Me and my friend have a shared save, and we encountered a bug where we have Benji's associates in the friendly region. But we can't unlock him. Can someone help me out with this?

[Tera]

Me and my friend also encountered this, where we couldn't unlock Benji as well. Although we didn't share save files and I was the host of the save. What happened was my friend who was the client couldn't unlock him even while being in the friendly region, we speculated that clients cannot unlock him and only the host can. It worked, me being the host unlocked him instantly, no issue. Hope this helps.