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We’re not saying you should physically fight these people. We’re just saying, with the current state of Nigeria’s economy, anyone trying to make you cough out ridiculous amounts of money for the barest minimum should catch these hands.
Nail techs that charge more than 20k
If anyone’s charging you more than 20k in present-day Nigeria for nail extensions, they’re your opp. Ask them to catch you outside.
Real estate agents and landlords
They belong to the same WhatsApp group because they want you to pay insane amounts of money on houses that cosplay as boxes and have slices of windows. You should actually call boys for them so that you’re not fighting alone.
Restaurants
After you’ve fought landlords and agents, you can go outside and ask restaurant owners to square up. Yes, they’re paying their rent in millions, but why do they want to use you to clear their gbese? Why is a milkshake 15k?
Banks
At this point, they’re all the same. The new ones, the old ones, all of them seem to have sworn an oath to stress and frustrate us all . So, the next time your bank makes you question your will to live, don’t just swear for them. You should actually go to the closest branch, and show them that they aren’t the only ones that can frustrate people. If they have no physical branches, drag them everywhere online.
Instagram vendors
Not all of them, just the ones that don’t respond on time after you pay, or lie about delivering your stuff and still send you things that will have you doing “what I ordered vs what i got”.
Your employer
Yes, you won’t be able to pay your bills without them, but look at it. Does your salary match your workload, or are they trying to suck your life’s worth because of said salary?
Any business charging in dollars
I understand that it’s 2023, but this is also Nigeria. The economy is rubbish, and the exchange rate is even more rubbish, so anyone asking you to pay for their services in dollars hates you and wants your downfall.
For Navigating Nigeria this week, Citizen spoke to Nanretdeng, a Nigerian student who had to leave schooling in Nigeria for the Benin Republic after a lengthy ASUU strike. Her story shows that leaving Nigeria doesn’t always insulate you from trouble, as it can find its way back to you. Here’s the sad experience she and her colleagues are currently facing at the hands of a dubious man named Shehu. If this were a movie, it would be titled “The Good, The Bad, and the Shehu.”
Editorial Note: Navigating Nigeria is a platform for Nigerians to passionately discuss the Nigerian experience with little interference to individual opinions. While our editorial standards emphasise the truth and we endeavour to fact-check claims and allegations, we do not bear any responsibility for allegations made about other people founded in half-truths.
My name is Nanretdeng. Let me tell you my story.
I used to study at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), but a strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in 2020 disrupted my studies for almost a year. I started thinking about going to school outside Nigeria. Before the strike, I had a friend who left UNIJOS to study at École Supérieure de Management (ESM) in Cotonou, Benin Republic. So I asked her how she did it, and she referred me to this guy named Shehu, who was part of the AP Usman Foundation and had links with ESM.
When she referred me to Shehu, I had no idea that the foundation offered scholarships. All I knew was that he had helped my friend process her admission to the university. I contacted him, and he asked me to visit Jos’s AP Usman office.
I met him there, which was when he showed me my options. Before issuing a form, he asked me about the course I wanted to study and other relevant information. I still wasn’t aware at this point that this was a scholarship. I wasn’t honestly looking for that. All I wanted was enlightenment on attending school in Cotonou, but then Shehu later told me that the foundation had provided half scholarships for students applying.
That must have felt like good news at the time
The tuition was ₦430k thereabouts. The foundation promised to take on some of that fee while other colleagues and I were to pay ₦150k each with an additional ₦20k bringing the total payment to ₦170k. So that’s what I paid to the foundation. I still have the receipts. This was in October 2020. We were 14 and were told to prepare to leave either in December 2020 or, at the latest, by January 2021.
Instead, we went in February of 2021 since they kept postponing our resumption date. On the day we were to leave, a few of us were at the AP Usman office in Jos. We all took off from there and arrived in Cotonou.
When we got to Cotonou, we started school activities. Things were going okay until it was time for exams, and we needed clearance. We realised that we hadn’t received receipts from the school confirming that our tuition was paid. Shehu had only remitted about 60 per cent of the payments to the school, even though we thought it was all taken care of. I ended up tweeting about it to draw attention to our situation, and we found out that it was the school that offered the scholarship. Crazy, right?
[ESM Benin / Facebook]
Crazy
It came as a surprise to us all. We tried reaching out to him, but a back-and-forth amounted to nothing. The school was generous and let us write the exams and participate in other activities. They were aware that we had made payments to the foundation. We finished our first year with nothing productive coming out of the talks with Shehu.
Before the commencement of our second year, Shehu still reached out to people asking them to make payments. This was after he hadn’t remitted first-year tuition fees.
At the time, I’d resolved to make all payments directly to the school going forward. When the second year began, Shehu referred other students using the foundation as cover to pay tuition fees to ESM through him without remitting our outstanding payments.
That’s audacious
That went on for a while. At one point, the school admin that had been in touch with Shehu told us that Shehu had stopped responding to his messages and calls. Shehu had gone MIA. The second year rolled by with these issues unresolved.
In our third year, we agreed that no one would make any payments to Shehu or the AP Usman Foundation but to the school directly. At this time, I was the university’s president of the Plateau Students Union. I was picked for this because I was bilingual, and the Benin Republic is a francophone country. It helped, too, that I studied foreign languages at UNIJOS.
After our joint resolution, students from the union began making tuition payments to another bank account I own — different from my primary one. I was then remitting payments to the school from my end. The amount I paid to the school was around thrice what Shehu sent. Despite this, we still have some ground to cover, which explains why I put up that Twitter thread. There are some people among us who Shehu believed were only making a one-time payment. These people are stranded with no hope of getting financial support from home.
We need all the help we can get because we’re in the last lap. It’s a three-year degree. The school has been gracious enough up until now, but that can no longer last. I’m grateful that my story is getting enough traction. Hopefully, it translates to financial help to offset our outstanding bills.
Sounds like this Shehu guy is fraudulent. What has the school done about it?
The school has done their best. It has tried to maintain contact with Shehu. But the school is in Benin Republic while Shehu is in Jos. By the time Shehu decided to stop taking calls, there was nothing anyone from ESM could have done about it. When I returned to Jos, I tried to swing by the office only to find out it was no longer there. It’s not a lack of effort on the part of the school per se. I know the school’s various efforts to get Shehu to remit our fees. They’ve not been successful.
How do you hope this ends? Do you want to see Shehu apprehended, or are you content with settling the outstanding fees?
My priority as the student representative isn’t Shehu getting apprehended. I mean, that would be nice, but what I’m hoping for is that we offset all our debts. The means to that end don’t matter to me. Whether through crowdfunding, a donation, or a charity that notices us and decides to help, it doesn’t matter to me now. If Shehu gets caught and is made to pay, that would be the icing on the cake. But to be honest with you, I’ve taken my mind off of Shehu.
If there’s anything Nigerians pride themselves in, it’s the ability to ‘tear eye’ and not be taken for a ride. But sometimes, things happen, and you realise you’ve been lied to, scammed, hoodwinked, bamboozled.
The truth is, with these ten things, you’re not the bad guy you think you are. Someone is using you and your money to catch serious cruise.
Bubu, the bad boy
Number one on the list. Because why is the president of an entire nation going up and down, cosplaying Ajala the traveller? Why is big daddy B giving us snapchat filtered money instead of the better economy he promised?
Paying VAT at restaurants
They say it’s value-added tax, but value added to what and why?
The new naira notes
A moment of silence for the old naira notes, please. They’ll be sorely missed. Now, to these powerpuff girls notes Meffy baby decided to make. No redesign, no nothing, just colouring pencil and vibes of the highest order.
Bank charges
It doesn’t matter if the charges are for ATM card maintenance or SMS, or simply moving your money around a bit. Your bank charging you ₦50 now and again cannot be normal.
Health insurance
Yes, you’re insuring your health, but what does that really mean? You’re basically placing a bet and playing 2-odds every month. Will I fall sick? Will I not fall sick?
Lagos nightlife
Between the overpriced everything and the unnecessary body contact in this Rona’s era, it’s too much of a high risk, low reward. Yes, you had a good-ass time, but now, you’re clutching your head from a hangover, red account balance and that loud-ass music, and for what?
Honestly, all the drinks at restaurants are scams, but the Chapman has to be the worst. ₦3k – ₦5k on a cup filled with ice, a quarter of a lemon and a ₦150 bottle of Chapman? Is my daddy Dangote?
Instagram ‘thrift’ stores
It’s the rebrand for us because why do we have to fork out ₦3k and above for one okrika dress?
The price of bras
You didn’t ask your titties to titty the way they do. Even if you did, why do you have to pay with your blood and sweat just to buy a bra that loves them the way it’s supposed to?
Weddings
We should abolish weddings. You have to pay extra for regular makeup and gele because you’re getting married? Then you’ll still entertain your guests by dancing like you’re at a children’s party? Absolutely not.
Do you remember how long you’ve had a “dream job”? How did anybody ever convince you to dream of labour? Capitalism is to blame.
Here are some other things capitalism has scammed you into believing.
That interviews are a good thing
First of all, why are you auditioning for hard labour and feeling bad when you get rejections? Do you like pain? It’s giving BDSM.
“The harder you work, the more money you make”
Just take a look at your paycheck and that of a politician. You’ll see that capitalism is a bandit. The easiest way to get rich is to be born rich. The next best way is to marry a rich person. The rest is just capitalism trying to swindle you.
“Follow your passion, and money will come”
My passion is sleeping because why am I still a mechanic? Make it make sense.
Dream jobs
This one’s obviously a lie to lure us back to the plantations because why are you dreaming of labour?
“Learning never ends”
Of course, I’ll keep learning after spending ten hours at work screaming, “Can you see my screen?” and an extra two hours in traffic to and from work every day. I’ll definitely keep learning.
“Your network is your net worth”
Just prepare your heart for aggressive airing from all angles. They will snub you so much, you’ll think you’re a ghost.
Weekends
When was the last time you actually rested on a weekend? Just think about it. It’s all a scam.
When we were younger, many of us spent a lot of time wondering when we would grow up so we could finally be adults. How is that going now? If you haven’t clocked it yet, let us be the first to tell you: adulthood is a major scam and these 14 things prove it:
1. You have to feed yourself.
This is one sure sign of adulthood being a scam. So you mean I have to come back to this house and my parents don’t have food waiting for me? My mother is not offering me extra meat? Wow, so I have to look for what I will eat on my own? This is betrayal.
2. You start to manage meat and fish.
When you actually manage to feed yourself, you realise how much turkey and Titus costs in the market, no one will teach you before you start rationing the meat and fish you eat. Especially with this one that Constable Sapa is in town.
3. You probably won’t even be able to afford milk.
You see that three scoops of milk you always wanted as a child? You see that Milo you wanted to lick but were not allowed to? You probably won’t be able to afford it. And even when you can afford it and can lick it the way you want to, you’ll realise that it is not enough to soothe the pain of adulthood.
4. You are qualified for heartbreak.
You think adulthood is one land of bliss and romance until one person will invade your peace and then break your heart. Like, what exactly did I do to you people? Is it a crime to be an adult?
5. You have to pay your own bills.
From now on, rent is on you. Data subscription payment is on you too. Anything you buy or involve yourself in, you must pay for it by yourself. The literal definition of carrying your cross by yourself.
6. There are really no parties to attend.
I blame Nollywood and Hollywood for making us believe that adulthood was all parties and popping outfits. See ehn, as an adult, there are not so many parties to attend. Take it from us.
7. And when there are parties to attend, you are too tired.
After working hard all week, when Friday night comes, you just want to curl up in your bed watching Netflix and laughing at tweets or TikTok videos. The party can take care of itself. You simply won’t have the energy for it.
8. The sex you want so much, you won’t get it.
You think you’ll enter adulthood collecting knacks and snatching orgasms left, right and centre. LEEMAO. The lies. Either the sex is bad or simply just not available with the person you want it with. Eventually, you will turn celibate.
9. No more Christmas clothes.
The only thing you might get is a matching pyjamas set. And even that one is dependent on finding love. You that is constantly chopping heartbreak, where will that one come from?
10. You have to motivate yourself to get things done.
Because if you don’t, who will? So, you have to motivate yourself to show up for work in time so they don’t fire you. You have to motivate yourself to wake up in the middle of the night to put extra effort into your own personal development.
11. Nobody dashes you free money anymore.
Everybody is an adult now. Deal with it oh. The most they can dash you is urgent 2k. And the day you misbehave like this, they will probably drag you for it.
12. Your younger ones expect you to dash them money.
These ones don’t know what is wrong with them. They don’t know you are also expecting to be dashed money. The ghetto. LMAO, sorry dears, we are all corporate beggars in these streets.
13. Your parents and everyone around you suddenly expect you to be responsible.
Imagine that. Responsibility, when you are trying to survive and stay afloat. Wahala for who dey look up to me oh.
14. Expect to cry. A lot.
This is the strangest part of adulthood. You could be doing something unrelated to tears and you will feel the tears running down. Someone shouts at you too much and the tears come pouring down. Sometimes, you even schedule date and time to cry.
Childhood was probably the peak of our lives. Free food, no rent, no responsibilities and plenty of fun. Until we were scammed into adulthood, which we all know is the absolute ghetto. Sometimes I wonder about the things I would bring back from my childhood if I could.
1. Naps.
Remember how you had to be forced to take naps? What wouldn’t you give to be able to take naps freely now?
2. Being taken care of you when you’re sick.
The biggest scam of adulthood has to be you having to take care of yourself when you’re sick
3. Pocket money.
Pocket money used to land without having to work for it. God when again?
4. Someone to carry you to bed when you sleep off.
Remember how you’d sleep off in front of the TV and mysteriously find yourself in your bed the next morning? Now if you sleep off in front of the TV, that’s where you’ll meet yourself. When you’re ready, you’ll carry yourself to the room.
5. Money from visitors.
Receiving money from visitors was such a childhood flex. Your uncle would visit and crisp 500 naira notes would land in your palms when they were leaving. Now they assume that because you’re grown, you don’t need it anymore. Please it is now that I need it the most.
6. Being carried.
Being carried around when you were a kid felt terrific. Not going to lie, I won’t say no to it now.
7. Having a bedtime.
A standard beahviour was grumbling at bedtime because you didn’t want to go to bed. Now, if I get to sleep by 1am, I consider myself lucky.
8. Not having responsibilities.
Having no responsibilities. The responsibilities that come with adulting are from the devil. Paying your own hospital bills, paying for your own food, paying rent, sending money home, maintaining your car and having a life were a lot more expensive that you would have thought. God abeg.
If there’s a mantra to your life, it is one thing: adulting is a scam. Big scam. I don’t know what it was that made it seem like being an adult was an epic trip, but it is a scam. We were had, took, hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok and flat-out deceived about adulting.
Adulting sold us dreams. Here are a few of the lies we were sold by adulting.
1. That when you grew up, you would eat all the meat you wanted from the soup.
Now you can eat it, but at what cost?
2. The responsibilities
There are so many responsibilities that came with adulting. Bills, work, family responsibilities… it never ends.
3. You thought you would go to uni, graduate and get a great job immediately.
If only you knew.
4. Being broke
Nobody prepared you for being broke all the damn time.
5. You thought you would have met the love of your life
Now where is the love of your life? HaqHaqHaq.
6. Having to take care of your self when you fall sick
This one is the worst. Nobody to pamper you. Worst part is that you have to pay for your drugs with your own money. Ghetto.
7. Getting enough sleep
As a child, you hated that you had to go to bed early and looked forward to staying up as long as you wanted when you became an adult. Now you can’t get enough sleep.
This is a post about all the soft lies we were sold as kids and have come to realize as adults. Ranging from career advice to relationships, to even what it means to be an adult.
Let’s get into it:
1) Karma is real.
Nollywood really played a fast one on us because we grew up believing that bad things happen to bad people. So why are our politicians laughing at us?
2) We are the leaders of tomorrow.
Lol. A large majority of young people can’t even get decent jobs. And the ones that do get jobs realize that they have to jaapa.
3) Get married at 25, have a family, a job…
C-L-O-W-N.
4) After passing Jamb, you can rest.
I haven’t rested for a day since I entered Uni.
5) And they lived happily ever after.
Why didn’t anyone even give us the slightest hint about the hard work of both romantic relationships and friendships? Eez too hard. Cinderella come outside, I want to fight.
6) Salary is the bribe you get to forget your dreams.
They really tried it. They sold us aspire to perspire tea.
On Saturday, while everyone else was eating the spoils of Owambe party rice, I was carrying out my preferred weekend activity – frying out whatever brain cells survived the week’s grind on Nigerian social media.
A few annoying GOT spoilers and some unsolicited Endgame reviews after, I came across an interesting tweet.
In quick succession, three more tweets trickled in with the word ‘Loom’ present. It appeared someone had unleashed the SEO floodgates ‘pon my timeline. So, being the eternal busybody that I am, I decided to go in search of whatever this ‘loom’ phenomenon was, and wow Nigerians, just wow. I hail.
In case you have no idea what Loom is, I’ll explain using the questions that plagued my mind as I carried out my research on what is a thinly veiled MMM plus.
What is Loom?
First off, when the name of a scheme literally translates to ‘something vague and threatening’, you already know not a lot of good can come out of it.
The premise of Loom lies in a peer-to-peer pyramid scheme that sees an individual putting in a sum of money and earning eight times the amount he put. Nothing unrealistic or too-good-to-be-true sounding about that. No Sir.
So if you invest 1000, you’re ideally entitled to a pay out of 13 000, 104 000 if the amount invested is 13 000, these amounts being the stipulated amounts to be a part of the Loom . Sound simple enough correct? Well, this leads to the next question I had
How does it work?
Because we are currently in the millenial age with our kitschy gadgets our social media, the loom scheme can be carried wherever you go, via WhatsApp.
To begin, a group is set up by an individual, he becomes the center. The more people recruited, the closer he is to getting his payout. Once this group reaches the 8 mark, he collects his pay and leaves the group, but not without first re-investing a portion of his earnings into the group.
The remainder of the group is then divided into 2, with 4 members each. They are encouraged to invite more people in to hasten their chances of reaching the sacred 8 mark, where the next center cashes out. Rinse and repeat.
What do the colours mean?
For some reason, weird colours were thrown into the mix.
The colours Purple, blue, orange and red represent the levels in the Loom, with Red representing the center. The others represent how close an individual is to get to the center.
But you know what else has those colours? This guy.
Which is what you’re going to be, should you choose to participate in this scheme.
Is it Safe?
Well, it’s safe in the way babies playing with a naked flame is safe. Like picking your teeth with a discarded needle is perfectly harmless or jumping off of a moving okada is good fun. If you missed it, it’s not safe.
Yes, there’s a high chance you cash out should you join the group in its early stages, but for this scheme to be plausible, an endless flow of people are required and it is simply unsustainable. Someone always loses in the end. Don’t let that be you
Should I put my money in?
No, absolutely not. Not only is it too good to be true, but it’s also illegal, seeing as it is a financial organisation without the required regulatory approvals. Please, I take God beg you, don’t disgrace us outside.
A Nigerian scam episode that had a beautiful twist in the end.
In 2009, Maria Grette, a 69-year-old Swedish woman fell in love with Johnny, a 58-year-old Danish she met on the internet- or so she thought.
Little did she realize Johnny was a 24-year-old Nigerian graduate, who remained unemployed 2 years after getting his first degree.
She didn’t suspect anything at first, until he told her he got robbed and shot in Nigeria, where he claimed to be visiting. He started to request for huge amounts of medical fees, as he alleged that he couldn’t make transfers from his account due to technicalities.
Our Nigerian brothers will not stop embarrassing us in this life. But can we really blame them?
Anyway, Johnny, the scammer (not his real name), confessed to Maria after she’d stopped sending money and stopped picking his calls. Apparently, he was repentant and wanted her to forgive him.
Instead of getting angry and escalating it, Ms Grette decided to visit Nigeria that year, to see how she could help some of Nigeria’s youth. She now helps African artists get to international exhibitions where they can show their art to a wider client range.
As for the young Johnny, he got sponsored to an American university for his masters, and has even landed a job with an oil company. All these, courtesy of Ms Gretta.
All you scammers, this doesn’t mean your own 419 story will end like this fairy tale o! If you don’t stop it, you’re on your own!
As if having President Mugabe leading them into a recession is not enough, Zimbabweans are facing another, probably bigger, financial problem.
Thousands of Zimbabweans have lost their investments after the online money scheme, MMM Zimbabwe Global, terminated its services without prior notice to investors.
Apparently, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had earlier warned citizens that MMM was a scam, but Zimbabweans didn’t listen because initial investors had made profit from the scheme.
It’s not surprising Zimbabweans were desperate to join the social financial network; the country’s economy is fast grinding to a halt.
The Zimbabwean Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, and ZANU PF, the leading party, have been widely criticized for their inability to map out strategic economic reform ideas to improve the situation.
And of course, there’s this teeny tiny problem as well.
Ponzi schemes like the MMM only work when new members invest money, which is used to pay off older investors until a point where the schemes don’t attract new investors and crash.
The MMM Nigeria scheme is gaining traction and we heard someone even advised presido to put our money there.
This is probably one of the top 5 most frustrating emails to get at anytime of the day. Majority of us have gotten one or two daily emails from Dr. Azolibe and his cohorts. Tiring! Annoying! It is a scam!
When you see “1 new email” and it is Dr. Azolibe’s “How to last longer in bed”.
What is all this rubbish for God’s sake?
Someone unfortunately picks your phone and you did not close the email page.
See, don’t act like that. It’s not what it looks like, I can explain.
So you begin to think.
Who gave these people my email address?
And you feel it is one of your exes.
Wow, so just because we broke up badly, you’re doing me dirty.
Hey! Its not your ex. It is a spam service. Don’t curse him/her yet.
It’s a scam website that got your email address from the Internet.
1. First thing to do “Mark as Spam”.
This will ensure all subsequent emails go to the spam folder directly.
2. Look for every other account that sends those emails and do the same.
Dr. Azolibe, Dee Obinna, Engineer Obi all of you must go today. No I don’t want a Samsung and my girlfriend is not complaining!
3. Put them all on a spam reporting website.
They must all rot in there! Mad People.
4. Stop clicking ads online.
No, don’t be deceived nobody is trying to meet you in your area.
5. Stop putting your email address on untrusted and unpopular websites.
They are not going to email you any offers. That is Dr. Azolibe and his family members.
