How Abuja crooks dupe job applicants

The above scenario has seriously affected many people negatively as some are being swindled and frustrated by the activities of crooks, fraudsters, criminals and irresponsible people perpetrating crime in the city.New arrivals to the city of Abuja might be excited to see many job vacancies pasted all over strategic places around them but a critical […]

The above scenario has seriously affected many people negatively as some are being swindled and frustrated by the activities of crooks, fraudsters, criminals and irresponsible people perpetrating crime in the city.
New arrivals to the city of Abuja might be excited to see many job vacancies pasted all over strategic places around them but a critical scrutiny into this revealed that most of these vacancies are fake and a deliberate strategy to convince applicants and rob them of their money in a professional  manner.
Phrases such as “urgent vacancies”, “salary is attractive”, “accommodation is guaranteed” etc, are being used to attract the attention of prospective applicants after which the sum of between N5,000 and N10,000 is being demanded from each applicant for what they term “documentation”.
Investigations by our reporter revealed that crooks in this business are relentless due to the huge amount of money they skillfully dupe unsuspecting applicants. This is evident as the trend of pasting job vacancy notice and calling applicants for fake aptitude tests and oral interviews at various locations in the FCT remains unabated.
Victims said names of successful applicants are being shortlisted few days after the interviews with between 90% and 95% of the total number of applicants scaling through adding that the shortlisting of this large percentage of applicants is to gulp money from them through the so-called documentation and posting.
It is gathered that new arrivals in Abuja who are over-zealous of getting jobs are mostly affected by these incongruous activities of criminals as they rush with their certificates on seeing job vacancies pasted on bridges, electric poles, flyovers, trees, fences, roundabouts and other strategic locations in the city.
Our reporter learnt that what happens at the end of applications, interviews and payment of a stipulated amount of money on demand by these crooks is absolute frustration which leave applicants in dilemma, anxiety, panic and anguish as the crooked “officials” relocate to other parts of the city quietly and secretly.
Narrating his ordeal to our reporter, a victim who gave his name as Johnson A. Akuta, said, “I have B.Sc. in Political Science. What brought me to Abuja was to look for a job because I was tired of staying in the village. Immediately I arrived Wuse, I saw many job vacancies pasted at many locations so I was happy thinking I was saved. There was a lot of vacancies in different areas of human endeavour such as administration, accounting, teaching, marketing and security.
“So, the following day, I took my bath and quickly entered into the city centre and started submitting my applications to different places. Nobody told me some of these vacancies were fake because many people were rushing to submit their applications.
“After three days,74 of us were called for an interview in an open space in the premises of Sky Memorial close to Berger, after two days, I received a text reading ‘congratulations you have passed the interview, come for documentation on Monday’ I was very excited,” he said.
“When I went there, I was asked to pay N5,000 for documentation for my posting. So I quickly rushed to one of my friends and borrowed the money. I paid the money but I didn’t receive my posting until the people who claimed they were recruiting were nowhere to be found. Up till now, nobody has called me and their phone numbers are off,” he added.
Another victim who gave her name as Esther J. Ezekiel, lamented that the activities of these crooks have been left unchecked in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), noting that it contributes to several other factors tarnishing the country’s image in the international community.
Esther explained that she saw a job vacancy notice pasted on the pillars of Nyanya overhead bridge with three addresses in Wuse 2, Jabi and Mararaba where applicants should submit their applications, so she went on with it but later found out that it was a crook game.
She said, “The job was more of something shelter, a kind of providing accommodation for the people, so I was moved because I studied Estate Management. I submitted my application in Wuse but they later asked me to go for interview in Mararaba, so when I went there, the interview was taking place in a restaurant. We were more than 47. After the written interview, the only person who was in charge of everything said that we should wait, that he would mark all the scripts and before 6pm, he would paste our results.
“We waited and later when the results came out, 42 of us scaled through. The man demanded the sum of N5,000 from each of us for documentation, some of us paid but others promised to pay the following day. When I went there after four days to collect my appointment letter as he asked us to do, I discovered that he was beaten up by some of the applicants who discovered it was not a genuine job and nobody knew of his whereabouts again,” she said.
Mr. Johnson Akuta, called on the concerned authorities in the FCT to check the activities of crooks and criminals adding that there should be an established system where genuine organisations who want to paste urgent job vacancies will use, giving details and clarifications before pasting it in order to aggressively check the activities of crooks in the FCT as relates to job and career.