Some residents of Kano, mostly women were on Friday, thrown into a fix, having invested their money in a food organisation that has allegedly scammed them.
The organisation named Food Access, which is barely two weeks into operation, promised its customers benefits of accessing food items at reduced prices upon the deposit of a certain amount.
However, the organisation added a caveat, that depositors will only be able to collect the food items paid for after five days.
The price tags of the advertised items include Arome red oil 3L – N5000; Dangote salt 20kg – N4,000; 50kg Dangote Sugar – N45,000; IRS flour 50kg N30,000; 50kg rice optimum/gerewa – N47,000; 10kg semovita – N7000; one carton of 120g Indomie noddles -N7000; star maggi -N14,000; Golden Penny supergetty – N10,000 and Knorr cube chicken flavour – N12,000.
Mrs. Victoria Opkanachi, a resident of Jaba, said her friends and her invested N3.6 million, and they were due to collect their items on Friday, Saturday and Monday.
According to her, she invested a little amount when the organisation started operations, and that was what convinced her and her friends to invest more.
Another victim, Mallam Sani Abdul, a provision store owner at Kwakwachi, said he invested in N1.5million, and was expecting to receive his goods on Saturday but only to hear a disappointing news on Friday.
He explained that out of curiosity having seen the size of the warehouse and the quantity of goods inside the warehouse, he was convinced that the organisation was genuine.
Victims of the scam like Mama Aisha invested N500, 000, others said they invested N270,000, while some traders from Singer Market are said to have invested sums ranging from N10 million – N30 million.
Another victim who deposited N270, 000 on Thursday, said he suspected it was a scam but never expected it to crash early.
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“The large volume of money they collected yesterday was massive because so many people trooped in with cash, while others made transfers.
“So many people thought it was too early for it to flop, so that is why they were coming till around 9.00pm, when close on other days by 5.30pm. Yesterday in my presence, someone brought N2.5 million,” a victim on condition of anonymity disclosed.
Meanwhile, a visit to the warehouse located in the Jaba axis of Kano, showed that it was under lock and key.
However, some victims received short service messages from the operators of the warehouse.
The text message read: “Dear valued customer, we wish to inform you that our office will not open today (04/04/2025) because of of the compulsory break that will take two weeks.
“We will reopen on 18 April, 2025, to start from where we stopped. Our lines will be off in the meantime to avoid pressure. We are sorry for the inconvenience this could cause you.”
