On the 16th of April, 2018, I was in search of a place of secondary assignment to serve alongside my place of primary assignment so I sent a message to Lokoja Corp Members group that any corp member who is in any institution or company that needs a corp member should message me, well I got like 2 options, one is a school and the other is the ICT department of Federal Medical Centre, Lokoja.
I was trying to write my application to those places when a friend called me, she said “I saw your message on Lokoja corpers Group, you dey find job? I get job of 30k for you ooo”, I was so interested, really? Tell me more about it, she said she had met a man who told her about an information company and she has been sent the notice of interview, I told her to forward and I got the message
“SOTERIA INT’L INVITES U For a WORK INTERVIEW On TUE 17 APRIL @ Feintolu Rd Junction, Opposite FCMB BANK, BY ZENITH BANK ADANKOLO, LOKOJA. @8am MT/MX55 MAXWELL”
After reading, thoughts of what to wear started, I quickly entered my room to iron a shirt to wear, while I was doing that, I thought that I should go and check the address out so that it will be easy for me the next morning, so I jumped out, stopped a bike and straight we headed to the place, I got to the location but I didn’t find anything like Soteria there, with disappointment, I turned back home, bought potato and suya to have for dinner.
I was about sleeping when I thought that there isn’t really anything to lose if I go the next morning and if there isn’t anything like soteria still, I will head for my office, set my alarm and off I slept. The anxiety of going for my first interview didn’t allow me get enough sleep as I woke around 3:00 and I just couldn’t get back to sleep, later resulted in going online, surfing the internet and downloading latest music. BOOM! It was 6:45am, I observed solat and started preparing, I had to go out very early to print my already polished CV, everyone was wondering, I have never been out this early, where are you going dressed corporately, and several other questions were thrown, I didn’t bother to answer, I just asked them, if you were to be an interviewer, will you give me job? And they all shouted Yes! Now confidence started to flow.
Jumped out, caught a bike and we were off, waited to print my cv and I got to the venue of the interview by 8:00am sharp, while looking around to search for SOTERIA, I saw a young lady , should be of teen age beside a flex banner (SOTERIA), pointed at the banner to ask if I was for the interview, I nodded in reply and she directed me towards a door which led to the top floor of a storey building, at the entrance, I met another young lady, looking much alike with the first one (they must be sisters) told me to write my name in the attendance list and I saw a man in a coat walking towards us and welcomed me, he led me into a hall which turned out to be a church hall and showed me my seat, I was the 6th person on the attendance, after sitting, I looked to my left and saw one of my flatmates, LOIS!! You sef dey here? We never told each other we were going for the interview, nice one, we just waited quietly while many others entered, at about 9:00am, the man came again and said the first stage is a written stage which will last for 10mins, he shared the papers and they were cheap, questions like what is the meaning of W.H.O. , I finished in 3 mins and I was there forming guru.
The man came back , collected the scripts and said before anything else, we need to know what it takes to work in SOTERIA, he started by saying we must have a dream, told us what dream meant, what limits peoples dream, talked about how he slept in class throughout his stay in UNIPORT, how his dad was a fisherman , how he was into oil bunkery before he gave his life to Christ, fast forward after the motivational talks, he started what SOTERIA was about, he said they are into value creation, health consultations and training on leadership, skill and motivational talks, all these talks were already boring us, then he started the benefits of working with SOTERIA, we all sat right and our ears were erect, now money talks.
He said there was no salary, but there is working income, he said we will get a working income of 45 thousand naira and a consultation income of 50,000 naira monthly in the first two months and 100 000 naira from the third month upwards, while he was saying it, the girl that introduced me to it also came in, he! Dammy! Oshe! The work is very attractive and I had already started thinking of how I can work efficiently so that they can convert me into a permanent staff after my service year, he then moved to the next topic, he said we will do a training first before we start work, and the normal price of the training is 250,000, he said he knew many people wont be able to afford it so hes charging 17,000. I was like waawu, less than 10% of the initial amount, mama You too good o, you give us indomie…….
At this point I knew it was a scam, after everything, he said he will be giving room for 3 questions, so I and 2 other raised our hands and I was the last person, when it was my turn I told him that I was going to take a while but its for the good because I don’t want to fall for a scam, he asked the name of the organization that trained him, he answered ABALON, Lagos State, I asked to see his certificate and he said he didn’t come with it but will bring it in the next meeting for candidates shortlisted, I asked if the company was registered with Cooperate Affairs Commission and with so much confidence, he said yes, then I threw him the last question, the companys registration number, at this time he already knew I caught him already but it was too late to give up, everybody was on my side, they needed those answers too. Man said BN 001KG, this looks like a matric number or a car plate number, companies registration number are always numerical throughout, I have followed the registration of a company, Agroensured Nigeria Limited and I knew it was supposed to be numerical but I kept my cool, told him I wasn’t sure but if theres anything , I will inform.
Thanks to the CAC site, we can actually search for a company name which I did, nothing like this mans company or the registration number, they are strictly numeric, at this point, everyone lost their cool, wanted to tear the man apart, one man started calling police officers to come down, at this point, the two girls had disappeared .
I just packed my documents and left.
Unemployment is not enough, some people actually still want to dupe unemployed graduates of their hard earned change.
Everyone was just thankful to me and I stepped out like ……….
Abdulkareem Abdullahi O.
