Some residents of Kano metropolis in Kano State, mostly women, on Friday, were dazed, having invested their money into a food procurement organisation that has allegedly scammed them.
The organisation named Food Access, which is barely two weeks into operation, promised its customers reduced food prices after payment in its bank accounts.
Subscribers to the scheme were promised that they would be able to collect the items they paid for after five days.
The price tags included Arome red oil 3L – N5,000, Dangote salt 20kg – N4,000, 50kg Dangote Sugar – N45,000, IRS flour 50kg N30,000, 50kg Rice optimum/Gerewa – N47,000, 10kg semovita – N7,000, one carton of 120g noddles – N7,000, Star Maggi – N14,000, golden penny supergetty – N10,000, Knorr Maggi chicken flavour – N12,000.
A resident of Jaba, Mrs. Victoria Opkanachi, said she invested N3.6m alongside her friends of which they were due to collect their foodstuffs from this Friday or Saturday.
According to her, she invested a little when the promoters started and that they were convinced alongside her friends to put in more efforts.
Another victim, Mallam Sani Abdul, who is a provisions store owner at Kwakwachi area of Kano, said he ingested N1.5m into the scheme, expecting to receive his goods on Saturday but only to hear a bad news this Friday.
Other victims like Mama Aisha invested N500,000, while others paid N270,000 with some businessmen from the popular Singer Market said to have put a large sum ranging from N10m to N30 million into the scheme.
Another victim who deposited N270,000 on Thursday said although he suspected it was a scam but never expected it to crash early.
“The large volume of money they collected yesterday was massive because so many people trooped in with cash sums while others made transfers. So many people thought it was early to flopped, so that is why they were coming till around 9.00pm of which other days they closed by 5.30pm. Yesterday in my presence, someone brought N2.5m,” he explained.
Meanwhile, LEADERSHIP Correspondent who visited the Food Access office located in Jaba area of Kano saw many dejected customers who kept on moving back and forth in front of the office.
However, some of the customers got a curious text message on the phone lines from the suspected scammers. It 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 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.”
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