Secret Reporters No place to hide
Secret Reporters
As the desperation to travel outside the shores of Nigeria in search of greener pastures among Nigerian youths increase drastically to neck-breaking levels, a larger percentage of them have fallen into the waiting arms of fraudulent agents who dupe them of their hard earned money and eventually sell them off in most cases as slaves in the guise of providing jobs for them.
In a shocking revelation to SecretReporters by a victim who happen to fall prey to this exploitive act, her recent ordeal started after her meeting on 31st of December, 2018 with one Mr. Adeyemi Adeleke Jamiu, an agent whom she contacted to help her out with the visa application struggles she was facing while applying to study Nursing in the United States of America (USA).
With a whopping sum of Four Hundred Thousand Naira (N400,000) paid upfront as service charge to the agent, her dreams of studying in the US was dashed as her visa application was denied a few weeks afterwards with the agent offering her an option to reapply in 6 months’ time.
After insisting on getting her refund together with complaints of running low on funds, early February this year the agent in a bid to keep her hopes alive gave her an offer that was too juicy to reject. The offer entailed travelling for a paid work trip to Oman with plans of paying back for his benevolence within 3 months in installments, after working in one of the country’s hospital for 7-8 months. This according to him was to help her gather enough finances that would see her through her studies once her study visa gets granted after a possible second attempt.
However, the active Nurse was surprised at how fast her travel to Oman was arranged after she received a call from the agent few weeks preceding their last discussion, notifying her that the approved visa and ticket to travel to the Asian country was out. Still, in doubt about the authenticity of the news, she demanded to see the proof of the visa but was rebuffed by the agent who reassured her that all she needed including the visa and flight ticket to ensure a smooth trip would be provided for by a certain logistic company at the airport.
With her family’s support, the victim left for Oman on February 21, 2019, and on arrival, a lady came to pick her up and subsequently drove her to her presumed workplace which she later discovered to be a Domestic servant (housemaid) job for a non-English speaking Omani and in her words was more of a modern form of slavery as life has been miserable ever since she was forced to take on the job. To make matters worse, her employee who promised her a Medical checkup cunningly used it as bait and seized her International passport making her return to Nigeria an almost impossible task.
SecretReporters also gathered that the lady has been deprived of her three months’ salary after working for her boss which she believes to be the agent’s doing as a sort of punishment to her for demanding for her freedom from her boss and also her inability to meet up the initial agreement of showing gratitude for his benevolence.
Adeola in tears also narrated how she is currently been maltreated, denied access to medical care, and her freedom of movement restricted to just the four walls of the building located at Batinah North Governorate where she is currently held against her will.
She, however, call on the relevant authorities to come to her aid as her present predicament is about to plunge her into depression as she claims that her life in imminent danger with every ticking clock.
