Bank Fraud Alert

Last week Thursday, I received a call early in the morning from someone claiming to be from my bank and requesting my BVN and other relevant information because it was needed to confirm and validate my account details so as to prevent my account from being suspended.

I was almost falling for it because the caller called the line I provided to the bank during the account opening process but on a second thought, I asked myself why will they request such sensitive information over the phone and not through a secure site or in person at the banking hall.

I politely told the caller that I would visit the bank the following day to sort out the issues myself. His cool mien changed immediately and he tried putting pressure on me and reminding me that I stood the chance of losing my account and it would be very difficult for me reactivating it coupled with the attendant inconvenience that would follow. I immediately dropped the call but he called back again and I calmly told him I know this is a scam and I am not that gullible.

The reason I was able to discern that it was a fraudulent call was simply because of the several warnings from several banks through various means and platforms on social media.

The crux of this write-up is that there is a segment of bank customers who are not privileged to have this info that helped me avoid ‘stories that touch’. This group of customers are the ‘internet-shy’, computer illiterates, semi-illiterates, illiterates, those without smart phones and/or computers and those without internet access among others.

Campaigns should be developed to as well cover this group of people either through personal contacts by reaching out to them in their places of work/business or other places like religious gatherings, socail gatherings/functions, radio and TV campaigns and other means deemed necessary and effective otherwise the scam will keep rising, recording hits back to back and customers will be at the receiving end. People are gradually growing their trusts in the formal banking industry and dumping the crude and old fashioned methods, so banks should do well to encourage them and not give them good reasons to go back to their past methods.

Contributions, comments and rejoinders are welcome.

Costs Of Convoys

I am not about to discuss economic issues but a “common sense” approach like Ben Murray may as well force some economic reasoning into this subject matter. Not just the economic considerations but also safety and security concerns will be raised in discussing this topic. Name calling will be ruled out because it is an issue which almost every Nigerian would want to indulge in if the opportunity presents itself.

CONVOY

My fellow Nigerians, while I was heading to the Ikeja office of Jumia on Tuesday 26th January, I almost got run over by 5 unmarked SUVs on high speed with no regards for traffic regulations or safety of other road users. Some months back, we heard about a federal lawmaker who’s convoy flouted traffic rules and caused an accident and despite the fact that he built a “world class” medical facility in his state while he was a chief executive, he nevertheless trusted the creation of his own hands but chose to go abroad for slight bruises. Other victims of this avoidable incidents were left at the mercy of our medicare.

The cost of moving in convoy is exorbitant and a waste of resources; the costs involved in the purchase of fuel for all the vehicles, the allowances for all members of staff involved, the loss of man-hours, the denial of adequate security services to the populace for the benefit of a few, the wanton destruction of lives and properties, and many others should be enough reason why public officers and in some instances rich and powerful Nigerians should have a rethink before their next outing with long convoys.

In as much as we understand the deplorable security situation in the country, it is not out of place to state that ‘as much as supply creates its own demand’so does the activities of these powerful few create tension amongst the ‘not haves’ and the lust for power and affluence will push them into unconventional means of achieving such ‘luxury’. When a rich man in the midst of the poor tries to empower as many people as possible to become self-dependent, he has created the best form of security for himself. Even if you have to use a convoy, make it as minimal as possible and please obey all traffic rules.

Another instance that comes to mind is the death of an ASUU activist who lost his life due to the same convoy menace of an ex-governor who recently handed over. Incidents like this abounds but the stories never come out due to the personalities involved. The costs of these to our country are huge and complex but the solution is so simple.

I might not have discussed it extensively but I hope I was able to put my point across to someone who’s about to step into the long convoy of cars. The environment is another factor to consider if all other reasons adduced are of no consequence to your conscience. I rest my case.

Contributions, comments and rejoinders are welcome.

Corruption Fight: Total Corruption Fight, Selective Corruption Fight or No Corruption Fight

With the dawn of a new era and the jubilation of a section of the country welcoming a new helmsman who had always been referred to as an upright and "no-nonsense" administrator known for his strong anti-corruption stance, many Nigerians had hoped that things will start working out fine and effectively as he seemed set to tackle national issues.

While some had their reservations due to the crowd he seemed to be mingling with in his quest to wrestle and assume power as the number one man in the most populous black nation in the world. The sudden change in his body language and his new flexibility left many wondering what could he be up to. In Imo state and some other South Eastern states, he was seen garbing the traditional attire of the land and even in the south south, he adorned the attire of the Niger Deltans which his frame took to beautifully.

Inspite of the many damaging media campaigns against him and his political partners and co-travelers, his supporters were unwavered in their support and loyalty for him and faith in him while some just wanted the incumbent party in power out at all costs.

Now in power, PMB who we all know to be true Nigerian was shocked at the "rot" he saw in the system when he assumed power and he did not fail to alert Nigerians and the world at large to the shocking discoveries. Ever since then, he's been keeping us up to speed with the damages in the system and he has been doing a good job with that but one area he has failed is his ability to even give a single credit to his predecessor.

I guess his predecessor never achieved anything and probably spent all six years in power dozing and sipping his local gin while the country continued to drift to destruction even though we rarely witnessed any fuel scarcity all throughout and the refineries started working immediately PMB took over. PMB should have lent his magic wand to the previous presidents before him as a demonstration of his true love for his fatherland, by now things would not have been as bad as they are now. Another day we will look into who gets the credits and who gets the blames.

I wonder why the PDP is so corrupt and the APC so full of saints. I guess some believe that PDP is an acronym for Politically Demonized People and APC Angels in Politics Congress but what about those who cross-carpeted from the PDP to the APC? Were they purged of their demonic acts and spirits? Again, some years back, Nuhu Ribadu, the most dreaded name in political circles in the days of Baba Iyabo who publicly renounced his association with the PDP had listed some politicians and labelled them as the most corrupt persons in the country but what i find so amusing is that these same persons later turned out to be his political associates and financiers and even at a time sponsored his  presidential ambition. I guess our people have short memories or he lost the list somewhere along the line or the list got damaged in the rain when he was left outside by our late ex-president. Ribadu is a voluminous topic for another day.

That same list if I am not mistaken contains names which are prominent among the list of sponsors of our beloved PMB. Many of the names listed at that time were also members of the PDP and some members of opposition parties at that time. There are a lot of pending investigations on the tables in which major suspects still dine with the President and roam the streets freely without any conclusions to the investigations and in some instances, court cases to either exonerate or indict them. Nigerians had full hopes that once PMB swung into action to bring corrupt politicians to book, he would not mind political affiliations or leanings. we all expected the names to cut across all parties but it seems that the moment you belong to the party of the Angels in Politics Congress, your sins and pasts automatically become wiped out and you become a new being just like with the Christian belief when you accept Christ.

Views and comments are highly welcome.

Agricultural Mobile Phones

In as much as we know the importance of information to any endeavour, it is funny how the Federal Government of Nigeria under the leadership of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan intends to distribute phones rural farmers who ordinarily should be given quality farm inputs. Mobile phones can be acquired by even the poorest of Nigerians but access to information is the basic problem.

May I remind my president that not everybody (including the educated) is technologically savvy while most of the farmers can barely spell their names not to talk of being able to read text messages or browse the internet on the mobile phones.

The motive of this gesture is questionable owing to the problems mentioned above and if the Federal Government is being honest, it will award the contract for a customised phone to a phone manufacturing fir instead of a third party.

I rest my case for now till I hear other divergent views.

happenings: The Plight Of The Nigerian Youth

happenings: The Plight Of The Nigerian Youth

The Plight Of The Nigerian Youth

I am a Nigerian youth and I have been unemployed for as long as I have been a graduate. I have tried to lay my hands on a few things as per curbing the unemployment scourge on my person but the needed push is not just there. The traditional means of raising capital is usually from families but considering the fact that most Nigerian families are living on the subsistence level with little or no savings, it is impossible to raise capital from the family.

The banks tha are supposed to help out in this area do not want anything to do with the small scale enterpreneur despite the constant emphasis that small scale private sector can push the economy to the "promise land." The banks prefer to identify with large scale industrialists with whom they can share the "spoils" of our sweat after we have laboured and managed to save a little even after working for them. The micro-finance banks that would have come to our rescue are under constant fear from the regulatory authorities and i wonder how I can convince them of the feasibility and profitability of my business if they do not have qualified hands to assess my proposal since they can not afford to pay the salaries of the required assessor. You need a godfather to access funds from soft-loan institutions.

I wrote the NDLEA recruitment test with over a million other jobless Nigerians and you could imagine that we paid one thousand five hundred naira. Extortion from the jobless and yet only an average of ninety-two per state were invited for an INTERVIEW. With the fund generated from the exercise, the agency did not deem it fit to to publish the results on the pages of Newspapers and to air them on National Television and Radio Stations. Why did they sell as much registration codes as they did when they knew they only needed only a hand few for recruitment? I wonder what will happen in the next ten years if we continue this way. I am scared for myself and my son. Sometimes I wonder if the Tunisian situation got this worse before the revolution. If not for my son.......

I expect to hear your own story as a Nigerian Youth.....

The Nigerian Scene

The Nigerian  scene is a very queer one where things are done the very opposite way it is supposed to be done. I know it will be out of place to describe any society as ideal but there exists a certain level of order and sanity that exists in other socities which are worthy of emulation. It is only in Nigeria that you find a government that extorts money from her unemployed youths in the name of recruitment while in other countries, such group of people are entitled to a benefit in monetary terms.

It is in my country that you find people treating issues from the side of the results instead of causes simply because of the praises that will be showered on them when it is public notice that they made an effort as it may not come to public glare when they prevent such situations and hence no praise.

My beloved country .......