I know a lot of people who gave Ovaioza money to trade with, are right now feeling a bit embarrassed to admit they did so.
They don’t want people to laugh at them or mock them for being gullible.
She preyed mostly on the more educated, urbane elitist Facebookers and the quiet abroadians.
If you are in this boat, please perish that thoughts that you were “greedy” or “gullible”.
People give individuals money to use in trading activities all the time with a promise to remit interest. Food storage business has been going on for a long time in this country.
There is nothing gullible about this.
Ovaioza is not Chinmark or Atu Poyoyo in terms of business model.
Let’s not mix things up. You did nothing wrong. You were not greedy. You just wanted to open a side stream of legit income while you carried with your life.
It was a straightforward engagement of providing “angel funds” for someone with experience in agro-trade to invest in food storage, taking advantage of Nigeria’s burgeoning agricultural industry.
For her labour and lease of her supposed warehousing units, you would get 70% of the profits generated and she would keep 30% as her income.
She was supposed to return your capital whenever you needed it in future.
Go to Ariaria. Go to Aspamda. Go to Evbareke. Go to any notable Nigerian trade hub. This is standard practice there. Traders are turning over people’s funds per minute. You think all the containers that berth at Apapa are solely owned by the businesspeople who come to clear them?
Nigeria is at the core a communal African space. Trade and industry is fuelled by the energy of traditional, non-corporate cooperatives.
Ovaioza was a small-time agro trader. She stored and resold farm produce like thousands of people do. When she saw that people were becoming increasingly interested in the Nigerian agriculture and agro-allied industry, she decided to bring her trade online.
But she did it with a twist.
She decided to make it look posh and more high-level than it is in reality.
Using her rudimentary knowledge of food storage and farming, she created content for the social media, boasting about how billions could be picked up from this end-level aspect of agriculture: food storage.
She leveraged on her growing Friends List and infiltrated popular Facebook cliques of feminists and sundry content creators.
Leveraging on her connections, she slowly built up a profile as someone of note.
Then, based on advice, she crafted a scheme of influence buying to promote herself as a significant investor in food storage business. She would post pictures and make brief posts about her “highly profitable business”. Before long, her profile became more pronounced. An influencer had been born.
She began to do giveaways. She invested in “Paid Mentions” – a strategy of personal branding where Facebookers would give a popular Facebooker / Influencer money, gifts or some form of aid and would either stipulate or imply that the receiver publicise it in form of a post.
That’s where you will see posts like “Hold me oh! Somebody tie me with barbwire before I loose cloth eh! Wetin be this???!
< So-and-So> just gave me ******!!! Oh boy! People dey oh! Silent billionaires! Smooth operator! I wan craze eh…!”
And you know what is even more interesting?
Like half of those claims are outright lies.
Shocking, but true.
But back to the matter.
👇👇
Where other wannabe influencers or personal brands gave in thousands, and targeted their social investment to their circle of friends and hangers-on, Ovaioza threw down in millions.
From high-end gadgets like iPhones to cars, shopping sprees and millions in cash.
She turned up and made it rain.
She gave in a seemingly haphazard manner like a drunk at an NURTW end-of-year party.
What this did was to make her generosity look so whimsical and random, that ANYONE could just be “receive her grace at any time and in any direction her “giving spirit” moved.
And in this way, Ovaioza actually became a god.
Her hangers-on and hopeful devotees increased in legions.
They garrisoned her Facebook wall. They policed the entire Facebook to sniff out anyone who as much as dared to utter one negative word about her.
They would descend on you in droves. They would drag, mock, deride and verbally assault that unfortunate soul to the gates of h..e..LL.
Ovaioza sponsored all this from the background. She gave off the mien of a peaceful, humble girl-next-door who was just unusually favoured by her industry, business smarts, hard work and dedication.
All na wash.
The only business venture Ovaioza operated with the monies that flooded her accounts was the old game of “Turn-Turn-Turner-Aeroplane
-Turner” that was popular in the early 90s before small children discovered cell phones.
Only in this case she was not rotating a toy or paper plane the way children did.
She was rotating money – her investors’ money.
Fam, Ovaioza did not use your money to store one seed of corn 🌽. She did not buy one finger of plantain 🍌 to store. She simply flexed on the money you transferred to her; did “philanthropy” in Paid Mentions, collected overdo nicknames like Wire-Wire to fortify herself against criticism and buy mob appeal.
Next, she would grace Facebook clothes merchants who would send her outrageously gaudy designer knock-offs at armed robber costs to wear and do photoshoot. Then she would buy aba-grade lingerie at ridiculously high prices to wear and showcase herself in near-nude states, all in keeping with the second aspect of her fake Facebook feminazi image of nudist.
This was how Ovaioza Imu Yinusa who was once a pupil of Makaranta schools with almajiri ruminants in the Sambisa north was also the Ovaioza who travelled with Chadian and Sudanese refugees on goods trucks to offload foodstuff for stipends.
This is how she was also the Ovaioza who graduated to local buying and selling cooperative with subsistence farmers in Nassarawa.
This is how she was also the Ovaioza who drifted with her criminal minded mother known as Do-good Omeiza to Abuja where she tried different hustles from working as an unlicensed auxiliary nurse to christian gospel singer and then to nudist billionaire agropreneur all in the space of a few years.
Why am I telling you all these?
Ovaioza is not only a grifter, she is also a shape shifting almajiranci of no specific pedigree.
Like her nomadic herdsmen colleagues, she has a wanderlust and can disappear at anytime.
Those of you who are surrounding her in her hideout, thinking that you are keeping a watchful eye 👀 on your investment, you don’t know what you are joking with.
The next time you follow her to SEC office, don’t let her or her mother go to the restrooms to say they want to ease themselves. Follow them. They will enter 9 -11 night trailer to Niger or Sudan with your “hinvestiment”.
They are nomadic shapeshifters.
No one knows their actual names or authentic origins.
So now that we have established that keeping her under watch is no guarantee of entrapment, let me suggest how to put yourself in good position to reclaim part of your money at least, if not all, when this scammer is finally in handcuffs and in police custody:
GO LEGAL.
If you are in Nigeria, especially if you are in the FCT, you can this
👇
Write to the fraudster, Ovaioza, using her given (full) names, as well as to her fraudulent registered business, OFPSB.
State the actual amount you gave her and the dates you did. Then make a specific demand for the goods you paid for.
Whether she responds or not, is irrelevant. It is even better for you that she does her normal criminal thing of not responding.
Next, proceed with your petition to the police for fraud.
Simply state that you bought x amount of goods, but she has refused to deliver them despite a demand to that effect.
Please do not make your petition read like it’s a normal business transaction of “investment”/ROP/ROI. Insist that you paid for goods and she didn’t deliver. This is theft. She stole your money.
Maka Chukwu, if she and her mother are not careful, b()llet will touch one of their legs if they try any stupid breakdance during their arrest because they are no different from derico Nwanmama from the point of that petition.
Enough of the Facebook chon-chon-chon and gossip. Time is going. This almajirinci is perfecting her next persona as Hajia Burauba Iskanci or Revd. Dr. Mrs. Rahab Barnabas as you’re here reading this post and doing “like and share”.
Move.
Now.
Written by Temī Dāyo
