In a desperate mood to recover their monies victims of the latest wonder bank scam in the commercial city of Aba, Abia state have adopted the use of black magic to fight back.
Aba traders most of whom were victims of the 2017 MMM ponzi scheme saga have decided to put up a fight after falling victim of another wonder bank scam that have left them penniless, confused and in total disarray.
It was initially thought that only women were involved in the wonder bank scam following what took place in the first few days when the victims started gathering at the police station, but as the matter is becoming more serious, so many men are beginning to appear from their hiding places.
With the use of spiritual powers most of the operators of the wonder banks who were once at large are said to have been invoked back to Aba and are now in police net and currently refunding their victims.
Information however has it that those who are being paid don’t even get receive up to amount invested not to talk of the outrageous interest involved.
The victims as are requested to write down their account numbers at the back of their registration cards which will be used for payment.
They are to go home to await alert from their various banks with unspecified amounts which indicates payment no matter the initial amount invested.
The Aba Area Command of the Nigeria Police has become a Mecca of sort following a report that one of the operators of the wonder banks who was at large, but mysteriously found herself in the police station has promised to pay.
The woman who was said to be the operator of one of the wonder banks known as ‘Loveable’ allegedly disappeared with her husband and children two weeks ago after she was said to have faked Illnesses and was taken to a hospital in the city.
The news that she is around and has promised to refund victims has turned Aba Area Command into the most visited site in Abia State. Roads we’re made impassable, vehicular movements came at snail speed rate as the entire gates leading to both the Aba Area Command and the adjacent Aba Central Police Station (CPS) were locked permanently for many hours.
At the Aba CPS gate, some policemen who came to work were unintentionally locked out together with the mammoth crowd and all their efforts which include phone calls, knocks, and shouts to reach out to their colleagues proved abortive as no one at the gate was willing to take the risk of allowing the crowd to force themselves in.
The police officers were restricted to a strategy of opening the gate to let their colleagues in whenever the crowd retreat a little bit.
Some of the victims regretted ever participating in the wonder bank business.
They see it as a situation that has reduced them to mere beggars and pushed them into getting involved in what they couldn’t have ordinarily imagined in the past.
Mrs. Pauline Eziokwu said she will never forgive herself for getting involved in the wonder bank saga. “I can’t forgive myself for the embarrassment brought upon my person. On daily basis we come here to beg some people to give us our own money back. As you can see, police is trying to help, but you know them and their style of help.
This is leading to nowhere because many may get nothing.
“I’ve not been settled, but those who got their money few days ago, never got even close to what they invested. People who have some police officers as friends, call them to help in pushing their cases just to fast track their own payments. I feel so stupid because what I’ve done is to waste my time making money for the dubious wonder bank people.
“I don’t blame them because I brought the problem on myself. For the past one week I’ve been standing on this hot sun hoping and waiting for when God will touch the heart of the wonder bank People to give me even if it’s half of the 20 hands (40,000×20=800,000) that I did and I’ll go home grateful because I’m just tired.”
An anonymous victim, a pregnant woman, said it will only take insanity of the highest proportion for her to ever get involved in problematic issues like the wonder bank again and begged the police to push their matters to other organizations that handle issues of fraud like the EFCC even after refunding.
“After what happened in MMM and Tweenkers, I feel silly to have fallen for this again. I don’t know how I got involved in the first place. The past one week has been the worst days and week of my entire life. I come here every day, I get pushed, harassed, embarrassed, shouted at and thank God you just saw one of the police officers spraying water on some people at the gate to make way for their van. This is what we are facing.
“Everybody is busy saying we were greedy and all that, but those who took our money are fellow Nigerians. They are inside this police station and their families are out there leaving like kings and queens because of the money they command. I know we share part of the blame for participating in this, but we must stop glorifying crimes by casting every aspersion on the victims. It could be anyone’s turn tomorrow.
“How can those dubious women be paying back 40-50 thousand to people who gave them 100,000 naira and above? One of them I learnt even said she can only pay just 20,000 to everyone no matter what you invested. Mine is not too much I did three hands and I want it back. For me, if police should involve EFCC even after they must have paid back. Those women are wicked honestly.”
In so many eateries around the Mammi-Market behind the police station, some victims mostly women and traders by occupation were seen, heard narrating and celebrating how they spiritually manipulated the operator of one of the wonder banks known as Loveable to mysteriously hand herself over to the police from her hideout which they alleged was in far away Ghana.
One of the women, a widow said angrily in an eatery at MammI-Market “Loveable thinks she can take our sweat and disappear just like that? She is just waking up.
“The spiritualist we visited in Calabar told us that she will surely bring herself to us in three days and so it happened. She was called out in a mirror; she revealed her location in Ghana and was commanded to return. Some people who saw her that day she returned said she looked confused and was wondering what she was doing inside Aba.
“They can run, but can’t hide. They must remain alive to pay us our money. Even death will never accept them until they pay everybody the last Kobo they took,” she said as almost every one of them shouted amen in agreement.”
When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer of the Abia State Police Command, Mr. Geoffrey Ogbonna confirmed that some of the operators of the wonder banks have been arrested by the police and are currently repaying some of the victims.
“We have gotten some of them. They are paying their debtors whose cases are still fresh. What they were actually doing before they got into what they are in now was to rob Peter to pay Paul. How can someone pay 40, 000 and get 70,000 in return within a short time? Someone is being robbed to pay someone. It is important to make some recoveries anyway. The reality is that the operators have been arrested and there are recoveries.”
