Topic: Woman in N7m job placement scandal

Woman in N7m job placement scandal


If you are one of those in desperate need of a job and you think middlemen who claim to be 'highly connected' can help you seek one for a fee, you need to tread cautiously.

Those who were not careful are now biting their fingers in regret. The victims are 150 job-seeking graduates who have lost a total of N7million to one Linda Sanni, 38.


According to Police sources, Linda, who has since been arrested, allegedly collected N41,000 from each of the 150 victims, with a promise to secure jobs for them in choice airlines in Nigeria and abroad.

The suspect, according to the Police, allegedly claimed that she had worked in some local and international airlines before going into job placement.

She allegedly collected N41,000 from each of her victims for a three-day training at Cyber Travel Network located at 19, Ajao Road, off Adeniyi Jones Avenue, Ikeja, after which they would be placed respectively in airlines as ticketing officers, hostesses and baggage-checking officers.

She also allegedly promised to, in addition, take them on training tours of South Africa and parts of Europe.

The police said she started collecting the money from her desperate client-victims from September, last year. But instead of fulfilling her own side of the bargain, she allegedly began to live in affluence with her victims’ money.

She was alleged to have bought a new wonder-on-wheels sport utility vehicle, rented a new apartment and lent part of the money to one of her drivers who wanted to buy his own cab.

According to the police, trouble started when the relatives of one of her victims suspected foul play six months after they paid the required amount and no job was coming. The said relatives angrily stormed Linda’s operational base at Aguda market shopping complex to demand for a refund.

The suspect complied by returning their money because "she did not want any problem from anybody". However, when that particular victim got a refund, the news went round others who were also affected. They took another set of policemen to her office and got her arrested.

But the suspect has maintained that she had no intention of defrauding her victims, adding that she was only trying to help them secure jobs. She claimed she had submitted the names of about 40 of her "clients" to Midwest Airline and was only waiting for results.

Linda, who claimed that her husband works with one of the new local airlines, toldNewsextra that she never imagined that the business would end up this way.

"I never imagined that I would see myself in this kind of mess. I was only trying to help them," she lamented.

"I registered my company, Eagle Travels and Tours, in 2003 and when I was out of job, I decided to start operating my own job placement company," she added.

On whether she had been able to assist anybody secure jobs through her company before now, she said: "Yes, my sisters and brothers, but not anybody outside my family members".

"I’m ready to refund their money and I regret venturing into this business in the first instance," she said.

Police Sources at Aguda Police Station, however, revealed that the suspect confessed to the crime. According to them, "that is the only business that she and her husband do. The claim that her husband works with an airline is false; she is just using all that to attract sympathy."

Over 100 of her victims besieged the Police Public Relations Department in Oduduwa, Ikeja Government Reserved Area (GRA) to testify against her.

Most of them, who pleaded that they did not want to read their names or see their faces on the pages of newspapers, said the suspect promised that she was going to give them jobs but that until now, nothing had been heard from her.

"All we have noticed after she fraudulently collected our money is that she and her husband are now living big. We want the Police to assist us get our money back from her," they said.

The command’s spokesman, Mr. Frank Mba, a Superintendent of Police, said investigation was still ongoing and that the moment the police conclude their investigation and discover that the woman needs to refund their money, she will be asked to do so. But if she fails to do that, she will be charged to court," Mba added.

This is good newz but when are they arresting that fake called estherbreakthrough.