By Caleb Jacob
Victims allegedly defrauded by an acclaimed temporal charity organisation in Kano, Food Access, have appealed to the authorities to come to their rescue while narrating their sad experiences, Grassroots Parrot reports.
The non-profit organisation had asked residents to pay a certain amount of money to get some foodstuffs at a subsidised price with their temporary office stationed at Gamji Plaza, Jaba.
Most residents who heard of the substantive price slash through different grapevine clusters trooped to the location to book, expecting to receive their supplies in five days.
The flyer for this giveaway protocol was pasted on the wall of the warehouse situated within the Gamji Plaza.
It read, “Food Access is a temporal charity organization designed to reduce the prices of food for the consumers, our customers are allowed to collect their food item in 5 days from the day he/she paid for the food items. Visit our shop for your cheaper prices of food item.”
The slashed prices of these goods include 3litres of aromye red oil (N3,000), 20kg of Dangote salt (N4,000), 50kg of flour (N30,000), 50kg of Gerawa rice (N47, 000), and 10kg of Golden Penny semovita (N7,000).
Others are: 50kg of Dangote sugar (N45,000), 50kg opimum rice (N47,000), 4litres of golden penny pure soya oil (N8,000), carton of maggi star (N14,000), a carton maggi knorr chicken flavour (N12,00), golden penny spaghetti (N10,000) and a 120gm of indomie super pack (N7,000).
However, the situation went bleak on Friday, 4 April 2025, when the organisation absconded with millions of naira, with the two contacts provided on the flyer unreachable ever since.
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Hundreds of victims who trooped to the venue to recover their money lamented bitterly, stirring mixed reactions. While some Nigerians cited greed on the part of the victims, others blamed the country’s economic woes for their shortcomings.
One of the victims, Mrs Chiamaka, who lost over N144,000 to the scheme, claimed she was persuaded by some of her Facebook friends who shared testimonies of how they benefited from the palliative.
“I applied for two bags of rice, two cartons of indomie and two five litres of oil. Everything I bought was around N144,000,” said Chiamaka.
David Adeyemi’s wife also invested N124,000 on hearing that her friends who registered two weeks earlier had received their supplies.
Adeyemi noted that “initially, the traffic was not much until the last two days before they absconded. People were bringing millions.”
He added that amongst people he knew, the money lost was over N700,000.
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Pleading to remain anonymous, another victim who is a law enforcement officer was scammed of his N47,000 after also hearing about others who successfully benefited from the scheme.
“I heard people have collected; instantly, I fell for it. I quickly requested the flyers and sent N47,000 on Tuesday last week, hoping that by Saturday, I should be collecting my bag of rice,” he narrated.
Grassroots Parrot visited the Gamji Plaza on Monday and found the venue deserted, with police operatives mounting guard to prevent looting or breakdown of law and order.
Meanwhile, the Kano Police Command has launched an investigation into an alleged charity scam that left hundreds of residents defrauded.
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The Police spokesperson, Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, said the case has been transferred to the Command’s Criminal Investigations Department with an investigation underway.
“Currently, this case has been transferred to the command’s criminal investigations department and investigations have commenced with a view to arrest these people.” He said
The police, however, warned citizens to beware of fraudulent individuals disguising as charity organisations to defraud unsuspecting public.