An Ogun State resident, who asked to be identified as Bola, has narrated how one Darlington Amadi, a former employee of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), defrauded her of N73,500 after claiming he could help her get a job.

Bola told FIJ that she was introduced to Amadi by a family friend in February.

“In February, a family friend told me that the NSCDC was recruiting people internally,” Bola said.

“After this, he gave me Mr. Amadi’s contact, and I promptly reached out to him.

“When I called Mr. Amadi, he told me that towards the tail end of the Buhari regime, the NSCDC carried out a recruitment exercise.

“He added that when the Tinubu government came in, they discovered some irregularities in the way the recruitment was done and, in the end, instituted a probe.

READ ALSO: 5 Months After, NSCDC Officials Haven’t Been Paid for Providing Security During Ekiti, Osun Gov Elections

“In his story, he also said the probe led to the finding that half of the people the NSCDC had recruited under the Buhari regime had no credentials. Since the role was meant to be for grade-eight officers, they were expected to tender certificates.

“Amadi then claimed the people who were employed without certificates got expunged from the recruitment process and that the NSCDC subsequently decided to carry out an additional recruitment exercise so that they could be replaced.

“He added that because it wasn’t a new recruitment exercise, the officers within the NSCDC decided to share slots among themselves and bring in their own people to fill the positions.

“When his explanation sounded too smooth for me, I asked him why he decided to give out his slot to an outsider instead of somebody from within his family, and he responded by saying he could have brought in one of his children but they were still very young.”

FORM PURCHASE AND OTHER PAYMENTS

Bola told FIJ that Amadi told her what he would take in return for the help he was about to render.

“He said he would have charged me over N1 million for giving me the slot but because I might one day still be of help to his children who were still very young, he would only ask me to just send N10,000 to him for a form purchase,” Bola said.

READ ALSO: NSCDC Officials ‘Steal N2m Meant to Buy Votes for APC Candidate’ in Ekiti

“The following day, he called me again, asking that I send a total of N25,000 to him immediately. He said the money was for a uniform purchase and medical tests.

“He then continued to reach out to me, asking that I send additional funds for documentation, and I still did. That was how he kept on requesting money from me in bits and pieces until I paid him a total sum of N73,500.

“Interestingly, he wouldn’t allow me to send the money to him directly. Instead, he kept on asking me to send the money to an account belonging to one Sarah Josephine Tsado with the Ecobank account number 5180119428.

“Whenever I sent the money to the Tsado person, he would tell me to hold on while confirming receipt of the money from her.”

AMADI KEEPS MUM

Bola told FIJ that after paying the sum to Amadi, she no longer heard from him.

“I decided to call him in early February when I no longer heard from him, and the excuse he gave me then was that my confirmation letter would have to be hand-delivered to me in Ekiti State,” Bola said.

READ ALSO: Man Knocked Down by NSCDC Officials Driving Against Traffic Bleeds to Death

“I had given him my parent’s address in Ekiti State because that had always been the address on all my documents. When he came up with the hand delivery explanation, however, I immediately began seeing him as a fraudster.

“This then made me ask him for the reason the NSCDC would choose to deliver a confirmation letter by hand and not electronically, but he could not give me a convincing response. More importantly, I also did not get any electronic confirmation via email or other means from the NSCDC itself that I had been selected.

“He did everything verbally. There was no physical evidence to show his claims were true. At that point, I contacted the family friend who introduced him to me.

“When the family friend contacted him to find out what was going on, he shockingly told the family friend to tell me to send another N10,000 to him.

“This got me infuriated, and I decided not to send him the money. I also asked him to refund my N73,500, but he stopped answering my calls. He no longer picks up calls.

“Later on, we got to know from someone that he was no longer an NSCDC official. We were told he got dismissed from service after defrauding someone up to the tune of N1.8 million. We heard the incident happened a long time ago.

“Since then, I have not heard from him. I have also not been able to recover my N73,500 from him.”

FIJ called Amadi several times to get his reaction to Bola’s allegation on Monday morning, but he did not answer them. The WhatsApp message sent to him had also not been responded to at press time.

AMADI WAS ONCE IN COURT FOR N1.8M FRAUD

READ ALSO: How Furniture Maker Wisdom Francis Died Brokering Peace in Ogun and Was Buried Without Justice

Checks by FIJ revealed that Darlington Amadi, an Abuja resident, was once arraigned in an Abuja Magistrate Court for defrauding one Joy Orji of N1.8 million.

The incident happened on November 30, 2011.

Amadi had received the sum from Orji between March and April of the same year, promising he would help her secure employment within the NSCDC.

He, however, failed to keep his promise.

Amadi’s pictures could not be found on the various social media platforms available.