Many Nigerians have fallen victims to ‘One Chance’. ‘One Chance’ is a common term in Nigeria for fraud or scam. It is usually done by group of people with deceitful intentions. They make use of vehicles in carrying out their operations.
Specifically, there is no age bracket for people who engage in one chance operations, they can be old or young looking innocent that you’d never suspect that they have such motives in mind. In the world at large, people believe that only the youth engage in scam or fraud, but no, you get to see people old enough to be grandparents engaging themselves in these kinds of dubious acts.
While growing up, I’ve always heard stories from victims of ‘One Chance’, I always thought they were too gullible or not conscious enough until I became a victim.
‘Experience is the best teacher’, according to Julius Caesar in De Bello Civili. I understood better after my experience of ‘One Chance’ at A.Y.A, Abuja. I was going to visit my aunt at Lugbe,Abuja when it all happened. I stood at A.Y.A bridge waiting for vehicles going to Area 1 for more than 15 minutes, no vehicle was forthcoming. Finally, a cab indicated from a distance pointing out a finger through the driver’s window, I stopped the car and entered.
Immediately I entered, the driver and a passenger( a lady) got into a heated argument that the driver began to increase his speed. The lady said she wants to alight and the driver refused saying she’s carrying an exhibit ( 100 million dollars) that she won’t get down or else she explained how she got it.
The lady in question started crying that she stole it from her boyfriend who was an oil vandaliser but never allowed her to associate with others.
After hearing this, the driver increased his speed. By then, I became scared and told the driver I wanted to alight, but he yelled at me and told me I wanted to call the police after them. The other people in the car, two women and a man didn’t talk all this while, but after I said I want to come down , they all started telling me to be calm and that they want to make sure that the girl is not a fraud or a worker for highwaymen.
Few minutes driving to where I don’t know at this point, one of the women claimed she’s a seer and began to see things about the driver which the driver agreed were true, next she turned to me and saw things about me which were true.
She said she was seeing that I was about to receive a death call and I should pass her my phone, which I did, then she also told me to send all the money in my account to her that she would use it to buy things to pray for me. She also said things about the other people in the cab and asked them to bring their money but they said they had their ATM with them, which they gave to her and told her their ATM pins.
She asked the driver who entered last, and I was the one who entered last. She said everyone in the cab will alight according to the way we entered, then she’ll come to pick us up after she bought the items which she claimed she’d use to pray for us. I was told to alight at an area in Mabushi, Abuja and I was then told not to talk to anyone while waiting for her to come with the items for prayer. I stood from 9:00am -1:00pm, just then a girl passed and talked to me and I answered, it was at that point I came to realize what had just happened ( I WAS SCAMMED). Since then, I believed that no matter how smart you are, you could be a victim of ‘One Chance’.
Similar to my own experience, there are other people who have actually fallen victim to ‘One Chance’. I remember vividly on the 15th of June, when I actually went to block my account in one of Union Bank’s branches, Wuse-Abuja. I saw a woman standing in front of the ATM machine for almost fifteen minutes without doing anything while waiting for my turn under the canopy outside the bank. Few minutes later, a young girl walked up to her, which we later identified as her daughter.
She said something to her which was inaudible to me and they both stood there waiting. Later on, she drew the attention of the security guard at the bank that the ATM machine had just swallowed her card, and requested that she should be allowed to enter the bank to get it or the security man should help her get it. The man decided to go into the bank after several pleading to help her get the card.
Few minutes later, the security man came out and told the woman that her card was never retained by the ATM machine. On hearing this, the woman became disturbed as she started questioning the security guard on how that was possible, then she made a phone call and some minutes later, a young man appeared who happened to be her son.
They both entered the bank at his arrival, where they saw a worker at the bank who her son was familiar with, she then narrated everything to the young man and he decided to help get the footage from the ATM scene.
The young man entered the bank and after a while came out with the footage and played the video for everyone to watch. In the footage, it was captured that while the woman was standing at the ATM, a young man walked up to her and whispered something to her , then she gave her ATM card to the man and disclosed her pin to him.
While we were still watching the video, she started receiving numerous debit alerts which indicated that her money was being withdrawn from a POS. Within five minutes, close to a hundred thousand which was in her account read zero naira. As at this moment she began to wail but there was nothing she could do, the deed had already been done.
The story of another victim which is more terrifying than the two stories above is the story of an elderly man, who happened to be my friend’s father. I got to know about this when I resumed back to school and my friend complained that she had been trying to reach out to me throughout the break but I was not reachable. I then told her my ordeal, which made her tell me the experience of her father in the hands of ‘One Chance’ robbers.
She said her father was coming from Abuja to Lokoja when he stopped a vehicle filled with men and told them he was going to Lokoja, they gave him an unusual price which was far below the normal transport fare to pay from Abuja to Lokoja. He felt he was lucky and he entered.
Minutes into the journey, a man from the back said ” Daddy, just cooperate with us and pass us your phone and anything else with you”. At this point, he already knew he boarded a one chance vehicle as he saw the stern look on their faces.
Thinking of what to do to save himself, he stretched his neck outside the car’s window and started screaming ‘Ole! Ole!’ meaning ‘thief! thief!’. One of the men sitting close to him dragged his head back inside the car and they all began to hit him with sticks as they collected all his valuables, pushed him down from the moving vehicle.
He then realised that he was at Abaji-Abuja, which was far from where he was before they picked him. He was seriously beaten as blood stains were on his face. He had to go to a nearby park to talk to one of the driver’s to explain what just happened to him and begged the driver to allow him use his phone to call his wife, to come and pick him up at Lokoja, so that he’d be able to pay the driver. The driver agreed and that was how he got to get home.
Another victim, John Ezenna also had his horror experience with ‘One Chance’ robbers.
“It was a cloudy evening when I hurriedly went to board a cab at Lugbe-Berger after a stressful day at work. Waiting for a vehicle to come, I went closer to a Navy Blue Toyota Camry car parked by the tarred highway. I looked closer at the rear seat and noticed two passengers waiting to be conveyed to their destinations. After pondering the inconvenience I might experience in transit with four passengers sitting in the rear seat, I opted to sit beside the driver’s seat.
“Few seconds after I boarded the car, a dark man approached and sat beside me. I was still complaining of the inconvenience of two people sitting in the front seat meant for one person, but the driver was determined to carry two people. The car drove off immediately at a high speed while Nigeria hip hop songs were being played.
“The car was silent for a while, then suddenly a quarrel broke out between a man (who happens to be a Hausa Man from the way he spoke) and the three other men as he struggled to resist their assault. “Where is your ATM card, your phone and money? What is your password?”
“One of the passengers, who I later found out to be a robber, demanded in Pidgin English as the two others brought out various small arms like hammers, chisels, daggers and wire cables. At this point I became confused and afraid, I willingly gave them all that they asked but the Hausa man at the back refused to succumb and kept wrangling with them. The Hausa man kept proving stubborn, then one of the assailants signaled the others. The Hausa man was stabbed with a knife in his left leg by one of them, while I was slapped with wire cables. We started crying and begging them to spare our lives.
“At this point, the Hausa man handed over his two phones and the sum of N68,000 new naira notes. The Hausa man was injured, bleeding and writhing in agony, the robbers dropped us off along a deserted bush leading to the University of Abuja campus.
“Like the Hausa man and I, many residents of Abuja and Lagos state have experienced a different variation of one-chance robbery, where many commuters have been robbed of their belongings and, sometimes, their lives when they get thrown out of the moving vehicle or sustain fatal injuries. Mr John said ” I feel so much like a fool because I’ve been a victim of ‘One Chance’ years ago, I feel so bad whenever I’m narrating this incident to anyone,” said Ezenna while narrating ordeal with ‘One Chance’ robbers. Well, one can’t be careful enough.
Reacting, National President of the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, Mr Abubakar Sadiq, blamed the activities of one chance robbers on owners of unpainted taxis and operators of illegal parks within the FCT.
The FCT Police Command speaking on the menace of ‘One Chance’ in Abuja had also assured Nigerians of its unwavering commitment to fighting ‘one chance’ robbery and reducing the crime to its barest minimum and encouraged the public to be security-conscious and report all suspicious persons or activities to the nearest police
The Commissioner of Police FCT Command, CP Babaji Sunday, while reiterating the need for road users to board vehicles only at unisolated and approved motor parks, noted that the anti-one-chance-unit of the Command and other similar sections across the Command have been beefed up to ensure that the menace and sundry crimes and criminality are nipped in the bud.
Call to action
Government should ensure that all vehicles are registered with a valid plate number, as this will enable people watch out for cars or vehicles with funny plate numbers. Also, every state should make sure that every commercial vehicle has a specific colour which is approved by the state government in order to be able to hold driver’s responsible for anything that goes wrong. In addition, people should note that it is not their duty to direct people they don’t know to wherever they are going, the bus conductors are always there to direct them.
Lastly, Nigerians should have self-control whenever they hear anything about money either investment or awoof money. We should also learn to mind our business in public vehicles, no one is your relative in a public vehicle.
Suleiman Joy Unewnojo, is a 300L student of Mass Communication, Prince Abubakar Audu University, Anyigba, Kogi
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