Several individuals intending to travel to Australia have revealed how they were allegedly pressured by an Ibadan-based travel agency into paying significant amounts of money, totaling millions of naira.
The victims, who staged a protest in Ibadan for an extended period, accused a travel agency named ‘Christy Manpower‘ of demanding exorbitant fees from them to facilitate their travelling abroad.
During the demonstration, the victims prominently displayed placards bearing various inscriptions such as “Save us from the hands of Australia travel agent, we have last fortunes,” “We are no longer going to Australia, refund our money,” and “We have lost over N700m to travel agent”, “Refund our money” among others.
Speaking on behalf of the victims, Silas Oyeniran urged the government and concerned authorities to assist them in recovering their money and punish the suspected Australian Traveling Agency to serve as a deterrent to others who might have the same in mind.
He lamented that many of the victims have met their untimely death because of the issue, while the well-being of others has been shortchanging due to lack of funds, saying the effect of the loss was enormous on them and their families.
Narrating their ordeal, Oyeniran said: “We tried to seek greener pastures outside the country due to the bad economy of the country a few months ago.
“After payment of N5m each, we were told that our Visa will be ready three months after payment, through our findings, we discovered that the visa issued for us was fake.
“Following a series of complaints by some of us, Olagunju was said to have been arrested by the Police, detained and charged to court, and later granted bail by the court.
“We are tired of going to court, we are appealing to the government and concerned authority to come to our aid because we are dying and our families are also suffering.
“Over 2,000 people have fallen victim to this man, many of us have died, many of us have lost our jobs, our businesses, we are frustrated, our homes are currently in distress, many of us sold our family house, some of us obtained load.”
Another victim who pleaded anonymity said: “We met him late last year after going to his office, he lured us to apply for Australia which was a fake visa, he perfected the job because Australia used to give electronic visas, so, he was able to edit the electronic visa as if it was real.
“On the visa, he covered the necessary information needed to verify the genuineness of the visa, he said he did that so that we wouldn’t compromise the visa.
“We were surprised when we heard about his arrest, we were waiting for our departure date before the news of his arrest broke.
“The police helped us in the recovery of our passports and investigated the matter, but we are worried and in big distress, we can’t comprehend the pain we are going through, and most of us are falling sick daily.”
