Warning: This story comprises particulars of sexual assault.
Take heed to this story:
Uyo, Nigeria – When Blessing* boarded a bus early on a January morning in 2017 for the 60km (37 miles) journey from her residence in Calabar, in Nigeria’s Cross River State, to a village in neighbouring Akwa Ibom State, she thought she was going to satisfy a company government a couple of potential job supply.
The ten-hour ordeal that adopted nonetheless haunts her, years later.
It began with a job posting on Jiji, an internet commerce platform, in December 2016.
On the time, Blessing was 24 years outdated. She had simply completed a diploma course and was planning to start college the next yr. However first, she wanted to save cash for her charges and dwelling bills. And that meant discovering a job.
Like many different younger Nigerians in search of employment within the digital age, Blessing made a social media submit in the hunt for job presents, leaving her contact data in order that potential employers might attain her.
A couple of weeks later, she obtained a name from a person who advised her there was a gap for an entry-level position at ExxonMobil, an American oil and fuel firm with a drilling licence in Nigeria. He requested that she carry a tough copy of her ID to an handle within the neighbouring state to proceed the applying course of.
She had doubts however hoped her weeks of job looking had been lastly about to repay.
“I advised [the man] that I wasn’t snug [travelling so far to meet him], being that I don’t know him. However he insisted that I didn’t have a alternative. And I used to be desperately in want of a job at the moment,” Blessing, who’s now 30, remembers.
When she advised her mom concerning the name, she too tried to influence the person that Blessing might merely scan her ID and electronic mail him a duplicate of it, as a substitute of travelling throughout states. However the man insisted, so Blessing’s mom borrowed the cash for her bus fare.
‘Watch out for canine’
After 4 hours on the bus, Blessing arrived within the city of Uyo in Akwa Ibom State at 10am.
“Once I obtained there, I known as him. He despatched me the situation [an address in the village] by way of SMS. He advised me to take a taxi to Oron highway, then I ought to take a [motorcycle taxi] and search for a home with [a] ‘watch out for canine’ [sign],” she says.
The highway to the village of Nung Ikono Obio is untarred and lined by thick vegetation on each side. When she noticed the situation of the highway, Blessing contemplated turning again however reasoned that she had already spent an excessive amount of on journey.
“I didn’t wish to go residence with out suggestions [for my mother],” she remembers.
However when Blessing arrived on the home with the “watch out for canine” signal, she was shocked by what she noticed. It was the positioning of ongoing development; exterior, labourers had been shifting sand from a heap to combine concrete which they used for the muse.
The person she had been talking to on the cellphone additionally stunned her – he appeared too younger to be a company government. It later turned out that he was simply 16.
Blessing says he requested her to sit down on a bench and await his father, who would focus on the job supply along with her. In the meantime, the labourers continued working round her.
“There have been individuals working so I didn’t suspect something,” she remembers. “At about 2 o’clock, I turned uncomfortable as a result of time was working quick and I used to be presupposed to be heading again to Calabar.”
The boy advised her to not fear, that they would go away as quickly as he had paid the labourers.
However at 5pm, when the labourers left, the boy locked the gate, and Blessing was left alone with him contained in the compound. When she protested, he threatened to kill her and demanded that she enter a close-by room.
She describes what occurred subsequent. “He advised me to obey him and never hesitate, in any other case he would harm me and nobody would come to my rescue. The room was so darkish however there was a small mattress. He advised me to sit down on it. He advised me to undress. That was after I began pleading.”
Blessing began crying. She advised him that she didn’t need the job any extra.
“He introduced out a knife tied with purple cloths and [said] that if I didn’t undress, he would stab me.”
Then he raped her.
Rape and homicide
In August this yr, Uduak “Ezekiel” Akpan, now 22, was discovered responsible of raping and murdering Iniubong Umoren, a 26-year-old job seeker, in April 2021. After Umoren’s case began trending on social media, Blessing noticed posts and realised the attacker was the identical man who had raped her in 2017.
Like Blessing, Umoren had made an open name on social media for a job. “#AkwaIbomTwitter please. I’m actually in want of a job, one thing to do to maintain my thoughts and soul collectively whereas contributing dutifully to the group. My location is Uyo. I’m inventive, actually good at pondering critically, and most significantly a quick learner. CV accessible on request,” she tweeted on April 27, 2021.
As with Blessing, Akpan had then lured her to his residence – the identical one, nonetheless below development all these years later – below the pretext of a job interview.
Whereas there, Umoren despatched a one-second WhatsApp audio message to her good friend Uduak Obong. When Obong known as her again, she heard her good friend’s screams. So she despatched a frantic tweet suggesting Umoren could be at risk. On-line, Nigerians started investigating. Inside a couple of hours, they discovered Akpan’s Fb pages and dug up his digital footprint. A Twitter consumer obtained a leak of Akpan’s name log. With the decision logs, he geolocated the place Akpan was when he had final known as Umoren’s cellphone.
The next day, Umoren’s physique was present in a shallow grave in the identical compound in Nung Ikono Obio the place Blessing had been raped years earlier.
After Akpan attacked Blessing, she was too traumatised to report it. She didn’t even inform her mom what had occurred. However she did go to the hospital to get examined for sexually transmitted illnesses.
Blessing got here ahead after Umoren’s dying, and prosecutors known as her to offer proof in opposition to Akpan at his trial. Though she didn’t find yourself testifying – she was advised her testimony was not wanted – she sees her determination as a primary try at in search of justice for what occurred to her.
Within the assertion Akpan gave to the police earlier than his trial commenced – a confession he later tried to recant, saying it was obtained below duress, though the decide dominated in opposition to him – he admitted to having attacked six different girls, together with Blessing. Umoren was the one one he killed.
A number of victims
Twenty-five-year-old Miriam Akpan (no relation to the perpetrator) was one in all Akpan’s different victims. In December 2020, determined for a job, she posted on a Fb group known as Job Emptiness in Uyo, promoting her pursuits and {qualifications}.
“Please, something, I can do,” she wrote, mentioning that she had the equal of a highschool certificates and would take any job. Nobody supplied her one till Akpan stated he would pay her 35,000 Nigerian naira ($80) a month as a secretary in an “built-in farm”. Miriam was excited. For somebody with out a college diploma, a job that paid greater than the minimal month-to-month wage of 30,000 naira ($69) felt like an excellent alternative.
She agreed to satisfy him to debate the main points of the job supply. However as a substitute of an interview, she was drugged and raped.
For greater than a yr Miriam had suppressed the reminiscence of what occurred to her. She stored it from her sister, the one rapid household she has. However as individuals tried to find Umoren, she noticed Akpan’s image being shared on Twitter and all of the emotion she had tried to bury got here speeding again. “I didn’t even give it some thought, I simply commented [on Twitter] that this particular person robbed me final December,” she says.
However her final title raised suspicions, and a few accused her of being associated to Uduak Akpan. Umoren’s family members didn’t instantly belief her when she suggested them to go to Akpan’s home that night time to seek for the lacking girl.
The next day, Miriam’s instructions led the police and Umoren’s family members to the compound the place they discovered her physique.
Miriam’s court docket testimony additionally helped convict Akpan.
He was subsequently sentenced to dying by hanging for the homicide of Umoren, and life imprisonment for her rape.
Hovering unemployment
However Akpan shouldn’t be the one particular person to have taken benefit of Nigeria’s employment disaster.
It’s common for Nigerians to announce on social media that they’re in search of jobs. With a hovering unemployment fee, many discover unconventional methods of discovering work. Graduates are typically seen holding placards at main bus stops and expressways pleading for jobs; others make on-line banners; and members of the Nationwide Youth Corps who end their service additionally submit their certificates on social media, saying that they’re prepared for employment.
Nigeria’s unemployment fee stands at 33.3 %, in keeping with information from the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics, which implies that greater than 23 million individuals both don’t have any job or work for lower than 20 hours per week. Amongst these aged between 15 and 35, the unemployment fee stood at 42.5 % in 2020.
The excessive variety of unemployed individuals in search of jobs additionally makes Nigeria’s labour market a “breeding floor” for criminals who lure candidates in with job interviews, stated Taibat Hussain, a youth and gender equality advocate. “Criminals … lure candidates in with pretend job interviews, after which rob, rape and, in excessive instances, kill them. This class of youth, after spending years with out employment alternatives, falls prey to the techniques and is left with no different alternative than to offer in,” she advised Al Jazeera.
As a part of reporting this story, Al Jazeera met a 26-year-old man arrested in Cross River State for the alleged rape of an 18-year-old girl to whom he had promised a job. We aren’t naming him as he’s awaiting trial.
When Al Jazeera met him at Calabar Correctional Centre, he was sporting a blue shirt with its collar raised and a pair of too-small slippers. He had already been behind bars for greater than a yr. He advised Al Jazeera he had slept with the girl however denied raping her. “I used to be going to assist her get the job however she is offended as a result of the job didn’t come as quick as she wished,” he stated.
However in a press release the girl gave to the police detailing her expertise, she advised a unique story. She met the person whereas searching for work vacancies, she stated. He advised her there was a cleansing place open in his office – a producing firm in Calabar.
“He requested me to carry my software to his home in order that he may help me appropriate it and submit [it]. He checked out my software and stated it isn’t appropriate. He wrote one other one and advised me to recopy it with my handwriting. After I completed copying it, I wished to go however he didn’t let me go. He began kissing me and touching my breast. He used his proper hand to carry my palms collectively and his left hand to cowl my mouth,” her assertion within the police report reads.
Consultants say that almost all victims of doubtful employment scams are youthful girls in search of low-skilled jobs, who make up a major variety of the unemployed inhabitants, in keeping with the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics.
Extorted by ‘jobs on the market’
Whereas predators like Akpan benefit from determined job seekers, there are registered corporations that additionally extort these determined individuals in different methods.
Oladeinde Olawoyin, a Nigerian journalist who has investigated pretend employment businesses, discovered 50 instances of candidates being extorted. These businesses get candidates to pay for a registration bundle – often charging 5,000-10,000 naira ($11-23) – with the promise of discovering them a job, but most by no means do. A few of these corporations are registered as consultancies to bypass the legislation that makes it unlawful for an individual to pay to achieve employment, Olawoyin explains.
“Most of the businesses would not have jobs to offer,” he says. “They cost candidates for registration varieties and don’t actually get them any job. There are a couple of who might need [a] few jobs however they recruit extra individuals than the [number of] job[s] they’ve. In a pool of about 1,000, they could throw in possibly 20 jobs or much less.
“These businesses know that Nigeria is [a] free for all. In order that they … gamble with individuals’s life and extort them. Most frequently they alter their location when their notoriety spreads. They modify their title and placement. So it’s attainable {that a} job seeker would possibly get scammed two, three, or 4 instances by the identical set of individuals with completely different names and addresses.”
John Nyamani, the director of employment and wages at Nigeria’s Ministry of Labour, advised Al Jazeera that “desperation”, social media and job seekers wanting a fast repair had been in charge for individuals being preyed upon.
“We don’t wish to observe the principles as a result of we’re in a rush to get employment,” he stated.
Nyamani suggested job seekers to be circumspect of alternatives marketed on social media that can’t be traced to a longtime organisation. “They’re deceived with jobs and it’s due to the state of affairs of issues. The federal government can solely strive its greatest by the safety businesses to coach individuals on the way to watch out. Not each advert you see on social media [is one] that you just reply to. If it’s a must to reply to it, make clarifications, and ask the Ministry of Labour. The Ministry of Labour has , purposeful web site,” he added, referring to the Nationwide Employment Digital Labour Alternate (NELEX).
The web site has a pool of vacancies and a listing of authorized organisations the place Nigerians in search of employment can perform background checks on their potential employers, Nyamani stated.
Nevertheless, advocate Hussain, who has appeared into the federal government’s youth unemployment discount scheme, says such initiatives solely present “non permanent reduction”, and that there’s a want for everlasting and sustainable connections between the labour market and authorities initiatives that hope to assist younger individuals.
For a lot of, Umoren’s dying highlighted how dire the unemployment state of affairs is in Nigeria, and the dangers younger individuals are prepared to take to discover a job.
Miriam has gone again to high school the place she is studying to grow to be an information scientist. She stated going through Akpan once more was one of many hardest issues she has ever finished however, after the incident, she determined to relocate to Lagos to begin afresh.
“I’ve left Uyo and every part else behind me,” she says. “I can now construct a future that I need. I purchased a laptop computer. I’m going to begin studying the way to code.”
For Blessing, it has been more durable. She is going to solely really feel that there was justice when Akpan hangs, she says, including: “I don’t assume he’ll ever be killed.”
*Identify modified to guard the sufferer’s privateness
