Check this out na. How can you be stealing from people and showing
off the money when you have no known business that can legitimately
fetch you the kind of money you are displaying for the whole world to
see?
That brings us to the issue of Raymond Igbalodely aka Hushpuppi -
the so-called Gucci king, giveaway macho, luxury car fanatic, Instagram
celebrity and sweet life ambassador currently a surprise guest of the International police and the Federal Bereau of Investigation. He is
alleged to be answering questions for fraud to the tune of $100 million.
If you call him Mr flambouyant, then you will be damn right.
Hushpuppi out of the blues, rose to social media fame by showing
off incredible wealth on social media. It was just stupendous that
celebrities and ordinary Nigerians turned beggars in his DM. Nigerians
flocked to his page to admire his luxury living, private jet travels,
designer wears & watches, luxury cars and many shopping sprees
displayed on his social media page. It was an addiction to many who
slept and woke up on his page for giveaways, leaving thousands of
comments how they would love to live his life just for a day. It wasn't
long before a deluge of poor Nigerians wishing to be like him began
'famzing' him big time and before you could call Buhari, Hushpuppi
became bigger than most Nigerian musicians who have made hits after hits
in the past and his fan base of hungry warriors grew rapidly.
Beyond all these, the mystery behind his luxury lifestyle still
intrigued people. How does he make his money? What does he do? Does he
have a company, business? Is he a prince bequeathed enormous wealth by
his late father who must have been a rich king? These questions worried
sane minds who wondered what could be the source of Hushpuppi's stinking
wealth. It got to a level that he started robbing shoulders with
established industry acts like Phyno, Kcee, Davido and Ice Prince who
legitimately make a living from music, accusing them of wearing fake
designer wears.
Ofcourse, it is an open secret that many believe that your
favourite Instagram celebrity, Hushpuppi is a fraudster who deprives
many people of their hard earned money by conjuring physical and
spiritual influences in order to strip them of millions of dollars which
he uses to fund his extravagant lifestyle. Things have now rightly come
to a head following his arrest by Interpol and the FBI for allegedly
fleecing a state in America millions meant for buying ventilators to
save lives.
The implications of this negative media buzz created by Hushpuppi
are too many to mention. It speaks of the kind of people Nigerians are.
About glorifying fraud, unexplained money and supporting people even
when they are doing the wrong things. The Nigerian society is so messed
up that anything goes. People live for the moment and are comfortable to
never practice what they preach. That is why politicians continue to
steal money and get away with it. There is no culture of accountability.
When you speak against fraud and the attendant calamity it brings upon
victims, a deluge of comments from praise-singers attack you from all
angle calling on you to mind 'your business' because in their minds
'nobody holy pass'. Just the same thing they do when it comes to
prostitution. Obviously, everyone's moral compass is broken and spoilt.
It is still these same shameful folks that will be the first to sit in
front of churches and mosques. They believe in their tiny heads that
they are God's favourite children. We are faced with a culture of
silence, where nobody wants to know how you make your money, because all
they want to see is you displaying wealth. No one cares about hardwork
anymore.
Have you ever thought of what happens when someone is defrauded his
or her hardearned money? Imagine you have been saving for months to pay
a house rent of N700,000. You even had to deny yourself good time just
to save this money and one day, someone finds his way into your account
and drains it to the last kobo. The worst part is that you don't even
know how the person got to your account in the first place and do not
even have a trace of the person. Just like that, your N700,000 which you
have been saving for months just vanished. This fellow who defrauded
you, takes just hours to lavish the money you spent months saving on
women, alcohol and weed. How will you feel? This scenario I just painted
is the least in the kind of fraud these scammers engage in.
Many people have committed suicide, others have killed innocent
people they had suspected were behind it and many others have become
mentally deranged as a result of the trauma caused them after losing
money they worked hard to save. Imagine you got millions in bank loan,
only for you to wake up to realize that an internet fraudster has taken
everything from you. Such a heartbreaking realization could make one go
insane. That is the gravity of the situation we find ourselves when it
comes to fraud, yet people act like it is nothing.
Businesses have closed up, people have fallen into depression, many
have committed suicide all because of fraudsters. There is absolutely
no justification for fraud. Fraudsters should be given the same
treatment as armed robbers.
On the international stage, not only will anyone with Nigerian
passport be scrutinized, there will be a lack of trust from agencies and
organizations coming in contact with people from Nigeria. Not only do
fraudsters do harm to their victims, they also smear the image of the
country where they come from. Nigerians freelancers have for sometime
expressed disappointment as it is very difficult to use a Nigerian IP
address to get freelancing jobs on platforms like Fiverr, udemy and
others. As a result, hardworking Nigerians are losing foreign business
clients because of the bad reputation fraudsters are bringing to the
country. This is even more complicated by the hasty generalization by
most foreigners who because of one individual have that twisted
understanding that many others from the country are dubious-minded.
That stigma has finally come to hurt hardworking Nigerians,
depriving them of their means of substenance. So brothers and sisters,
before you start celebrating unexplained money, think twice.
Alexander Thandi Ubani writes from Lagos
@thandiubani
thandiubani@yahoo.com
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