A final year student of Special School for Exceptional Children, Alaide, in Gwer East Local Government Area of Benue State, Dorcas Mseer, 21, is currently stranded after fraudsters emptied her bank account.
She needs an urgent intervention to pay her school fee and register for WAEC, NECO and JAMB examinations.
Mseer, an orphan who lost both parents between 2008 and 2013 has no other means of raising the money to meet up deadlines for registration for the examinations as well as her school fees.
In a chat with newsmen in Makurdi, embattled Mseer, who has vision impairment, narrated her ordeal in the hands of suspected fraudsters who, under the pretext of helping her to withdraw some money from an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), swapped her ATM card and made away with N143, 500 from the N144,564.38 that she had in her account, leaving a balance of N1,000.
Mseer said the transaction was done after her ‘supposed’ ATM card was returned to her. But because of her virtual challenge, she did not notice that it was swapped with an expired one until the following day when she began to receive bank alerts in school.
“When I went to withdraw money at Union Bank in Gboko. Then some people came and exchanged my ATM card. I had a total of N144,564.38 in my account which I wanted to use to register for my WAEC, NECO examinations. But they have taken it all.
“I didn’t know that they gave me another ATM card until I got to school. On the following day, I began to receive messages from the bank. It was when my colleagues read it aloud to me that I realised what had happened,” she said.
“Later, I started getting alerts of withdrawals on my phone. On the first day, they removed N125,000 through POS, then the second day was N18,500, making it a total of N143,500 taken away. They removed all my money. I earned the money from my farm produce which I sold. I have a farm.
“I’m appealing to government and Nigerians to help me with money to register my WAEC, NECO and pay school fees,” she added.
Meanwhile, Mseer said she wanted to study Education in the university to enable her to take to teaching as a career in future.
Barrister Antaav Kume who corroborated her explanation and is also appealing to good-spirited individuals to come to her aid disclosed that Mseer had been sponsoring herself in school.
“I spoke to the principal who gave me the details of her registration. The breakdown shows WAEC: N35,750.00, late registration: N10,000,00, NECO N33,500.00, brail for special candidateS N47,000, school fees: N43,000.00, bringing the total amount to about N168,250.
Mseer keeps a 12-year old girl, also an orphan, who helps her around.
“As a result of this development, she is now stranded and cannot register for her examinations. She has also not been going to school. It was when I saw her plight that I decided to talk to the press about her situation. I pray good spirited individuals to respond to her plight,” the lawyer said.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
