Join our WhatsApp channel HERE for the latest Benue news and updates!
Popular Benue social media activist, D’Naked Zege’Orkwande, has raised a red flag over what he calls a deepening “trust crisis” between Benue indigenes at home and their brothers and sisters abroad, blaming a surge in loan and business scams for the growing hesitation to help.
In a widely shared post, Zege’Orkwande recounted a painful real-life story that has become all too familiar.
A young woman from Benue reached out to a fellow Tiv man living overseas, asking for a ₦2 million loan to start a business. She promised to repay with interest. Moved by the appeal to support a sister back home, the man agreed but insisted on releasing the money in phases, starting with ₦500,000 to build trust and see progress.
He sent the initial half-million naira without ever meeting her in person.
More than one year later, there is no business, no repayment, no explanation, and the woman has reportedly vanished. Phone numbers dead, social media accounts deleted, family claiming ignorance. The money is gone.
“This is just one of hundreds of cases,” Zege’Orkwande wrote. “Good people abroad now fear that the moment they send money home, they will be labelled stingy for not sending more, or foolish for sending at all when the person disappears.”
He argued that such betrayals are the real reason many diaspora sons and daughters have withdrawn from community support and town-union projects, unfairly earning the tag of being “stingy” or “unserious” about development back home.
“People are hurting silently,” he said. “They want to help, but the scars from previous scams run deep.”
The activist urged anyone requesting financial help from the diaspora to be ready to provide verifiable progress reports, involve reputable guarantors, accept money in verifiable tranches, and above all, protect their own integrity.
To those abroad, his message was simple: protect yourselves, ask questions, demand transparency, and never feel guilty for saying no when the red flags are obvious.
As Benue communities continue to look to their diaspora for support in education, health, and infrastructure projects, voices like Zege’Orkwande’s are reminding everyone that trust, once broken, is painfully slow to rebuild.
One scam at a time, the gap between home and abroad keeps widening.
