This is how it all started. I received a text from them informing me to come for job interview around ilasamaja.
I was so excited that finally God has answered my prayer after staying at home for like nine months without a job since i came back to Lagos after my NYSC. After applying for multiple jobs online like jobberman, job.naij, career24, you name it. No call or text from any of the companies i forwarded my CVs to.

I'd became anxious as days turned to weeks, months and already approaching a year as i frig around at home. I prayed to my creator that this should be like those time i grew beard at home before i finally got an admission into school.
I told my girlfriend about it as she was equally excited about the good news. she said it calls for celebration but i told her to let me secure the job first before we ordered for any champagne.
"Ok o, na so you go dey talk" she grunted.
"Come on, i don't want to count chicken wey never hatch nah?" I said trying to appease her.
She scoffed but i couldn't be bothered, mine was to get the job first and after that, she can order for all the drinks in the world, enough to drown herself in them if she gets too greedy.

I checked my mail inbox for further details as the text message as stated. But the description of the company's location was not explicitly stated in the mail. I then checked the text message which has a phone number and a reference number.i dialed the phone number and the receiver was a lady and i asked her how can i get to their office. She told me that she will send me a text giving me further description on how to get to their address. I asked her what's the job all about.
"Don't worry, just come for the job assessment and you will know more about it during the seminar" she said. I thought to myself maybe this could be a genuine organization with the kind of mellifluous voice coming from the lady. She could probably be the receptionist in the organization. I'd already imagined the lady must be in money with that kind of American-like accent i heard from the phone. Definitely money is speaking.
I was so excited that i could hardly wait for day to come. which finally arrived. I followed the description as directed by the text message from the lady. But at the back of my mind, i was hoping that this wasn't one of those scam job that people talks about......

About two months earlier before i got this invitation. I'd received a similar text like that telling me to come for a job interview the same day i got the text. I was kind of skeptical about this arrangement because how can they invite someone for a job interview the same day he received the message?. very strange?, well i wasn't prepared at all neither am i going but my dad urged me to go.
That morning i quickly summarized as we use to do in NYSC camp when you're summoned by impromptu to the parade ground.

After spending over five hundred naira to get to the place. I was already discouraged by the distance and the cost alone from getting there. I was hoping the pay should be nothing less than eighty thousand if i get beyond the job assessment. On getting there, i saw a man outside, obviously he is also for the seminar but it seems as if he was about to leave. I asked where the seminar is holding, he directed me upstairs, when i got upstairs i saw two guys and a lady standing at the corridor. One of the guy happened to be the coordinator for the seminar while the other two are candidates that got the notification like me.
" Are you here for the seminar?" The coordinator asked.
"yes" I replied.
He gave me a paper to write my name on it. I took the paper from him and wrote my name and my phone number and the reference number that came with the text as requested on the paper. I saw about twenty names already on the list and i could hear the moderator addressing the candidates inside the hall. After i had filled my info, i hand the list to the other guy; the candidate, if he has written his name. He said he has. I was about to proceed to the hall when he called me back, he told me not to waste my time that they are 419ers and the seminar was a sham. I was disappointed but glad that the he called me back rather than wasting my time to find out. It was obvious that both the guy and the lady at the corridor where in earlier but left the hall.
"One more text, i mean just one more text from this people again and i swear i will wound somebody" He said angrily as he told me this was about the fifth time he has been invited by their organization. He further told me that they had many branches and they use different company name to call people for interview.
"Don't worry bro, it is well.keep the dream alive.. We the youth are really suffering in this country but i know God will save us" The guy said to me with great optimism in his voice.

That was my second invitation from this syndicate. The first was about a year earlier. i couldn't go because i was in Akwa Ibom serving my fatherland.

......When i got to the address of their company, it was a two-storey building with the sign board "Starlink" i was stopped by the gatekeeper as i entered the premises. He asked me what am here for, i told him am here for the job interview and i showed him the text message i received plus the print out of the email as a proof. The gatekeeper showed me the visitor's log book and he obliged me to fill it which i did and he directed me into a hall which was a ground floor.

About five or six job seekers like me were already in the hall sitting and waiting for the job interview. They were about four guys and two ladies. I took a vacant sit beside a lady which i exchanged pleasantries with her. I looked around the hall trying to make out what this company all about. There was no sign,board or anything that is affiliated with the company. "vconsult" was the name that came with both text and the email but i couldn't find any thing of such inside the hall but the hall was exquisitely furnished and it had a chandelier suspended from the top of the ceiling with a plasma TV fixed to the wall opposite the receptionist box. And yes there she was, the receptionist i spoke with on the phone, i thought to myself. No doubt, the receptionist was very pretty as i envisage she would be but the only discrepancy was her accent. She spoke with a typically Ibo accent that suggested she couldn't have been the lady i spoke with on the phone two days earlier but anyway that was not what i came here for. Mine was to focus on the interview to come as i took out my tecno s3 phone, i googled the internet for the company name to check for information about them incase any questions come up about then but the results from the search engines didn't display anything that can tell me about "vconsult". I switched to safer search but still nothing. I then searched for possible interview questions that might come up and i took my time to study them; both the questions and the best possible response one should give if they came up. About thirty minutes passed, still nobody has attended to us. The text and the email says that the interview will hold by 8am but it's about 9:05am already. Two more people joined us and the hall seats was almost occupied. One of the applicants; a guy asked the receptionist if the organization are going to attend to us soon but she gave him a snobbish response as she was more engrossed with her blackberry, taking selfies and also chatting when her phone chimes.

After about an hour, a guy walked in. He was dressed in black suit with a navy blue tie knotted to compliment it. His cologne could be perceived across the hall. The first impression i had about him was that this could be the MD as i assessed his looks. He greeted us as he apologized for the delay,he told us that the interview will hold shortly. He walked over to the receptionist as they both exchanged smiles while he flirtatiously chats with her as she draws her hair back in sex appeal. This time, we the applicants were already getting impatient and a bit piqued as these two lovers fooled around in the hall as if we the applicants doesn't exists

Finally a lady walked in and summoned us upstairs to a smaller hall which has fewer seats and it didn't go round as some applicants where left standing. Inside this hall was a long shelves that hold about eight to ten desktop monitors that are dusty, apparently they seems defunct for years as i assessed the CPU below the shelves. The lady that called us in, probably in her early twenties asked us to tender the printout of the email containing the invitation which we all did. She collected the printouts from us as she brought out an exercise book and gave it to the guy beside me and told him to fill his name and the reference number from the text message and pass it round. After the guy filled the book, he passed it to me which i did in turn passed to the next applicants beside me after i had filled it. When the last applicants had filled the book. The lady collected it and walked towards a door almost near the entrance where we came through. she opened the door and told us to go in which we obeyed like primary school pupils coming from the assembly ground as we marched through the door.
Behind the door was another hall but this time it had a lot of plastic chairs, about twenty of them which are well arranged in rows in from left to right creating a gangway for easy passage. In the hall was a guy and two ladies waiting as they ushered us to take our sit. we the applicants took our seats as the chairs were enough to go round this time. I took my seat at the left side of the wall.
The lady that collected our printout went through another door in the hall with our papers. I'd wondered if we won't go through this door because at that moment i became to have misgivings about this interview.