Don’t Believe Everything You See

Many people saw the above post on my timeline and I am sure most of them were like, “Selah has started again with his pious posts”. As much as I would have loved to attribute the post to my being ‘pious’, it was actually necessitated by some personal events that took place few weeks before the post. So I urge you to sit back, enjoy the gist and maybe learn a thing or two.

So as usual, I was going through Facebook looking for trends and lovely posts to be part of, then I saw the profile of an old friend, someone I used to be very close to some few years back. On his profile was this picture of him on a beautiful white bed with lots of dollars (cold cash) scattered on the bed. The first thought that came to me was, ” yes o, my guy don hammer”. Instantly, I searched for his number, called him but the number wasn’t going through, so I concluded immediately that my guy is no longer in this country. Next I sent a Facebook chat to him and he responded enthusiastically, we exchanged pleasantries and tried to catch up on old times.

The following day he was the first to buzz me on Facebook messenger, “he started with how successful he is now and how he is willing to expand and carry his friends along”. To me that was impressive, his pictures said so much about success, so I had no problem believing him. Eventually, he said he had this business he was currently working on but he needed $1000 about #300k to finalize the deal. He asked if I could spare that and in 2weeks, he will pay me #500k. Tempting offer, but then my mama taught me that if it is too good to be true, it is definitely not true.

Anyway, I ignored mama’s words, I told him I will see what I can do. If you know me too well, I don’t tie down capital (as an economist), so there was no idle #300k hanging around. I thought of calling few friends, to see who had such idle cash, eventually got someone willing to drop #150k with a promise he will get #200k in 2weeks time, I had #100k, so I was left with sourcing for #50k. This was already the third day and this my friend practically sends Facebook message to me every hour to ask how far. I told him I had #250k already but I should have the #300k by the end of the week. He lamented how the opportunity might be missed and so I had to intensify my search for the remaining #50k.

Finally I remembered this guy, also a friend and he happens to know this my money spinning friend that wants turn #300k to #500k in two weeks. So I called him up and told him I needed #50k, this guy is ‘street’ so he insisted on knowing what the money was meant for. Bound by my goody two shoes rule, I told him the whole story. He just started laughing, – I was getting irritated now – “what’s funny?” I asked. He just said, ‘hope you have not sent him the #250k’, I said No. He said ‘thank your God!’ He then showed messages from this same guy, with the same proposition to him some months back. He said he fell for it and lost #280k. He said after he transfered the money to a Nigeria bank account as he was instructed, this guy stopped replying his messages meanwhile no known phone number or address to trace him.

I couldn’t close my mouth, so my guy has not arrived, all those pictures were just to lure unsuspecting victims, like I almost fell for it. It just occurred to me, I really have no way of contacting him besides the Facebook messenger. So what I did next was to send Facebook message to him saying “Hi, I got the money and Shola (name of my other friend he swindled) is saying hello too”. What I got as reply was shocking, he immediately ‘unfriend’ me on Facebook and till today, I got no message from him.

Don’t believe everything you see on social media, half of it is not true and those that are true are often exaggerated.
If you have not seen someone in a while be diplomatic while relating with them, don’t just disclose everything about your life.
If you are a lady, don’t fall for the display of wealth and affluent on social media, they are most likely not your answered prayers but nightmare your mama warned you about.
Don’t bemoan your life because of what someone displayed, what many people are really going through if they tell you, you will be in the front roll for thanksgiving next Sunday.
Be smart, don’t fall for the games of these people leaving fake lives, don’t let them make you question your life and then make wrong choices.

If you are on the right path, keep at it, it will soon pay off. Don’t claim to be what you are not just to be liked by people. Even when you have so much be modest about it. It is a world you can’t really predict, stay real.