Keziah Duru (not her real name), a resident of Lagos State, did not believe that Emadia Oghale, the founder of Emerald Farms, could defraud her until the reality that she might not recover her N550,000 began to sink in.
Investing with Emerald Farms seemed like the right decision for Duru at the time, and she explained that her investment initially showed promise.
She told FIJ that a colleague had first sung the praises of the investment scheme. After she invested N550,000 in August 2021, she received N81,000 as her return on investment for September. Little did she know that she would not receive any further payments.
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Duru said that before she invested her funds, Oghale had assured her she would receive a 15 per cent return on investment for the three months before the investment matured.
“When it was time for her to pay the second return on investment, I got nothing. After the second month, I started calling, but she did not answer,” Duru told FIJ.
“She didn’t answer my calls until I eventually saw her. She claimed she had spent the night at the police station and promised to pay me before the end of that day, but she never did. If I called, she wouldn’t respond, and there’s been no word from her. At one point, she spoke with her investors and promised to pay in batches, but it was just lip service.”
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FIJ called Oghale for comments on December 20, but her line did not connect. A WhatsApp message sent to her had not been responded to at the time of publication.
Meanwhile, this is FIJ’s second report on Oghale holding on to her investors’ funds years after she stopped communicating with them.