Days after the unfortunate abduction of the three Orekoya boys who are now being held captive by a Nanny who was hired from OLX, the e-commerce platform, OLX has spoken out on the incident.
The Country Manager, OLX Nigeria, Lola Masha, spoke on behalf of the
company expressing deep concern in one tone and in another, she proved
that they were indifferent to the happenings.
According to her statement, she wasn’t indeed worried one bit about
the boys who are missing, but at the fact that it was on the company’s
platform.
Seeing as these things happen everyday on their platform, her careless response isn’t exactly surprising.
Instead of showing a little empathy, she insisted that the online
platform for e-Commerce business is still the best in Nigeria
irrespective of what happened, and that the online transaction between
the two women could happen in any other situation and on any online
platforms and consequently, it is not peculiar to OLX.
The problem with her statement is the fact that she said: “To protect
our customers, we have put several measures in place, to ensure such
incidence does not repeat itself.”
Err… the last time a customer complained about OLX and being
defrauded on the platform was barely days ago, and the first time was
when the company came into town.
Another part of the statement we found offensive was when the country
manager said, “We also have on our website, specific guidelines on how
to transact safely online. We strongly advise users of our platform to
follow the guidelines strictly in order to remain safe anytime they are
transacting business online. They must also ensure that they do all the
relevant background checks of persons that they are dealing with online,
and also make sure they check the items they intend to buy before
paying for the goods.”
The item here is a human being!
Even if the guidelines were followed, should the mother of the boys
had gotten a caveat that these humans contracted could indeed not be
real?
Or a guideline saying her boys would be kidnapped in 24 hours?
Or that there is a certain warranty on the human beings contracted on the platform till it is confirmed that they are genuine?
While it isn’t out-rightly anyone’s fault this happened, aside the
two obvious crimes committed by both parties, but some human compassion
from the company would suffice to say the least.
These are lives not items that are gone for now and hopefully would return.
We don’t expect miracles should be performed or OLX should
produce the money needed to rescue the boys. They aren’t obligated in
anyway to- plus this crime isn’t alien to the world. But this is a
sensitive time for the parents and a little compassion is needed.
Especially as this isn’t the first time such unfortunate incident is happening on the OLX platform.
The first was in December 2014, where a nanny who was employed
through the platform of OLX Nigeria, ran away with the employer’s child,
but was later apprehended.
OLX needs to do better than this please.
