But auctioneers rarely find chics to auction, would you believe it?
By Mbatia wa Njambi
Visiting Thinker
Forget Simon, the Tinder Swindler who took women to the cleaners in the name of love. Simon Hayut, now the subject of a Netflix documentary film, used social media dating App, Tinder, to siphon money from lone wolves. Most were women bending their 30s, that age when life takes a drastic turn if one is not hitched.
Did you notice most were white lasses? not a single miro woman in Simon’s Sh1 billion dating scam!
Anyway, lover boys are one among three set of men who milk women like grade heifer cows. Remember the story of the Tala senior manager who met the love of her life online, but before she knew what was happening had been conned Ksh9 million?
Victor Anane, the conman from Ghana posing as a pastor who could multiply money, was finally arrested by sleuths from the DCI last year. But alas! by then he had even convinced the Tala loans manager to pinch from client accounts! And the reason women lose quid in such easy ways to that breed of men is that, most times, most rarely solve their own problems.
They mostly transfer those problems to others: an ex-file, current lover, sponsor, sibling, the folks, saved uncle, best friend, college mate, colleague at work, the office boss, hubby. And women have many problems: rough childhood, low self-esteem, self-loathing, innate hate, rock bottom brokenness. But most of their problems are solved with money, especially OPM: Other People’s Money.
On average, chewing a woman’s money is like stealing Jomo Kenyatta’s body from the Mausoleum
On average, chewing a woman’s money is like stealing Jomo Kenyatta’s body from the Mausoleum inside Parliament Buildings. Just ask married men. But there are three types of men who easily chew their money like Goody Goody: Pastors, witchdoctors, the Boy Toy. It doesn’t matter whether she has a PhD or can’t differentiate Pluto from Plato.
Women also have no heartburn splashing money on the gynecologist and other specialists like marriage counselors, just that for such, they use OPM!
Apart from the Boy Toy, for whom a woman can walk to South Pole in wet gumboots for obvious reasons, why do women easily burn their money on pastors and waganga…who also easily con them?
Catherine Njeri from Nairobi was conned Sh9 million by Amos Chipeta, a self-proclaimed witchdoctor from Tanzania in 2012
In fact, unlike men, it’s not easy finding women to auction according to city auctioneer Mark Kamiri as “women are more calculative and averse to taking risks. They also seek help and are never shy about seeking help or advice regarding their financial decisions…”
But when it comes to pastors and witch doctors, most lose their corn rowed heads.
In 2012, Catherine Njeri from Nairobi was conned Sh9 million by Amos Chipeta, a self-proclaimed witchdoctor from Tanzania. He had promised to multiply it to Sh50 million in three months. And Sh150 million in six months. But Chipeta, guilty of fraud, was jailed for three years in 2014.
Women, experts inform us on good authority, are awed by men who can solve their problems. Or rather, people to whom they can transfer their problems. This explains why women (and their children) are the majority in churches-where they speak in tongues, shaming the devil while transferring their problems to God through Friday kesha. While their men are dusting ankles to Mugithi or Ohangla beats in bars.
Sometimes God takes time answering urgent earthly requests and so women move from Church service to a mganga’s hut
But it’s God’s representative on earth, the pastor who they can see, touch and talk to that they seek to solve myriad issues: an alcoholic hubby, joblessness, infidelity, impotence, domestic abuse, dysfunctional family. That most pastors, especially of prosperity gospel are self-proclaimed ‘faith-healers’ and prophets, people who see visions, only makes them more attractive to women with problems that needs a seer: mysterious illness, bereavement, in-laws in sorcery, lost relative.
Pastor James Ng’ang’a of Neno Evangelism confessed this year how one sheep in his church offered him Sh3 million “to marry her.”
In March last year, the family of wealthy city lawyer Jane Muthoni accused Prophet David Owuor’s church of controlling her multimillion shilling properties in Westlands and Riverside Drive. Her siblings had not seen her in seven years after she, apparently gave up some of the properties as a ‘thank you’ after her son was healed of dyslexia.
City psychologist Faith Atsango of Malek Counselling argues that women go for ‘sources of comfort’ and pastors come in handy as ‘protectors’ through prayers. If something bad happens, women blame missing church, not praying often or not giving enough offertory and tithe.
Unlike men who drown their problems in alcohol, women actively seek help in someone or something to believe and pin their hopes on
Fr Peter Kiarie of Miguta Parish, Ruiru, reckons that sometimes God takes time answering urgent earthly requests and so “they move from Mass to a mganga’s hut where they are promised quick fixes via delivery of chicken feathers. With a mganga, there is immediate feedback.”
This is where they lose their money. Like Anastasia Mutheka. In 2013, she lost Sh3 million to Suleiman Mumenya Murisho after convincing her he had powers to siphon money from bank accounts of dead people! The Sh3 million was even less than the Sh40 million she had been promised after three months!
The late Ken Ouko was an expert in the sociology of the family. He once explained that, unlike men who drown their problems in alcohol, women actively seek help in someone or something to believe and pin their hopes on. That’s either a higher power in religion, or a dark power in witchcraft. That is why most victims of con preachers or witch doctors are usually women.”
