The Student Union Government of Abraham Adesanya Polytechnic, Ijebu Igbo, has launched a bold campus awareness campaign warning female students against the Alabuga Start Program, the Russian-linked recruitment scheme that has lured hundreds of young African women into a war zone under the guise of empowerment.
The Alabuga Start Program spreads its tentacles through social media, and its pitch sounds almost too good to be true. Free flights to Europe. Massive salaries. No prior work experience required. All a young woman has to do is play a PC game and pass a basic Russian vocabulary test, and the doors to a new life swing wide open.
It is the kind of offer that would make any ambitious young person pause and consider. And that, student leaders at Abraham Adesanya Polytechnic are now warning, is precisely the danger. The campaign is not merely precautionary. It is urgent.
“This is not a program that is far away from us,” said John Orimisan, the SUG Public Relations Officer of the institution. “It is actively targeting our students, our sisters, our friends. We cannot fold our arms and watch young women walk into a trap dressed as an opportunity.”
The scheme has attracted mounting international scrutiny for its calculated targeting of young women between the ages of 18 and 22 across several African nations including Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Uganda, as well as Sri Lanka. Its social media presence is polished and persistent, painting the picture of a life-changing empowerment initiative offering vocational training, free airfare and salaries that most Nigerian graduates can only dream of.
The application process is deliberately simple. No certificates. No interviews. No experience. It is designed to feel effortless, and for many young women hungry for opportunity, effortless is exactly what makes it irresistible. But the reality that awaits them on the other side is nothing like the advertisement.
Women who have returned from the program, or managed to speak out, have revealed that the vocational training and hospitality roles they were promised bear no resemblance to their actual working conditions. Instead, they found themselves deployed inside the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, working in a drone manufacturing facility producing weapons used in Russia’s ongoing military operations in Ukraine.
They had gone searching for a better life. They found a factory floor in the middle of a war.
The program was not packaged to look sinister. It was packaged to look inspiring, dangling the promise of financial independence and international exposure, all without asking for any prior qualification or experience. That packaging, student leaders say, is what makes it so dangerous.
“What they are calling a work-study programme is nothing but a 21st century human trafficking scheme,” Orimisan said bluntly. “They use the language of empowerment to lure young women into a situation where they have no control, no protection, and no easy way out.”
The criticism has grown louder globally, with analysts and human rights observers pointing to the program’s deliberate targeting of economically vulnerable women from developing nations, populations perceived as easier to recruit, manipulate and control far from home. At Abraham Adesanya Polytechnic, Ijebu Igbo, the student union is determined that none of their own will become a statistic.
The sensitization campaign is not a passive exercise. It is a structured, face-to-face mobilisation effort designed to reach every student with a direct and unambiguous warning.
“We are not just putting up flyers,” Orimisan said. “We are having real conversations, going into halls, talking to students face to face. We want every female student on this campus to hear this clearly, do not apply, do not share your details, and if anyone approaches you with this offer, report it immediately.”
The campaign also calls on male students to become active participants, recognising that a message spread person to person carries far more weight than any poster on a notice board.
“The male students have a role to play in this too,” Orimisan said. “When you see your sister excited about a foreign job offer she found online, ask questions. When your friend talks about going to Russia to work, ask questions. Knowledge is the only thing that can break the power of this kind of deception, and we all have a duty to share it.”
The effort has also reached beyond the campus walls. Comrade Joseph Daniel, a member of the Student Union Government, took the campaign to the airwaves through a radio interview on Lion FM 93.9, Ijebu Imusin. Speaking in a fluid mix of English and Yoruba, a deliberate choice to reach communities where formal English alone would not land with the same force, Daniel broke down the program’s recruitment strategy and gave practical guidance on how young people can recognise and avoid its pitfalls. It was a reminder that awareness, to be effective, must speak the language of the people it is trying to protect.
For Orimisan, the message is simple and the responsibility is shared.
“If it sounds too easy to be true, it probably is,” he said. “No opportunity worth having requires you to disappear into a foreign country to build weapons for a war that is not yours. We will keep talking, keep sensitizing, and keep protecting our people.”
The campaign at Abraham Adesanya Polytechnic, Ijebu Igbo, is ongoing. And if the student union has anything to say about it, not a single student will leave that campus uninformed.
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Seunmanuel Faleye is a brand and communications strategist. He is a covert writer and an overt creative head. He publishes Apple’s Bite International Magazine.
