I am not here to praise the actions of the Nigerian Scammers or to complain about the loss of our reputation internationally, I believe this discussion has been flogged by so many internet blogs and forum threads on Nairaland, that starting another thread about it is just plain waste of space on my part. I am here to just vent my anger about the hypocrisy of human beings in general. I have been doing a lot of thinking and I just had to write down some of the thoughts that have come into my mind of late. They are not specific to any topic and if it seems I am going off in so many different directions with my discussions, pls forgive me. And for the serious minded nairalanders, feel free to challenge my opinions, give your own view on it and basically approach each of your arguments with respect and without insults. I am not going to make each of my posts long because I know that people hate to read long posts so I will post discussions in short bytes that are easier to read without people getting computer eyes (my own way of saying dizzy eyes) . I will start my discussion on the next post. I hope people will be encouraged to join me in my discussion.

We're waiting for your post.

Thanks Seun, I am still trying to learn how to navigate my way on Nairaland as a new member. I keep looking for my post in the politics section but I cant seem to find it. Did I post my new topic the right way?

I have seen my post .

Bump! Your topic goes down the tree if no new activity occurs. Nairaland->politics is a busy place.

Thanks Mariory!

First of all I am going to start with the constant bombardment of TV specials on the tactics being taken by scam baiters and the like to expose the operations of Nigerian Scam artists. I admit, they are wrong, they deserve to be caught and punished and it’s unfortunate that the right policies are not put in place in Nigeria to catch them. Blame it on lack of resources, a broke down system and yes we will continue to say it till we land in our graves “corruption”. It’s a shame then that a foreign country is the one that has taken it upon them to showcase our ills and filthy laundry to the world and at this point, its hard not to feel ashamed and saddened when I watch this shows. But does it strike anyone that it seems to be open season on Nigeria this summer? Everything from the crisis in Niger Delta, the kidnap, our less than stellar democratic elections, and our battle with 419ers, and what its doing to us, the international media (Notably the North American media) seem to be reporting with such vigor and commitment that I cant help but think that they have a hidden agenda. Maybe I am just paranoid and filled up with conspiracy theories which have no basis but it seems as if these media channels are reporting these news items with glee that I can’t help but think they are enjoying the way Nigeria is being tarnished publicly. Stay tuned for more ventings!

The media channels are in it for the money, of course. To make money, they need lots of viewers. To get lots of viewers, they need to cover controversial topics that are relevant to their viewers. That's all. Scam baiting is a fun topic, and they think people will like to hear about it. It's no conspiracy, just good business.

Thanks Seun for contributing. Let me continue with my venting, cos its going to take a lot of posts to get all this off my chest. It’s like the American media have taken it upon themselves to tell the rest of the world “see we told you that these lousy Africans cant do anything good, they are ungovernable animals without a sense of moral ethics, And wait there’s more, they have scammed the American people, bright upstanding members of society who can do no wrong”. They have cost us millions of dollars and destroyed families; their scamming is an epidemic that must be curtailed because the safety and the security of the American people are at stake. We must act now”. Oprah too has jumped onto the bandwagon and yep its time to throw stones now at Nigerians, “we do not care about the rest of their population home and abroad that are contributing positively to society. They are inconsequential and we don’t care that they keep to laws and submit to authority. As long as Africans continue to do wrong we will cut them no slack, and take no prisoners!!!”

Oprah is also in it for the money. She simply covers topics she thinks her viewers care about. Here's the real question: why do so many of Oprah's viewers care about 'Nigerian scams'? Answer: they have relatives that have lost huge sums of money to these scammers. If we stop allowing them to operate, our image will improve.

Now I do not mean to sound anti-American, but has it occurred to anyone else that the US always seems to be the loudest at announcing to the world when they have been slighted, attacked or offended. “Look at September 11, yes the day was a great tragedy and lives were lost, and I will not be the first person that will make mockery of what people endured on that day. They had a right to be angry, and the whole world had to sympathize with their pain, but the weeks after it happened when they kept feeding us with constant news items on 9/11 for months and months on end, I began to ask myself, are they the first country to lose citizens due to an attack?
A year after the event, there was a remembrance and it went something like “The World Remembers 9/11”. Official letters were sent in from countries expressing their support, media channels ran clips of the Memorial Day and the screens were awash with American citizens crying and listening to songs by their artistes. That date is now firmly printed in the heads of practically every nation who knows what 9/11 stands for; A modern day of great tragedy for the American people.

I believe that the date that should be more recognized and well known, and should be in the hearts and minds of man today is September 17, 1945. We young ones should be reminded of it every time, it should not leave our memory for one second because it shows the extent by which man will go to destroy and crush his fellow man. That day was the day that the American army used the first nuclear weapon on human beings and dropped a bomb in the City of Hiroshima.

What do you expect from an American TV Network? Of course, they have to focus on America. The real question is this: why do we (non-Americans) support their self-centered attitude? Why do we indulge them? Why do our Politicians and Journalists not correct them when they are behaving as if only American lives have value?

Seun:

Oprah is also in it for the money. She simply covers topics she thinks her viewers care about. Here's the real question: why do so many of Oprah's viewers care about 'Nigerian scams'? Answer: they have relatives that have lost huge sums of money to these scammers. If we stop allowing them to operate, our image will improve.

True talk! I totally agree. And I hope we can help in some small way. I am just angry at the constant stereotypical opinions and I never realised how much stereotyping could affect me until until two weeks ago when my sister came home and relayed her experience of how she was talking to the driver of the transit bus she was in. The guy asked her where she was from and she told him she was from Nigeria. As soon as she mentioned that, the guy said, "Oh that 's the country where all the bad bankers come from". My sister was stunned, she could only reply " not all bankers in Nigeria are bad". But what good that did, I dont know. I swear Seun it hurt me. I guess it got to me because my mom is a banker by profession and a respected one at that, and I know that she has always instilled in us the sense of honesty and intergrity. She left the banking industry some years back cos she was tired of the negative politics that was surrounding the whole thing. So when someone paints a whole set of people with one brush and you happen to be linked to the people, the paint sort of gets to you and affects you.

Yeah. It must be painful. The good thing about pain is that it can motivate you to push for a change.

Seun:

What do you expect from an American TV Network? Of course, they have to focus on America. The real question is this: why do we (non-Americans) support their self-centered attitude? Why do we indulge them? Why do our Politicians and Journalists not correct them when they are behaving as if only American lives have value?

Exactly, Your statement makes so much sense. I have been thinking along those lines for a very long time. Last year, I took a geography class and in one of the classes we had to watch a documentary titled "The Aftermaths of war". The documentary talked about different wars that had occured in history from the "Battle At Stalingrad, World War I & II, The Bosnian Crisis, and the Vietnam War". When it got to the section on the Vietnam war, we watched as the documentary talked about when the US decided to drop a powerful herbicide (Agent Orange), a defoliant which killed off all the forests and greenery that were used as hiding places for the Vietnamese soldiers. The herbicide was then washed into surrounding rivers and streams which were water sources for surrounding villages. And Seun you needed to see the effects of it years later, deformed babies with abnormally large heads that looked like something out of an alien horror movie, people losing their sight to blindness. In it all you could feel the despair, hopelessness and anger that the people felt. A lot of my classmates were crying and the class was so quite, you could hear a pin drop. I asked myself, if the US can commit all these atrocities even though they are in the past, what right do they have to tell the international community that another country is a threat to national security and world peace?

Galadriel , i understand perfectly what you are trying to say here , yeah we have many bad ones among us , but that doesn't make all of us bad and that does not mean the good ones must suffer for what they didn't do .
do you know that probably more people are shot in American than in Nigeria on daily basis, does that mean that all Americans should be stereotyped as murderers ? of cos not , and what about their porn , they have the biggest porn industries in the world, does that make every American porn viewer or immoral ? many priests in America abuse kids , does that make all priests in America abusers ? no , yet these references are where Americans do it more than others on the biggest scale , yet we don't generalize it about them , we still believe that they have Americans that doesn't indulge in such vices . why same yardstick cannot be used for Nigerian case is what i found difficult to understand .

I mean look at the Issue concerning North Korea, and Iraq. The US claimed that Saddam had WMD, without UN sanctions they went in and invaded and now the whole world has gotten tired of shouting about how wrong the war is. Then the US focused its attention on N.Korea, "Look people, they have got nuclear weapons and they are going to use it if they have the chance!".  Everyone has forgotten that its the US that is the only country in history to have launched such a weapon and actually used it on human beings. The fatality of the bombing of Hiroshima was estimated at 200,000 people! compare that to the fatality of 9/11, 3500. Now I know that comparing loss of lives is not right, but dont the people of Hiroshima deserve worldwide recognition?

Why is the US making so much noise? What exactly are they scared of. After N.Korea, they focused their attention on Iran. Do they actually believe that no country is capable of developing nuclear weapons and actually not using them? Do they really believe that they are the only ones that can have such weapons and not use them? With their past history, the US should be the ones under scrutiny, but who can challenge the almighty superpower!

@ egoldman, thanks a lot! They are so quick to point out the faults of every country in existence, but the dire problems they are going through, they prefer to keep under wraps. Its like the more they keep feeding their minds with negative images about other countries, the more they can forget what's going on in their own backyard.

@topic,

why same yardstick cannot be used for Nigerian case is what i found difficult to understand.

The answer to this is very simple. What are Nigeirians doing to stop the menace caused by these few? Instead, we are seen to glorify the glaring thieves amongst us as revealed on this thread: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-69173.0.html.

Until there is a mass protest by Nigerians to deal with these vices, we will all be considered complacent and complicit in this issue.

I do feel your pain about the stereotyping and how it could negatively affect us as indiviuals - especially those of us off the shores on naija, but there is almost next to nothing we can do about it if our government don't tackle the issue.

do you know that probably more people are shot in American than in Nigeria on daily basis, does that mean that all Americans should be stereotyped as murderers?

Black American males are stereotyped as gangsters and criminals who don't value education.

I do not support our government not having done enough to help the country's image , same also about the individual Nigerian, however there is no justification for anyone that is innocent of crime to suffer for same crime , wherever that happens , its not fair and would never be , if its related to Nigerian it's been seen as the norm , i found that difficult to understand .

Its just that I am confused. What can I as an individual do to help! Does my effort even make a difference? Is it worth it?

You are making a world of a difference , at the least you are making someone to think out of the "box"

Thanks. After watching the series of TV specials on the 419 issue, A concept came into my head for a paper presentation for my upcoming communications class starting this fall semester. In this class, you are required to prepare a 5mins presentation on any topic under the sun. I have decided that I am going to prepare a presentation from a Nigerian's perspective on the 419 issue. I have started writing it even though the class is two months away. I want to make the paper, witty, sarcastic and also with a tone of seriousness on how I feel about 419 scams and how people should approach such emails. Hopefully, my coursemates (who are mainly made up of white canadians as well as international students from different countries) will learn something useful from my paper.

Galadriel:

Thanks. After watching the series of TV specials on the 419 issue, A concept came into my head for a paper presentation for my upcoming communications class starting this fall semester. In this class, you are required to prepare a 5mins presentation on any topic under the sun. I have decided that I am going to prepare a presentation from a Nigerian's perspective on the 419 issue. I have started writing it even though the class is two months away. I want to make the paper, witty, sarcastic and also with a tone of seriousness on how I feel about 419 scams and how people should approach such emails. Hopefully, my coursemates (who are mainly made up of white canadians as well as international students from different countries) will learn something useful from my paper.

In presenting your paper i will advice you to hit the nail at the head when it comes to the 419 issue, let them know how nigerians feel about it and that its less than 1% of the entire population of nigeria endulge in the criminal act. At the same time please politely hint to them about the western(US) mediocrity about the whole issue as it effects nigeria and if you can bring up all the herbicide,hiroshima,9/11,porn and child abuse case in your presention it will be very nice but let the caption embrace all you will present and remember do it politely.Do not take side and try to end your presentation with a question to your audience.

Man, presido thanks a lot! I have been thinking about my presentation for a week now even though the class doesnt start in september. Its just everybody gets just 5mins to present their paper, and the challenge for me will be in putting together a paper that will say a lot in 5mins!

Just seek help from NL, forumites here will surely help or will they call it expo? find out b4 you seek for the help. All the best anyway.

Thanks

@Galadriel,

Also include the fact that 419ners only prey on the greedy. So while they are focusing on us, they need to take a closer look at themselves also. You might want to compare 419ners to Frank William Abagnale, Jr. who was famous for his 419 lifestyle in the 60s. I recently watched an interview in which he admits that while he feels bad about his crime, he does not feel pity for his victims because in each instance, they must have felt they were smarter than him and taking him for a ride.

You might also tell them that 419ers feel justified by their actions because they believe they are paying back the West for their crime. Gone were those days when the West would steal all our resources in exchange for a mirror!! But be creful not to appear to justify their action, just give them more food for thought.

Wow! Thanks everyone, I have a lot of good ideas for my paper!!!

Its nice to know that there is a sound board like Nairaland where you can come and get things off your chest, sometimes talking to your regular friends around you aint enuff, besides, not many of them wanna hear your ventings if it doesnt bother or interest them at that point. With forums like this, you can at least meet like-minded individuals who you can discuss opinions with!!!

ask them question like this , why would someone try to claim lottery money that he did not buy the ticket in the first place, greed ? also why would someone try to help a Nigerian move illegal money from his country cos he was promised some cut from it , but plz make sure you don't sound to be supporting the 419 act itself .