If you live in Cite Assemble neighborhood of Oakam, you know to steer clear of the Nigerians. One of the first things Lucy told me when I made my maiden voyage to the corner boutique is that the proprietor, Almami, is very nice and would never cheat me, but that I mustn't hang around because it's a haunt of The Nigerians (italics of contempt and awe).
Hearing her speak the name would make any sane Westerner tremble. Oh no: How was I to recognize Nigerians? "Well, for one thing, they speak English," she reminded me with exasperation. Point taken. And why are they menacing? It seems that they are known locally for the same reasons they are known internationally to anyone with an email account: They run scams.
Yes, Yves' and Lucy's neighbors on this block, Adeolu and Lucky, are the very people who write to you and to me as "Mr. Emeka Abaeze, Son of Igbo Kings, Who respectfully seeks your assistance in a matter of international importance…" They live like everyone else does, in the same sort of stucco dwelling with a courtyard with weeds, feral animals and kids running around. Like most in this neighborhood, they have computers.
Unlike their neighbors, though, they spend a lot of time dreaming up Nigerian Emails and directing their preposterous pleas and plots out to the Western world to extort money from the deeply naive or foolish. What you and I don't see, though, is what Lucy and Yves watch every day: Adelou and Lucky returning from the Western Union office with their backpacks literally stuffed full of cash. Every single day. These guys are as wealthy as Igbo kings.
I was dumbfounded to hear about this. How could anyone be gullible enough to respond to one of those scams? I have underestimated gullibility. It must not be passive, as I've thought, but active, fed by mighty furnaces of sentimental charity.
The Nigerians, for having figured out how to acquire millions, do not live like kings. Apparently they are party boys of the highest—or lowest?—standards. Their lifestyle revolves around nightclubs, dancing, drinking, and sexual excesses between the Western Union trips that underwrite their addictive carousings. Everybody knows about them; they are just the jerks down the street.
It could be, however, that we will no longer be bothered by their terribly polite supplications worded in the language of the Raj. Last night Yves was on his way home and ran into a big ruckus in front of the Nigerian house. What he learned was that two local girls had engaged them to provide some false identification papers: No one better prepared for the job. But Lucky and Adelou have apparently been so busy having fun that, having collected the fee from the girls, they never found a spare minute to complete the job. The furious girls finally called the police on them: "These men are frauds: They never completed our illegal IDs for which we paid good money!"
Yves said that the police were actually arresting the men. This could be the start of something big. Something with international implications that you may hear about on the internet. You may be needed to send money to strangers in digress…
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January 20
I must add a footnote. Hilarious as I find the story of the Nigerians, Lucy reminds me that despite the apparently absurd life they lead, she finds them threatening. They are also prone to hanging around the neighborhood when they've nothing else going on—a sinister "block watch" program. She's noticed them at her corner more since the baby's been born, for instance. The Nigerian Emails, she assures me, are not the only scams they run. May have terrible, and more immediate consequences.
Hearing her speak the name would make any sane Westerner tremble. Oh no: How was I to recognize Nigerians? "Well, for one thing, they speak English," she reminded me with exasperation. Point taken. And why are they menacing? It seems that they are known locally for the same reasons they are known internationally to anyone with an email account: They run scams.
Yes, Yves' and Lucy's neighbors on this block, Adeolu and Lucky, are the very people who write to you and to me as "Mr. Emeka Abaeze, Son of Igbo Kings, Who respectfully seeks your assistance in a matter of international importance…" They live like everyone else does, in the same sort of stucco dwelling with a courtyard with weeds, feral animals and kids running around. Like most in this neighborhood, they have computers.
Unlike their neighbors, though, they spend a lot of time dreaming up Nigerian Emails and directing their preposterous pleas and plots out to the Western world to extort money from the deeply naive or foolish. What you and I don't see, though, is what Lucy and Yves watch every day: Adelou and Lucky returning from the Western Union office with their backpacks literally stuffed full of cash. Every single day. These guys are as wealthy as Igbo kings.
I was dumbfounded to hear about this. How could anyone be gullible enough to respond to one of those scams? I have underestimated gullibility. It must not be passive, as I've thought, but active, fed by mighty furnaces of sentimental charity.
The Nigerians, for having figured out how to acquire millions, do not live like kings. Apparently they are party boys of the highest—or lowest?—standards. Their lifestyle revolves around nightclubs, dancing, drinking, and sexual excesses between the Western Union trips that underwrite their addictive carousings. Everybody knows about them; they are just the jerks down the street.
It could be, however, that we will no longer be bothered by their terribly polite supplications worded in the language of the Raj. Last night Yves was on his way home and ran into a big ruckus in front of the Nigerian house. What he learned was that two local girls had engaged them to provide some false identification papers: No one better prepared for the job. But Lucky and Adelou have apparently been so busy having fun that, having collected the fee from the girls, they never found a spare minute to complete the job. The furious girls finally called the police on them: "These men are frauds: They never completed our illegal IDs for which we paid good money!"
Yves said that the police were actually arresting the men. This could be the start of something big. Something with international implications that you may hear about on the internet. You may be needed to send money to strangers in digress…
_________________________________________________
January 20
I must add a footnote. Hilarious as I find the story of the Nigerians, Lucy reminds me that despite the apparently absurd life they lead, she finds them threatening. They are also prone to hanging around the neighborhood when they've nothing else going on—a sinister "block watch" program. She's noticed them at her corner more since the baby's been born, for instance. The Nigerian Emails, she assures me, are not the only scams they run. May have terrible, and more immediate consequences.
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