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08.02.2008 News

Scam from scum

By
Scam from scum
08.02.2008 LISTEN

I don't know what you make of people who get duped by 419ners. My firm view is that they're idiots.

I've received some of these foolish letters from criminals claiming to be heirs to millions of dollars shipped to some European high street bank by a hard-working and loving Daddy who died in the same battle as Sanni Abacha. Could I therefore be so kind as to wire to them a few thousand dollars to trigger the release of the Old Man's kitty to be split 60-40 in my blessed favour! Biogas!! How can anyone fall for such a scam from such scum?

But you see, there's this European - not sure which of their tribes he's from – who is going from door-to-door in my neighbourhood carrying a photograph of the love of his life. He's searching for her because they're supposed to be getting married.

According to this pathetic loser, he bumped into his equatorial goddess in cyberspace. Through their email exchanges, he concluded that she was well-brought up, caring, warm and, above all, stunning. He fell in love with her and she with him.

They had a lot in common, except she was poor and recently orphaned and lived in this dustbowl, unripe banana republic called Ghana. He, on the other hand, lived comfortably alone in Cornwall or Maichingen or some such place where people don't talk to people. So, need I add that she was in dire need of financial help?

He wired her a couple of hundred dollars initially. But when he learnt that her means of transport were these god-forsaken bins, locally called trotro, because they were cheap and ridden largely by starved Africans as seen on CNN, he wired her ten thousand dollars or so to buy her own car. On top of that, he raised her monthly stipend to 500 dollars for over a year in addition to other electronic goodies deserved by all God's children.

Finally, she had agreed that he visit her so they would consummate their relationship, get married, depart from this hell-hole and live happily ever after in his padded European Edenic den.

She emailed him a photograph of herself with all the right-size bumps in the appropriate places, along with some Spintex Road residential address that, sadly, led to a weedy, open field – a discovery he made only upon arrival in Ghana.

Instead of returning quickly home, he has taken up a suite in a guest house in the neighbourhood and, is making a complete imbecile of himself by presenting this photograph to anyone who cares to listen, asking if they'd seen his Nefertiti anywhere. Yet, I suspect the photo was, in fact, sent to him by a man who digitally cut it out from some cyber-catalogue or site.

I think these people who get duped successfully by 419ners cannot believe that a) Africans could be so clever, and b) that they could be so stupid.

So I hear that this man is still standing around hoping that his Akuaba will appear and jump into his open arms one of these bright mornings!

I suppose that once he revises his notes regarding the cleverness of Africans (the criminality of these scams notwithstanding) and his own imbecility, he'll return home to eat humble dumplings or sauerkraut und einsbein (boiled sour cabbage and pork-knee) or whatever his tribal staple is.

By: Kwaku-Addo SAKYI-ADDO with Sakyi Addo

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