419, JJC And The Buffoon Within

So, this weekly crap we waste our brains on does matter to some people? Sure, they do matter, and sometimes they matter even to very important people who have the power to put life into our boring stories. In fact, when we do it very well, they matter even to international organizations. I had looked at the prospect from afar, cherished it, almost daydreamed it, and now I have come quite close to experiencing it. How did I come to deserve an international award? No, I haven't won it yet; it is only a nomination at this stage. But it is still a good omen, considering how much we have put in, most of them barely read, and the occasional blunders that have dogged our every effort.

It had all started with an email; a mail I would usually hurriedly delete into my recycle bin, although I would never recycle the contents in the bin. It has become the practice for many of us to delete mails we receive from strange and unfamiliar addresses without checking where they may be coming from. So, these days, we delete a lot more than we read, because of the fraudulent activities of dodgy characters that hide behind computer screens to turn the beautiful story of the internet into a modern day tragicomedy. I went ahead to delete the mail from the France based international media body that had taken note of something I had written, and decided to consider me for a journalism award. I had deleted the mail together with others from the daughter of former Ivory Coast leader General Guei. Another had come from the next of kin of General Sani Abacha of Nigeria. But the most interesting one had rolled in from a nephew of President Mugabe. I managed to read that one, and the con was funny and just too funny: President Robert Mugabe has stashed away loads of money in pounds sterling and US dollars, and because the relationship between him and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown continues to grow bad, he doesn't want to have anything to do with the British, so he is giving away all his pounds sterling notes for free. He promised he could convince the President to give away some of his dollars too if I am uncomfortable with the British Pound.

The danger the internet poses is not only that it is fast becoming an international 'fraudnet' for criminals; we risk losing faith in otherwise genuine cyber communication altogether, or shortchanging ourselves unnecessarily in many things. The international body had sent two mails to two different addresses I use for reader's benefit. It was the buffoon within me (a British theatre critic's way of describing the natural gullible streak is us that is also responsible for our appreciation of the good in good men) that urged me to attend to the third mail they sent. There, I found at attachment which revealed a form that required some personal information. Luckily, it didn't ask for my bank details, so I scrolled down until I found some vital information about the awarding body. Even then, I still took it for a cyber prank until I found the synopsis of an article I had written that had been mentioned on their website. The same article had been attached to the mail for my benefit. They had stated the particular edition of The Ghanaian Chronicle that contained the piece. That sealed it for me. I had earlier met a Dow Jones reporter to discuss the same story. Do I have to go though all these to access information that is purposely meant for my consumption? Do we necessarily have to jump hurdles to get to the interlocutor at the other end of the spectrum? Are we about losing the war to the middlemen?

If you have an email address, then you may have been approached by one or two fraudsters who claim they have millions of dollars locked up in a foreign bank account, and that they need the consent of a neutral person to unlock the cash for a generous percentage. The offers sound too juicy and the story so uncreative that you wonder if anybody would fall victim to their tricks. How would you provide a bank account to the relative of a rich man, lie in your bed, and wake up the next morning to find $1million resting in your accounts? And, as if God is no King in Israel, most of these messages start with greetings in the name of God. They quote a few lines from the Bible to prove that Lucifer ever had a relationship with God before he became friends with Mephistopheles, and then proceed with the laughable story of the millions that is within arms' reach. All you have to do is stretch forth your hand and grab it. Can life ever be that easy?

Other times, you would receive a mail from the desk of the finance director of a certain international company. Millions of dollars have suddenly become available, and he wants an outlet to pour forth the lump-sum. In the meantime, he would want you to make an advance payment of a relatively small amount into a certain account, after which the floodgates will be opened for the money to rain through. The latest trick, these days, is a mail from a woman offering herself to you for free. She is the daughter of an African warlord who has run away to another country. She is the sole beneficiary to her father's estate. All she needs is some guidance on how to get the cash, and a percentage is her lover's, who 'By God's Grace' would be you. And they work the scam so brilliantly sometimes. Those mails would come with the beautiful photographs of an hour glass-shaped African beauty, revealing firm, thick thighs voluptuously gracing enormous cheeks at the rear. She has large, bulging eyes, an angel's face and a sweet dimple. That posture serves as the bait. Whoever comes along is the victim. It is quite simple.

So, you would want to ask: can this simple con fool some people to part with money to somebody who lives millions of kilometers away? Sometimes, all they may have shared are a few intimate emails and telephone calls. Are people just gullible beyond compare or foolish beyond belief? In Nigeria, people who are easily conned or give the indication that they are easy to dupe are called JJC-Johnny Just Come. Recently, a woman in the USA wrote to thank me for helping her dear friend to discontinue her involvement in a scam that had already seen her part with hard earned dollars to a bloke in West Africa. She had met the chap on an internet dating site, and they had kicked start a relationship shortly thereafter. The lady had become emotionally involved, providing the fraudster's every need until her friend got really concerned. Bent on helping her, she dug deep into the archives of Ghanaweb.com and found something we had done on the dangers of internet dating. In her own words, she sent the article to her friend to confirm her suspicions, whereupon the romance was terminated. The lady wanted to know whether her friend had been a JJC or it was the scam that was overpowering. I was philosophical in my response, as I would in the succeeding paragraphs of this con.

In a way, there is a bit of JJC in all of us. Do you remember how we swore as teenagers that we would never give money to a girl until we were certain that a French kiss was imminent? Juxtapose the conviction with which we made that statement with the reality of the sexually hyperactive 30's. Today, we are happy to part with wads of cash even in the face of unrepentant obstinacy. Haven't we refunded some amount of money that the Mrs. had to spend on our behalf, and then refund it the second time, because the first refund wasn't quite a refund? And, most of the time, landlords pay tenants to stay, if you know what I mean. In the same way, women sometimes make the beast with two backs with a twat, and later cry rivers for ever showing up when the warning signs were so clear. It is the buffoon within us that lead us on to make those commitments. You always feel you had the power to have fought the temptation, but frankly, you didn't. That is why you did it. It is the same buffoon within that makes us so gullible and susceptible to 419.

Are the 419 scams too sophisticated that we don't have the intellectual capacity to decipher the fraud? To begin with, we must acknowledge that people in this 419 business are desperate. And, by nature, we are sharper in devising escape routes only when we are in captivity. So, even though they may not be very intelligent, they are able to come up with intelligent tricks to fool the wise. You are gullible if you fall for any of the internet scams, because they are not very tempting. Often times, their English is not great, at least not the standard you would expect from the finance director of an international company. Why bother to follow up if a stranger sends you a mail that your email address was entered into a free draw, and you were the only person who won? The prize money is £2million. This sounds too sweet and shouldn't confuse even my little niece who cries when she forgets the title of the song she was singing yesterday. Those who would give such a trick any consideration need to take a free IQ test on the internet. Often, you would have the brain of a 419 person to fall victim to a 419 scam. It is greed, gaping opportunism and a larger than life version of the buffoon within that urge people to commit to an arrangement involving advance fee payment.

But, other times, it is not easy to see through some of the scams. The producers of The Master, a Nigerian movie featuring Okanayo O Kanayo and the comic character who was the protagonist in Osuofia in London, another masterpiece, did a good job on the 419 problem. The tricks the fraudsters employ are so brilliant that you the audience member become too much of a vicarious participant, constantly sitting on the edge of your seat and asking yourself whether you wouldn't have fallen for the scam. Folks are schooled on how to write intelligent letters in flawless English. You get a commission when your letter gets a favourable response. It is a whole system that is constantly being worked at by people with good university degrees. They don't target the JJC, because they deal with big budgets; they dupe established institutions, and sometimes democratic countries. Imagine what they would do if they were the colonial masters of those countries.

When it looks dodgy, it is often dodgy. Needful things never come unsought, humanity has always been warned. If it is natural for airplanes to taxi before they fly, why should we dare to prove Nietzsche wrong: he who would want to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk. You would only get millions in your bank account when you work towards millions. And, usually, millions start off with couple of hundreds.

Well, not all things that look plainly dodgy are dodgy. The safest way to treat such things is to investigate, or ignore. Never part with a penny until you have their millions. If you are happy to receive millions for free, then you are both 419 and JJC rolled into a con.
Benjamin Tawiah is a freelance journalist; he lives in London.

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