Nigeria - The Country

Four-one-nine. That's Nigeria's code for criminal fraud. Travelers know that a trip to corrupt, impoverished Nigeria can make even the hardened adventurer swear off travel to Africa entirely. For nearly three-quarters of its 40-year history, Africa's most populated country has been bullied and bilked by military despots who promise elections and then spend more time shopping at Harrods than running the country.

Finally, in May 1999, Nigeria got its first democratically elected president since 1979. Of course, he's a general-but at least he was elected. We're taking bets on how long the Olusegun Obasanjo government will last. He's taken over an economy in its most dismal shape since independence from Great Britain in 1960, feuding ethnic groups and depressed oil prices, the country's only significant foreign exchange earner. It's unlikely that Obasanjo will stuff his personal coffers with oil money, not with ethnic Ijaw activists attacking pipelines and other Nigerians lighting Marlboros while filling Coke bottles from sabotaged petrol pipes.

In the meantime, what do the enterprising Nigerians do to bolster their economy? In keeping with its tainted image as one of the most corrupt nations in Africa, there are a number of quasi-sanctioned, clever scams that sucker in dozens of unsuspecting foreigners every year (see below).

Nigeria's biggest export is oil (with Uncle Sam slurping up about half). Yet that darn oil money keeps getting lost. Former president (and, of course, army general) Babangida managed to misplace US$12.2 billion dollars worth. A black hole if there ever was one. By mid-1999, at least US$770 million of stolen state cash had been recovered from Abacha's relatives and cronies.

Shell Oil Co. has sucked about US$30 billion worth of Nigerian oil since its discovery in 1958, yet the Ogoni tribe still lives in poverty in the swamps. When they tested the trickle-down theory, their leaders (including Ken Saro-Wiwa) were hanged in November 1995, and the Ogonis chased into the swamps. Another black hole.

As one would expect, even though the Christian south is where the oil riches are coffered, the government has always been from the Muslim north.

Grow Hair, Pick Up Chicks and

Make Big Money in Nigerian Oil Deals!

Nigerians have finally figured out how to bring corruption and misery straight to you without you having to leave the comfort of your office. Nigerian business scams are confidence schemes, designed to exploit the trust you develop in your Nigerian partner and to bilk you of goods, services or money. The scams are flexible, and operators adapt them to take the greatest advantage of the target-you.

Every week, the U.S. embassy in Lagos tries to console victims of these scams by which businesspeople have lost sums ranging from a few thousand to upwards of one million dollars. Patsies who have traveled all the way to Nigeria to clinch these "lucrative" deals have been threatened, assaulted or even killed. Local police couldn't care less, and Nigerian officials find the whole thing funny. The U.S. embassy can't do much more than lend you a toothbrush and a quarter to call your mother for airfare. Some Nigerian immigration officials have begun to warn folks upon arrival at Lagos airport, but the lemmings keep arriving to pick up their pot of gold.

Scams range from attempts to engage American businesspeople in fictitious money-transfer schemes to fraudulent solicitations to supply goods in fulfillment of nonexistent Nigerian government contracts. Most scam operators are sophisticated and may take victims to staged meetings, often held in borrowed offices at Nigerian government ministries. They do their research and can often provide plausible, but nonexistent, orders written on seemingly genuine ministerial stationery, replete with official stamps and seals. Nigerian business scams are not always easy to recognize, and any unsolicited business proposal should be carefully scrutinized.

It is not possible to describe how each of several hundred different scams works in Nigeria, but they all center on greed (yours), gullibility (yours) and money (yours).

This scam stuff is so much fun that we won't even dwell on the conflict (Muslim north versus Christian south) that ripped the country apart during the Biafran War, the billions of oil dollars that go straight into the pockets of the select few, or the overall poverty and population growth that plague this large country. For now, we just keep seeing how many suckers will travel here looking to make their fortune.

For information on how to verify the legitimacy of unsolicited proposals from Nigerian businesses/government agencies, contact the Nigeria Desk Officer, Office of Africa, US Department of Commerce, Washington, DC 20230.