What The Average Nigerian thinks about 419ners: A feedback from a reader

After the earlier post on the above topic, I got some verbal spanking from some other guys. I could not resist sharing this particular one with you guys. Enjoy! It appears 419 is legitimate means of livelihood for some people. Read!

'You have a "yahoo yahoo is beneath me and i can do no wrong" attitude.Your view of 419 makes it look like the worst crime ever.Talking about 419, there are two kinds.The local and international.I take it you are referring more to the international.Let me ask you a question.If yahoo yahoo becomes a capital offense in this country and the perpetrators are forced to carry arms and rob, would that make life easier for you to bear?Do you know how many families are dependent on these "yahoo boys"?Do you know how many graduates have come out of institutions due to the blessings of yahoo?Trust me, i am not a yahoo activist but if yahoo goes away, it will be replaced by something else.Why?Coz the country would still be in the same shambled state.Yahoo is not something for illiterates.To make money out of it, you have to have some decent level of education and most of the successful perpetrators are graduates.Do you think anybody would be happy committing fraud?If you have a decent job, better opportunities or maybe living abroad, well thank the good lord but dint come on here with your "holier than thou" attitude.If you have ever been really hungry and without a clue where your life was headed, maybe you and other careless talkers on here wouldn't be talking so freely.

If you watched the movie "Oasis", you will understand what i mean.The passengers of the plane were forced to eat themselves to survive.That is how Nigeria is today.Tens of thousands of graduates keep pouring out yearly with no jobs for them.After 2-5 years of sitting down at home doing nothing, they have to survive somehow.Now, what do you expect them to do?To weave baskets?To get into hand crafts?If that is what you are doing, i don't think you will be able to afford Internet browsing unless you are deceiving yourself and that's exactly what a lot of Nigerians do.They believe they are better whilst having skeletons in the cupboards,under their beds and the booths of the cars.'

I wonder if he also thinks of the other family that the perpetrator is depriving of livelihood. Another family somewhere trying to eke out a living without defrauding no one is suffering from the handiwork of a lazy mind who is looking for an easy way to get out of poverty.
There is no excuse for fraud. In as much as I blame some category of victims, such people who are greedy and would fall for a simple prank, it is still evil. If they had not received an e-mail soliciting for help and money in return, they may not be victims. Assuming I am to condemn such people, what about the innocent whose credit card details are stolen without their consent?

Talking about them being jobless graduate, the reason why the graduates come out of school with nothing to do is because they went through school with fraud. They cheat and bribe to get through. If your claim that most of them are graduates, then the quality of the letters they send are a good evidence of their intellectual poverty. I think they are able to get their likes to fall for them without having to hack.
You do not have to wait for the government to get you a job. Yahoo yahoo is not the last option. There are better options my friend.

Another friend confronted me with a story that may seem to nullify the jobless graduate theory of the above poster. This is a story of two guys who were raised by an orphanage. The orphanage sent them to the university when they turned 18 only for these guys to join Yahoo Yahoo when they were in second year. The orphanage is known to send her people to international schools. This implies that they were well catered for. I wonder if these guys joined 419 due to lack. If you ask me, I will tell you no. There is no morality behind duping people.

You have got hands and brains to be productive and not to deprive.