 |
| Photo credit: paymentsjournal.com |
I’m yet to see that country anywhere in the world where fraud is an official state policy. Rather, every country frowns at it and makes extant provisions in their statutes to punish fraudulent activities as a deterrent to offenders. Even in situations where some countries’ rogue leaders are kleptomaniac and in dalliance with graft and gluttony, they still maintain a facade of anti-graft crusaders.
I love the expression Americans coined for it. “Do the crime, do the time”. Just like the American society rejects it in its entirety, so do numerous other countries in America, north or south, Asia, Africa, Europe and Antarctica disavowed it.
Fraud is often down to individual choices, it's not a national badge.
If this preamble has a familiar resonance, why then are individuals from certain countries racially profiled as fraudulent even when they have been squeaky clean all their lives without any dent in their public or private dossiers?
Recently, a young Nigerian-American was travelling to Nigeria when a caucasian security official stopped him at a major US airport. He frisked the traveller exhaustively and delayed him longer than usual to the point that the Blackman missed his flight. His reason: He felt the man was nervous and was probably concealing drugs in his body. Yes, the Blackman was anxious because he was rushing to get to the boarding gate before it closed. He needed empathy, not prejudice.
After what seemed like an eternity, the aviation security official allowed the traveller to go when he could’t find any drug on him as he had suspected. The official went back to his home and lived happily after without any dire consequences for his erroneous judgement call. The nonplussed Blackman, on the other hand, missed his flight and travelled back hundreds of kilometres to his base to rue his losses. Quietly, he wondered that probably he would not have been searched so intensely if he was not black with the double jeopardy of having Nigerian lineage.
Everyday around the world, people are profiled as potential fraudsters largely because of the colour of their skins. It is one aspect of the Martin Luther King dream that has been left unfulfilled. Fraud has been weaponised and hung on people from certain countries like a national character.
Even a site like Wikipedia vacuously claimed that advance-fee fraud “is a form of fraud that appears to be a field in which Nigerian entrepreneurs were pioneers and remain prominent.” How do you tar a whole generation of enterprising people with such a brush?
A 2016 America Community Survey estimated that there were 380,785 Americans with Nigerian ancestry, an overwhelming majority of who work conscientiously to contribute enormously towards making America greater.
Recently, American President-elect, Joe Biden appointed one of them, 39-year-old Adewale Adeyemo as Deputy Treasury Secretary. There are many Adeyemos in virtually every aspect of life in America from the health sector to the academia, digital economy to manufacturing.
Conversely, there are some fraudsters and minority misfits like Hushpuppi and Fred Ajudua who have helped to sustain the spurious narratives that made eager traducers label Nigerians and blacks as potential fraud kingpins.
Section 419 of the Nigerian Criminal Code makes fraud a felony punishable with multiple years of imprisonment that could exceed a decade while the country established special anti-graft agencies to fight fraud.
Just as you have Nigerian fraudsters, so you have fraudsters in Ghana, United Kingdom, France, US, Brazil and the rest of the world. Do Nigerians think an average American is a criminal because the American criminal system incarcerated about 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,722 juvenile correctional facilities, 3134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities and 80 Indian country jails? No.
As far as an average Nigerian or African is concerned, an average American, Asian, Arab or European is a decent person. For Africans and black people generally, you are innocent until proven guilty. The reverse seems to hold sway for many Americans or Europeans when dealing with Nigerians or blacks. Every African is guilty until he/she establishes his/her innocence or so it appears. That's burlesque on justice!
It’s a mentality the world needs to shred. While a country like Nigeria, for instance, needs to strengthen its criminal justice system and introduce further measures to enhance early detection and effective prosecution of fraudulent cases, the world also needs to learn to treat every individual on his/her merit irrespective of race or religion.
All societies should work collaboratively to annihilate fraud because everyone is a victim. Daily, thousands of Africans also fall prey to internet fraud, some of which are deodorised like legitimate businesses.
Isn’t it a fraud by other means when someone or an organisation collects people’s data and sell it to advertisers? Is it not a fraud in its crudest form when people make online purchases that never arrived even after paying? Is it not not fraudulent when people who are enticed to subscribe to services to get certain benefits are shortchanged?
Who tracks those dishonest activities, name and shame culprits and ensure justice is served? It is heart-warming to note that globally, there has been an increased scrutiny to protect people’s data. The world must unite to fight the hydra-headed monster that fraud has become in whatever form.
