bunkering, disappearance of ships, etc. All these crimes harm our economy in no small measure”. 10

Internationally, the media has embarked on campaign to publicise the Nigerian situation. The Cable News Network in 2006 showed a documentary titled “How to rob a bank”. The documentary portrayed Nigeria in bad light carefully playing down foreigners who create platforms for such crimes to thrive. The mind of the world was further poisoned by the documentary, which did not go down well with well meaning Nigerians.

The word of Christopher Watts in his article titled “Bring in the cyber police” further portrayed how Nigeria is perceived around the world.

“Cyberspace is getting scary. Those sleazy porn sites viruses Gaudier and gaudier ads unstoppable Spam e-mails. You click ok on e-commerce item and hope that your money doesn’t vanish into some Internet bandits accounts in Lagos…”11

Locally nobody trusts anybody and everybody suspects everyone. There is erosion of trust on Nigeria. Reputable Nigerians suffer excruciating pain from humiliation around the world. Many international agencies have taken special steps on the Nigerian situation.

In the United States of America, there is a special law enacted by the congress against the Nigeria fraud. Interpol has a special desk for Nigeria and organises annual conference on Nigerian fraudsters. Metropolitan Police London, Special Fraud Office (SFO). The United States FBI, Scotland Yard Police, South Africa, European Unions. The United Kingdom, Cote d’voire and Ghana are also alert on fraud in Nigeria.

Victims of fraud and their countries have taken retaliatory measures on Nigerians.

An enraged 419 victim killed a Nigerian diplomat in Czech republic.

Nigerians have been killed in Sierra Leone, Eritrea and a suspected 419 Kingpin was murdered in South Africa by an alleged victim.

The effect of this situation also includes the slow pace of growth in financial products and services such as credit card, e-commerce, online transactions (purchases and sales) and other modern financial services in Nigeria. Banks have collapsed, letters of credit from Nigeria are held in suspect and in many cases disregarded out rightly.

The bite has been so painful. Government and other stakeholders are running helter-skelter to salvage the situation.     continue ....next page