Nigeria: The Myth, The Reality, The Hope  

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By Leslie Kim

Lagos, Nigeria. Even the names of the city and country bring forth the vision of a far-away, alien land, awash in mystery and ever-lurking danger. Maybe that’s what drew me to the city that ranks right up there at the top of global fraud hot spots.

While my trip was motivated by a conference discussing Nigerian Financial Fraud matters (and intended to result in articles for the JCFFR and other business publications), once again the information gathered overlaps into the whats and whys of insurance fraud.

Family and friends were hardly supportive of my intentions to travel halfway around the world to a country that trails every other nation in “Business Honesty,” (See JCFFR, Dec/Jan 1997) coming in at last place on the list, far beneath the likes of Columbia, Iran and Russia. Everyone tried to dissuade me. “You’re going where? Are you out of your mind? Do you think you can just hop on a plane and grab a few days of sunshine at the Lagos Holiday Inn?”

The reputation of Nigeria – and of Nigerians – was at the crux of everyone’s arguments. Also of great concern was my intention to go so far, to this sinister place, alone. “Corruption at all levels is rampant in Nigeria. Danger hides everywhere. Don’t do it,” they all said. “Don’t go.”

I called my favorite Secret Service Agent, Tom Johnston of Atlanta, and posed some questions. Johnston, a recognized expert on Nigerian Criminal Enterprise matters, would also be traveling to Lagos for the financial conference.

Having made countless trips to Nigeria during recent years, he had a far better handle when it came to making me understand what to expect. “Nothing,” he said, “Don’t expect anything to make sense. You’re talking Nigeria here, Leslie, and nothing is as it seems. You won’t understand what I mean until you get there.” He assured me that the Lagos airport had been cleaned up to a degree that limited the blatant extortionistic tactics seen on 60 Minutes a few years ago. He also provided some invaluable contacts, well in advance of my travels, who could make the arrangements to have me met at the airport by a “safe” driver. He would carry a sign with my name and a series of “signals” worked out well in advance to confirm I met up with the correct “safe” driver. Huh?

In many of my travels, I’ve been able to get by with a modicum of safety by “blending in.” Many experts agree that a local is less apt to become a victim of crime than a tourist. The ruse worked fine in Eastern Europe and Russia – but light blond hair, green eyes and pale skin was not going to blend in when I arrived in Nigeria.

Still, the determination (some call it stupidity, and they swear it goes along with hair color) won out, and I got on the plane.

Arriving anywhere after traveling for 31 hours is not fun. The planes were completely full, and since I was a last-minute traveler, my seat assignment was as bad as it could get. I’d jam-packed two carry-on bags to avoid dealing with claiming luggage in the Lagos airport. I might just as well have saved myself the physical labor of dragging 35 pounds of “stuff” into the plane’s overheads, because the luggage claim area in Lagos
turned out to be quite similar to that of any similarly sized airport in the USA.

Coming “in” to Nigeria, through the passport line and customs line, was astoundingly simple. Officials looked at my passport photo, looked at me, then waved me on. Despite my obvious foreign appearance, nobody paid much attention to me. While I was relieved, it proved very confusing and visions of conspiracies danced in my head.

Lagos is the home turf for “419” and advanced fee fraud scams (which the seminar would deal with). Lagos is also the place where fraudulent documentation is available on every street corner; where a few well-placed Naira ($$$US) can purchase certification of birth or certification of death; where one’s instant picture can be affixed to a passport bearing the name of Mickey Mouse or Bill Clinton. For all of these reasons and more,
Lagos has long been a thorn in the side of life and disability insurance companies throughout North America and Europe.

After exchanging mandatory passwords with the “safe” driver and beginning the 20-mile trip to the Eko Hotel, I looked out the vehicle’s window and began to understand why SSA Tom Johnston told me it was impossible to understand the Nigerian mind-set until I stepped foot upon the soil of Nigeria. Small pieces of the puzzle were already beginning to fit together.

Nigeria is not a nation of swollen-bellied children. The abject poverty, apparent everywhere, takes quite another form.

Aging, dented, yellow mini-vans were everywhere. Some, with twenty people crammed inside, had doors and windows open and late-boarding riders hanging half out, precariously balanced on running boards. Cars were a curious blend of horrid disrepair and pristine luxury. Mercedes and BMWs drove alongside black-smoke-belching minis – and nobody drove according to any apparent rules. Size claimed ultimate right-of-way.

Contrary to what I’d expected, the roads were relatively devoid of California-style traffic. My driver explained that the trip often took up to six hours, but because there was no gas, most transportation was at a standstill.

No gas? Nigeria is the 6th largest oil-producing nation in the world. Her resources are vast, yet her refineries are in disrepair and are silent. Gasoline is imported.

“There is no money to fix the refineries,” explained my driver, “because the corrupt government officials have taken it all.” We passed a few gas stations and the lines of silent vehicles extended for three or four blocks. There had been no gasoline for five days, but still they waited, hoping. The only fuel available was on the flourishing black-market. A litre could be had for 80 Naira – roughly translated to just over $4 a gallon.
In a nation where a man’s regular wages range between $5 and $8 a week (yes, I said a week), such prices were affordable to only the very rich.

Everything I saw as we traveled from the airport to the Eko Hotel was a shock to my American senses. A child of about 12 stood naked in a large pan of water – holding a sponge above his head and taking a bath – at the side of the road. “Housing” was anything that offered respite from the blazing equatorial sun. The kitchen “stove” was an open fire of sticks and bits of cardboard; anywhere, everywhere. Women carried massive loads atop their heads, balanced perfectly, walking briskly. The stench of dust, intermingled with human sweat, permeated the air. The Eko Hotel is located in the Victoria Island section of Lagos, providing a veritable oasis in a desert of deprivation. Dinner, while cheap by American standards, amounted to a week’s wages for a working Nigerian. A two-dollar (equivalent) tip was met with wide eyes and effusive gratitude.

I was fortunate to have a pre-introduction to a fellow journalist, the Sunday Editor of a large Lagos newspaper. He requested that I not print his real name, fearing reprisals from corrupt officials, so I’ll call him Ude.

Ude is one of the lucky ones. He dresses in Western fashion, owns a small car and carries a cellular telephone. He holds a Masters degree in journalism; his wife holds a Doctorate degree. They have three children and reside in a small house with a real roof, four exterior stucco walls and glass-paned windows.

He explained recent Nigerian history to me, assisting in my understanding of the plight of his people. Until the mid-1980s, Nigeria and its citizens fared reasonably well. The democratic government managed to afford the people a reasonable life: schools, medical availability, jobs, roads and utilities. Then came a military regime and things rapidly went down hill. When a second military regime attained power, things went from bad to worse. The nation’s coffers were systematically looted by corrupt officials and there was no money left to run the nation or care for the people. Roads fell into terrible disrepair, government schools (free public education) ceased operation, health-care was available only to those with the money to pay for it and paychecks (eg. to the police) were shorted, late or nonexistent. The only people making money and living comfortably were the corrupt. The honesty of the past was no longer sufficient to sustain life. The message shouted to this nation of 110 million people was that the only way to prosper was through dishonesty and crime.

It was at this time that 419 and other blatant criminal schemes were born. The goal in all cases was money, pure and simple, at any cost. Nigeria was a nation in turmoil. The advanced fee fraud letter stories, about a government employee trying to loot his nation’s coffers of $30 to $40 million, were thus entirely believable. And the Nigerians perpetrating these scams were creative, adaptive, articulate and polished.

Legitimate business was forced to bear a heavy toll. New contracts were exceedingly difficult for honest Nigerian businessmen to negotiate because of the terrible reputation attributed to the nation. Global trade opportunities were lost, over and over again, not because the products were defective or unwanted, but because the world was afraid to do business with Nigeria or Nigerians. And therein lies the real tragedy.

Nigeria holds vast national resources. The country has the sixth largest oil reserves in the world and is home to extensive mineral resources. The land is among the most fertile in all of Africa, and crops flourish in the tropical climate. The culture holds literacy and education in high esteem, and there are more (percentage) doctorate degree holders among Nigerian nationals than any other nation. With all of this, it would be rational to expect the country to be a powerhouse among African nations.

Not only are the oil refineries idle, decaying and in disrepair because there is no money to fix them, but government schools no longer educate the nation’s children; only private facilities are available to those able to pay. There is no Medicaid, Medicare or socialized medical system in place; doctors treat only those able to pay. The rest will either recover on their own or they will die. There is no such thing as welfare or food stamps for the poor. The credo is work – or perish. But too often, in a nation besieged by a level of corruption that is foreign to the mindset of most other people of the world, there are few jobs and a dismal economic picture.

The average employed Nigerian worker – one lucky enough to have an actual job – earns about 3,000 Naira a month. Translated to American dollars, this is the equivalent of less than $10 a week. To call the housing and living conditions “substandard” would be a vast overstatement. Entire families reside along roadsides in cardboard shanties. Slightly less fortunate families don’t have the luxury of the cardboard; they sleep with the bare ground as their floor and with the stars as their ceiling. Things as simple as shoes are a luxury – and a car is as much an impossible dream as a trip to Mars on the next shuttle. Translating to American dollars, the purchase of a $2,000 used vehicle would necessitate saving every cent of wages for five years – not withstanding gas and maintenance. It would be akin to Joe American, working at a local McDonald’s, purchasing a Ferrari Testerosa.

Ude impressed me with his honesty and integrity. I may have been treading on thin ice, but I asked him why so many Nigerians in America are drawn to criminal enterprise. His explanation made perfect sense.

Many of the wealthy people in Nigeria have attained their wealth through unorthodox (criminal) means, he explained. The average honest worker cannot come up with a thousand-dollar plane fare, plus pocket money and funds to facilitate a visa – but an individual who has involved himself in criminality does have access to the needed cash to travel abroad. Alternatively, if a dozen family members join forces monetarily and designate one individual to relocate to America, the social pressures to achieve (earn money and send it home) are intense. What a Pittsburgh family of four spends to go out one night to a fast-food dinner and a movie is equivalent to two month’s salary in Lagos. Some Nigerian nationals feel a justification for thievery with a Robin Hood-like fervor. A few thousand dollars obtained from a staged accident or a credit card scam can conceivably feed an entire village for a year. When a nation’s role models are corrupt, there is no negativity associated with going to another country and shipping buckets of money (from whatever source) home
to your family.

Trying to interpret the moral fiber of a nation like Nigeria by our American standards just cannot be done. It is apples to oranges – no, it is apples to violins. When presidential elections were held in Nigeria a few years ago, a nonmilitary candidate won by a large margin. The military regime immediately declared the election invalid and promptly threw the popular candidate in prison. I could not help but think, “Hey Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Ousting a corrupt government regime is no easy chore. The army has the weapons, the money and the ultimate control. The people don’t even have shoes…

Nigeria is a tragedy and there is a pervasive hopelessness evident throughout her population. The spirit of those people, however, refuses to die. When I asked Ude why he didn’t just pack up his cookies and go elsewhere, he explained his need not to desert the country of his birth. “It must get better,” he said. “It will get better. And when it does, I want to be here to help rebuild my nation.” Valiant words. Lofty words.
Impossible words. Perhaps.

Before I stepped upon Nigerian soil, my experience in the fraud-fighting industry had led me to believe that every individual of Nigerian extraction was inherently a crook. Investigators would joke that an “honest Nigerian” was only an oxymoron. It was as if Nigerian DNA or chromosomes were responsible for the streak of larceny thought to be inherent in all people of such extraction. That, at least, was my USA
perspective.

The lessons learned during this recent trip spoke of a different side to the story. All Nigerians are not crooks. In fact, the actual criminal numbers are minuscule in proportion to the population numbers. But those among the populace who are crooks are so blatant and so visible that the entire nation is painted with the same negative global brush.

The US is viewed as a nation where pots of gold line every street. “You are there; help your people here,” plead the letters. The mentality can easily slip into a Robin Hood mode. Take from the rich; send to the poor.

But, yes, I found honest people in Nigeria. I also found frustrated people everywhere I traveled in Lagos. They were both hopeless and full of hope. The emotions existing side-by-side in the same individuals.

In the afternoon before I left, a driver took me to Lagos’s central marketplace. As we approached the area, I saw, without exaggeration, what looked like a million people stuffed into a mile-square piece of land. Tiny stalls, full of merchandise – ranging from live chickens to tapestries, wooden carvings to vegetables – stood side-by-side, as far as I could see. And there I was, the only blond, pale-skinned person for miles.

“Is it safe to get out of the car?” I asked my driver. He looked back at me, obviously confused, and answered, “Madam, of course it is safe to get out of the car.”

I’d like to attribute my exiting the vehicle to raw courage, although blind trust and a hint of stupidity might be more on target. But exit I did – and the mass of people swelled to one million and two. It was shortly thereafter that a stunning truth became evident to me. There is no racism in Nigeria. People are not black or white (in the sense we see in the US). People are simply people.

No one looked at me with anything other than mild curiosity. No one dived for my fanny pack, even though I had an amount of Naira inside of it roughly equivalent to a year’s wages in Nigeria. Four wide-eyed, giggling children asked if they could touch my hair. “Of course,” I replied as I stooped down and lowered my head. Suddenly eight little black hands were running through my hair. “It’s soft like a baby’s hair,” commented one
young child in a voice tinged with innocence and wonder.

No one else looked at me, no one else cared. They wanted me to spend money, that was all. But they wanted my driver to spend money, too. There were no drawn lines, imagined or otherwise. A society devoid of racism; it took awhile to sink in, but when it did, I felt a twinge of shame on behalf of America.

Later, while attending the conference, I gained more understanding of some of the problems. When it was law enforcement’s turn to address the assemblage, the speaker focused on many of the difficulties encountered by detectives attempting to investigate 419 crimes. One example was the telephone lines and telephone records.

Because of the sophistication of the fraudsters, the NITEL (Nigerian Telephone Company) records are nearly useless. Whereas phone records in the USA enjoy a modicum of honesty and internal security of process, NITEL is awash with problems. And even though the examples cited were in conjunction with the 419 financial crimes, it was easy to see how the same situations contributed to the problems plaguing insurance companies. False identities, phone lines into false businesses (i.e. doctors, hospitals or officials) and more can be easily purchased.

Another important factor is the system of “dash” which is ingrained into the Nigerian social system and impacts all investigations, no matter what the line being scrutinized. Dash, with no exact English translations, is a word connoting something midway between a “tip” and an out-and-out bribe. For a varying amount of dash, one can obtain goods, services or favors. When a 419 phone line is installed, be it a direct telephone line or a facsimile line, the to-be fraudster merely extends a bit (or a lot) of dash to employees of NITEL. This allows him to obtain the phone line under false information (never to be traced) or assures the stringing of the lines is done in such a way that it’s nearly impossible to determine at what address the phone is ringing. The entire social and business structure of Nigeria centers around the concept of dash. Would it be relatively simple to install a phone to be answered “Lagos General Hospital” in a back room of a seedy building? Absolutely!

In the long run, honest dealings must eventually win out over criminal enterprise when the future of an entire nation is at stake. In the short run, however, the answer lies in a thorough investigation by trustworthy and honest on-site individuals. Nothing in this nation can be taken at face value. A death certificate may appear legitimate because all of the seals, stamps and signatures are in place – but those same seals, stamps and signatures can be purchased for mere pennies. And until the governmental turmoil decreases, the situation is not likely to change.

The answer, for now, is three simple words: Investigate, investigate, investigate.

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