206 african appropriations
substantive inconsistencies (Blommaert and Omoniyi 2006). The style
and usage in others would suggest that their authors have considerable
practice in bureaucratic correspondence. “Like the one I once worked
with. He is a top government man in this present regime and he belongs
to the Federal House of Representatives; he is good in making such fab-
ricated write-ups and when I left him I was able to know how it is done
and I started writing mine” (“Vanity,” quoted in Hunter 2011: 12). The few
famous cases of convicted high-level 419 scammers, such as Fred Ajudua,
a Lagos-based law yer (Buse 2005), and Emmanuel Nwude, the former
director of the Nigerian Union Bank (Peel 2006), bear witness to the fact
that 419-related activities are also practiced in supposedly respectable
social circles. However, even the so-called Yahoo Boys are anything but
school dropouts. “Contrary to popular belief,” wrote a certain Davis Pui,
who declined to participate in my interviews, “people that do these things
are mostly graduates with knowledge of social engineering and network-
ing, I am a BSC holder in one of the famous universities in Nigeria” (email,
February 15, 2008). His assessment of correspondents’ level of education
corroborates both those of my informants and Hunter and Daniel Jor-
dan Smith. The scammers include qualified law yers, holders of bachelor’s
degrees (in information technology and geography, for example), and
secondary school graduates.
Expatriate Nigerians have long helped high-level scammers interna-
tionalize their business. “The fraudsters here have contacts in America
who wrap up the job over there,” said Samuel, a former scammer from La-
gos interviewed by Los Angeles Times reporter Robyn Dixon (2005: 3). “For
example, the offshore people will go to pose as the Nigerian ambassador to
the U.S. or as government officials. They will show some documents: This
has presidential backing, this has government backing. And you will be
convinced because they will tell you in such a way that you won’t be able
to say no.” According to Samuel, his former boss, a scammer called Shep-
herd, had seven Nigerians working for him in the United States, including
four graduates in psychology (4). Back home in Nigeria, not only do the
chairmen and their boys profit from scamming but so do an equally large
number of people who supply the scammers with counterfeit documents,
bogus websites, and the like. The cybercrime industry feeds thousands or,
more likely, tens of thousands in Nigeria alone.