As faith may have it, I have become one of the privileged few selected by the diabolic Nigerian underworld booming enterprise known as 419 to be duped. The criminal enterprise society with their notoriety has assumed my daily-unsolicited morning alarm clock. As soon as it is 2 AM, my telephone would ring incessantly until it is picked up. On the other end of the line, I would hear some music in the background while I proffer a rendition of "hello" repeatedly. Finally, a heavily accented voice whose ethnicity is easily discernible would respond and demand my fax number, which accordingly would supposedly cure my financial woes and lead to my opulence.

Each time these crooks called in the last two months, I took the pain to explain to the intruders that Chike Okafor is not interested in this type of business. Unfortunately, these 419ers do not understand the meaning of no – thank you. They do not understand the meaning of " I have no interest;" "leave me alone;" "asta la vista;" and "go away." Hardly do they understand that their presumed infallibility would eventually be shattered and permanently grounded like their comrades rotting somewhere in jail.

The various means by which attempts to convey my displeasure and lack of interest to this illegitimate venture by the use of universal and non-coded language which anyone including those that proclaimed to be guardian of multimillion dollars in the so-called excess Nigerian budget should understand failed. A rational human being who resides in this planet would be mad as hell when someone hangs up the phone on him or her while they rambled from the other end of the line. They would be mad to the extent of shredding the recipient’s phone number or at least swore never to waste their time calling such number again. The couch potato 419ers seem to have all the time in the world and who knows how many telephone calls they place to other potential victims within the same time frame. Rejection to the 419ers seems to mean persistence. One wonders, if they do, how they pay for their telephone bills.

Telephone is the fastest means of communication, the other being the Internet. Telephone enables people residing in different parts of the world to communicate. In the USA, telephone is a necessity, where as, in some countries such as Nigeria, it is a privilege to own a working telephone. I used the word "working" because one may own a telephone that works sporadically. The extent of owning a working telephone in Nigeria depends on the willingness to pay money to telephone employees under the table.

Given the need to communicate with families or friends outside Nigeria, people flock to the NITEL – a major Nigerian telephone carrier, to make international calls. These hard working Nigerians pay for each call they make with their hard-earned money, and little do they know that they are also endangering the welfare of the recipients of their calls. Since I have been receiving 419 calls from different people, male and female and also people with accents that sounded like those from different parts of the country, it seems that someone, a mole working at the NITEL sold my home and cellular telephone numbers to 419ers. This is the only plausible explanation by which the unknown would call my unpublished telephone numbers soliciting my fax number in order to fax the fraudulent contract.

The first time this happened, we called our local telephone provider in an attempt to track down the impostors. Their telephone seems to be out of reach. Then, we called the local police to lodge a complain, in essence, to serve a warning that some bad eggs from Nigeria are attempting to defraud us and may do so to others. Those who are familiar with these impostors must perform their civic duty as honorable citizens of Nigeria by reporting them to the authority, as this would serve a warning notice that Nigeria is not a nation of crooks. It is sad that a few bad apples have continued to drag a whole nation of honest people down the mud. We have a duty to let them know that enough is enough, and that they must not take our name and beloved country in vain.

Furthermore, we have witnessed the government of Nigeria declare a zero tolerance for 419 fraud scheme. I am sure that the Nigerian government is doing their best to stamp out this ugly business that paints the country black. However, it is also disconcerting that the government does not know the people whose phone numbers originating from Nigeria make the round in the 419 illegitimate business. Here in America and other countries, telephone companies issue phone numbers to people, therefore, has information as to who was assigned the unique numbers. It seems that this is the universal way that every telephone company operates. To tell the whole world that the government of Nigeria is unable to stamp out 419 telephone calls by tracking the users is mind bugging.

What bothers me the most is that these crooks do not understand the simple communication of disinterestedness in their game. I’ve tried to explain to the fools that I am not and will never join them in defrauding Nigeria even if such solicitation is genuine or is the only avenue to make ends meet. I tried to explain to one of the fools that I have never been awarded a government contract in Nigeria or have attempted to land one. That any over invoicing must be reported to the appropriate government entity. That intercontinental fraudulent money transfer constitutes money laundering. That conviction of such means being locked up in the prison. That Nigeria need all its money kept in the country for developmental purposes. That the progeny of their trade is transparent as such it takes a crook of equal status to partake in such uneventful business. To put it succinctly, I am not a crook.

How can these belief and feeling be communicated effectively to these crooks so that their dumb brain would comprehend? Perhaps, I should put on a Richard Nixon mask that I bought for the Halloween party, raise two fingers in victory sign and declare: I am not a crook. The 419ers should be advised that their game is at its wits' end. It is trite, an old hat. It can only entice the naïve, dense, dumb and the get rich quick like minds to succumb to such a big joke scheme.

In the final analysis and for the sake of argument, assuming that there is a surplus of budgetary funds from the so-called ministries or parastatals waiting to be exported, wouldn’t it make sense to be procryptic without getting others involved? Did Sani Abacha, Babangida, and others like them who looted Nigeria in the past call the whole world looking for their fax numbers or private bank accounts so that they would fill them with illegal money? If they were quaint in their trade, why would they want to share their loots? Their modus operandi defies common sense, which I honestly do not think they have and that makes them craven at best.

Obviously, these crooks have taken their trade to a new level. In the past, they adopted a system in which sweet but fallacious letters were faxed to businesses soliciting for their bank accounts for the purposes of transmitting ill gotten or presumed surplus budgetary funds from Nigeria into their "business" accounts. In this grand scheme, the impostors are ominous and avoid any kind of direct contacts. All that has changed, as they have become more desperate, dexterous and brazen. They have decided to make direct contact with their victims. By calling my telephone numbers, especially my cellular telephone number, they have imposed unnecessary and unwanted financial burden on me. Even though I have expressed lack of interest from day one, the impostors continued to call. Each time the cellular telephone rings, my minutes are activated so is the cost associated with the call. These people need to be stopped and by making direct phone calls, they have established tracking records for the law enforcement agents.

In light of the above mentioned, I declare the participants of 419s the dumbest of the dumb of the twenty-first century. They are as dumb as Osama bin Laden who miscalculated the American and the world’s resolve by killing more than three thousand people on September 11, 2001. Like Osama, the "419" Nigerian prank stars’ days are numbered as they would soon be smoked out of their caves to a final resting place - jail.

Sept 2002