Fraudsters Abroad, Can Nigeria Change This Perception?

BY IMAGBUDU PAUL

It is a dent on our personality, and a disgrace to our nationality that Nigerians should easily be tagged fraudsters abroad.

And when they turn up for job opportunities, they are usually turned down because of that negative perception. It has also led to Nigerians being denied visas for important transactions.

A recent example is the Nigerian duo charged for over N13m fraud in Malaysia, as masterminds of the Macau Scam Syndicate.

There was also the case of an American lady that accused the popular singer Runtown and his brother of defrauding her of $128k and Mandy more others like that. , these are affecting the good Nigerians abroad.  Now the question is how can we change this perception?

Some Nigerians expresses their view.

For Bayo Osodayo a lecturer in ABUAD: It is generally perceived that Nigerians are rogues, robbers and fraudsters so you can’t change the concept now until the government changes the believe of Nigerians.

The reason why they engage in those acts is because of laziness and they believe they are smart (street wise) these people devotes their time and resources into this act maybe if they are given a chance they might change the world.

The security agencies are not helping matters they have to be up and doing when they apprehend a fraudster they ask to give them some percentage of the money which is not supposed to be.

That is why when this people leave to abroad them become criminals and this act is mostly done by the youth.

The government should at least create more job opportunities for theses ones so it can reduce the crime rate in the society. It is only God that can change the mind of the rulers to stop corruption and also erase the bad image we have given ourselves.

Well for me, says Sharon Oruari , although we say racism is over but I don’t really think it is so sometimes they believe when we (Nigerians) come to their country we want to defraud them of their properties.

But we have the good ones who are doing good but still everyone have their opinions.

So are you saying we should live with this dent image?

No obviously there are people who are trying and people who still misbehaves those who misbehaves would be apprehended and those are doing good would be praised.

For example a Nigerian invented the fastest computer, many Nigerian IT guys are doing great things in Bill Gates Company and so many others doing great things abroad. The world is is evolving and this perception would pass someday.

For Bolaji Oulwatosi-Talking about changing the dent image of Nigerians abroad  balls down to the government policies as they say “charity begins at home” so we should come up with some policies that will train them before going outside the country.

With this at least government can reduce or eradicate it as the case may be but it is going to take a lot of work and dedication from government.

When we go abroad we Nigerians abiding to their rules even from the airport where we have to stay on the line and follow the proper procedures but here in Nigeria we try to boycott all of this process. That was why I said “charity begins at home”.

We need to change our orientation even from the young ones and to the journalist I think the minister of information and the brand makers can help to because sometimes we write and project bad ideas about ourselves to the general public and it will place a wrong impression in their minds.

Late professor Dora Akunyili started a campaign to re-brand the media and the country to begin to say good things about our country And the people of Nigeria.

The summary of what I am passing across is that we can start this campaign of changing this perception from home.

The government thanking the necessary efforts through the security policy, education policy, economic policy with this I think we are good to go a change can occur.