Explaining The Truth [Scams]

I was scrolling through my mail when I saw one from Quora. The heading caught my attention as it was titled "why do so many email scams come from Nigeria". I eventually had to visit the site to read the article properly and although she tried explaining, her explanations were from an outsiders point of view. She did say that she was writing based off an explanation she go from another Nigerian so I'd say he didn't do the job of explaining properly.

First and foremost Nigeria is the country with Africa largest population with a hard-working, vibrant and loving people which is why you find our citizens in almost every country of the world trying to survive ( we're a well travelled people). Most of the problems we face has a lot to do with our economy. Nigeria is one of the largest exporters of crude oil ordinarily this should be putting us amongst the richest nations in the world but sadly the reverse is the case.

Deeply rooted corruption in the political sphere has affected other parts of the economy to such an extent that it's no longer news hearing that a public official embezzled public funds. What this has caused is a ripple effect to almost all other sectors of the economy as funds meant for public use are stolen causing a mountain of problems from poverty, bad roads, insecurity, unemployment amongst others.

These so called public officials are almost never prosecuted as they always bribe their way out of court cases. What this has caused is an intelligent young population who seek to better their lives but without any opportunities to grow, add poverty to the mix and you begin to breed intelligent criminals. The public officials already set the precedent where bribing is rooted in almost every sector, so these young Nigerians are now operating in a society where they can bribe their way out.

There was a time when cybercrimes were almost non-existent, but given the fact that many of the victims of these scams are foreigners. It has created a fertile ground for these criminals as even the deeply corrupt security agencies are understaffed, under equiped and lack the resources to properly perform intelligent investigations that could have stopped most of these crimes.

All of the above are not excuses for these crimes but to solve any problem you have to understand the reasons why the problem is in existence. Nigerians around the world are breaking barriers in various fields and this is because there is any enabling environment for them to grow. If government does it's job and provide the basics needed to properly survive, I believe most of these crimes will be a thing of the past.