I must sincerely apologize to my readers, I've been swamped with a ton of work and offline duties and I have been piling posts up. Shall we begin.

It is what it is

The first truth we must accept is that scammers are everywhere and not localized to only a particular region and with that in mind, I can continue. However, since I've not been everywhere, I'll focus on the main place I've been which is here.

When I write, I don't hold back, neither am I a sentimental being. I speak the truth as ugly as it is. So, a few hours ago, the Ghanaian government deported some Nigerians. The Ghanian government met a lot of criticisms and while others were ranting, I was more concerned with the truth of the matter.

Turns out, they weren't deporting because of hatred, but because the people were illegal immigrants (first but minor offense) who were constituting a nuisance. They were into prostitution, drugs and the remaining majority were into cybercrime.

Now, any sane person knows that there is something known as immigration laws. You can't just wake up amd enter one person's country without proper documentation and even though we can ignore that, when you decide to become a nuisance, then you deserve whatever sanctions you are hit with.

I have told people, if we're to move forward, then we must remove tribal, religious and whatever sentiments. Now the main aim of this post isn't to talk about the Ghanaian government's action and why it is right and legal, the main aim is to dissect why a scam, no matter the reason or excuse given for committing it, is still in fact a crime.

Is it ever justifiable or just bullshit?

Truth is I'll tell you it is just bull shit and I'll tell you why.

The first excuse: No jobs

While any other individual might be tempted to sympathize with such a story, I'll tell you why that is just a front.

Lack of jobs doesn't automatically translate to lack of legitimate ideas or a lack of entrepreneurs. You see, growing up, my dad taught us one valuable lesson: a bad workman blames his tool. When you're incapable of understanding how a system works, you'll outright accuse it of not working.

That was me trying to be subtle, now let me go defcon. The first question I always ask is how many of them have actually written a job application? How many job applications in total were they rejected? Are they qualified for the desired position(s)? How many have the prerequisites to apply for a basic job(O level and a degree)? How many of them have tried and failed at entrepreneurship? How many of them want to even work in the first place? When you get the genuine answers and check the statistics, you'll have your answer.

Second reason: Tough economy/corrupt leaders
This particular one intrigues me and here's why... when we blame the economy for committing crimes, the question is how many of them have ever tried to genuinely invest in the economy...lol

See, the lies are just to make their conscience feel at ease. You defraud someone online, you go to the club and pop bottles, buy cars, womanize, party more and repeat the cycle. Now, if you truly care about "the ecobomy" how many have invested in things? There lies the stupidity in this excuse.

Let's talk about how they blame the corrupt politicians and show outright corruption and insist that the corrupt politicians be booked first. Here lies the difference, the politicians don't use dating scams, false job availability and the usual tatics to defraud, they use the stroke of a pen guided by legal and political loopholes. That doesn't make them lesser thieves, it only means they're booked for a different crime.

Third reason: Trying to get "pay back" for slavery.
I know quite a few people who get as irritated as myself when this comes up. Some internet fraudsters will say they're collecting "what was stolen by the white man." The first question I want to ask is this: Are we aware that black men sold their kin to the whites? But let's not digress into slave trade, let's focus on what this question hopes to solve.

"If" (a very big if) any money was stolen in any form from Africa, then our leaders gave it out or stashed the loot there and secondly such money is stored in banks and other related financial institutions and not in the accounts of honest tax payers abroad who are decieved either by false pretense or fetish means into parting with their money. So, how does that excuse hold ground?

Closing it

Now, the last point mentioned, let me build on it a little bit, if it was a "pay back" scheme, what about citizens of the same country as the fraudsters who were also defrauded? Were they also slave traders?

Imagine receiving a text message saying my bank account has been suspended and I have to call a number (lmao) to unblock. If you dare call that number, two things are bound to happen.

They will ask for your bvn, atm details and other related account details and end up making unlawful deductions not sanctioned by any bank in the first place. Perhaps I am a slave trader or corrupt politician.
They will hook you with fetish means.

Worse still, what about the lives and destinies of innocent people (especially ladies) that had to be sacrificed to make that money? Were they slave traders or corrupt politicians too? All they were guilty of was either trust or love.

Most people have been fooled by Instagram which gives false sense of wanting to belong, these people don't want to work, they don't want to take their time to build, they want to skip that phase and simply reap the harvest they didn't plant in the first place. You read about people buying the latest Rolls Royce and spending on lavish parties and gadgets and related machineries and they just want to be that person without even realizing the effort and hardwork the person put into actualizing that dream.

Worse still, they now negatively influence the younger generation by making them feel that is the right way to do things. They make them feel trapped and hopeless and bait them with the get rich quick lifestyle by telling them to get a laptop and a smartphone and start "working"

This has badly affected the reputation of the good guys, the hardworking people among us. Imagine how difficult it is to earn trust simply because of a person's nationality. I proudly wear my nationality like a badge, because I know there are some of us who believe in the joys of legitimate hardwork. Truthfully, it's hard to explain to the cops over here what I'm into since criminal elements are using cryptocurrency as an escape route.

Imagine having difficulty despite it not being illegal here, well we will win this battle. This is one of the things the Steem(IT) In Nigeria annual conference aims at tackling. We will get there.