It certainly will not be fair to say that Nigerians were the originators of the internet mail scam, but once all sugarcoating is done, they really have redefined it. Before the internet became widespread in Nigeria, phone scams were already very popular and many were quite unwary of it. My father once had a call about ten years ago and the caller introduced himself as one of the state's commissioners, had gotten my dad's number somehow, he said (and with directories very common, my dad didn't bother to ask exactly how). Enthusiastically, he announced he had a business deal for my father. And the deal was to supply barrels of palm wine for a conference which was to be held in Lagos. My father was unnaturally unsettled. The business was legitimate, the bargain was excellent, but he felt there was more yet than he could see. Had he not an innate distrust of people, he would have gone ahead with the deal. On second thought he announced to us that it was a scam, a "419" deal (the number 419 was contrived as a euphemism for graft, but today it has to become the informal name of the business). We applauded his perspicacity and drew lessons for ourselves from that event.

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