Bad Place to Visit, Wouldn't Want To Live There

Repost from the old site. This article has produced a tremendous amount of controversy, angry comments, and even, oddly enough, virulent hate mail. I guess I hit some raw nerves. I stand by my comments that these cities are some of the worst in the world, and, in doing further research on the Net, have found only further support for my thesis. Some of these cities, such as Bogotá, for instance, have large wealthy districts that are apparently quite pleasant. If one is rich, one can make a nice life just about anywhere on the globe. But this is not important – what is important is how the majority live. The title is a play on the line, “Nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there”, said about many less-than-desirable tourist locales. This post is about the worst places on Earth to visit, and probably to live too. The ratings were based on research done on the Internet in various places, including here and here. I’m going to focus on the places that are dirty, smelly, crime-ridden, trashy, rip-off havens, unsanitary and dangerous (Third World), and avoid places that are merely depressing, unsightly, rude, etc. (First World). Why? Because I live in the US, and those Third World qualities are going to be the most disturbing to me. I’m also avoiding active war zones because everyone knows they are horrible. To be fair to the “Third Worldists” out there, I noted that many people slammed various places in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Finland, South Korea, Ireland Italy, the US, Great Britain and Australia for various reasons, mostly because they are said to be unfriendly, depressing, tacky, cheesy, boring, etc. Detroit seemed to top the list as worst US city, along with Newark (though it had one fan), East St. Louis and New Haven (though some liked New Haven) were runners-up. Various small towns in the Rockies (especially Idaho) and Texas also were listed. For some reason, a lot of people hate Vancouver, BC in Canada. To my thinking, many of the horrible cities below point out the catastrophe of Latin American, Indian, Indonesian and Philippine capitalism. In much of Africa, capitalism doesn’t seem to working very well. For all its faults, impoverished Cuba certainly does not resemble any of these Latin American hellholes in any way, shape or form. I don’t think that capitalism in the First World is failing, but looking at many of the cities below, it’s hard to argue that capitalism is doing anything but failing in those places. Some of the winners in the Loser Destination Contest: Colon, Panama: A dirty, crime-ridden disaster of a city. The most dangerous city in Latin America, full of residents who seem like they would just as soon knife you as say hello. Other than the free trade zone, the entire city seems to be sprawling slum. Colon has no redeeming qualities. This city topped many worst lists. Guayaquil and Quito, Ecuador: Guayaquil is horrible. A stinking, steaming, downright dangerous heap of a city with miles of slums. With armies of glowering gang members, this place is dangerous even in mid-day. There are garbage dumps everywhere with corpses laying out in plain sight and guns going off all the time. Quito is similar. Guayaquil topped many worst city lists. Johannesburg, South Africa: How sad that this country now has one of the worst violent crime rates on Earth. Although popular with tourists, this city is downright dangerous. This city also topped many worst lists. This blog supports the Mandela government, but the problems of this tragic nation seem insurmountable. ***** Lagos, Nigeria, or the whole country: This city, and even the whole country, seems to top everyone’s list. Garbage is everywhere, the city stinks, the poverty is horrible, animals are slaughtered on the streets, and it seems that at least half the population wakes up every morning thinking, “Who can I rip off today?” Up to 9 Nigeria has what must be the worst government on Earth and the country is rated the second most corrupt on Earth. The national airlines are dangerous and not recommended. The ripoff attempts often start as soon as you land at the airport and won’t let up until you leave. It’s best to assume that most, if not all, Nigerians you meet in Lagos are out to rip you off in some way or another and then proceed from there. The city is full of impostors, and you really do not know if anyone is really who they say they are. The police and Customs officials are all crooks and so is 9 Most bank and post office employees are also crooked. Imagine waiting in line at the post office, and a group of swaggering gangsters with fake ID’s strut in to pick up their stolen goods reshipped from overseas. They go straight to the front of the line ahead of everyone else, pick up their stolen property, and walk away laughing, having paid off the Post Office clerks. Welcome to Nigeria. There are Internet cafes all over the city, where 150,000 full-time Internet scammers ply their trade in plain view of anyone to see, and the government doesn’t bat an eye or lift one finger to stop them. In many cafes, 8 The scammers started out with the famous 419 email scams but have now branched out into lottery, romance, auction, roommate, orphanage and check-cashing scams. The scams are continuously evolving, and Nigerian con artists are widely acknowledged to be some of the best in the world, as they have been practicing the art for decades now. On highways outside of Lagos, you can see numerous vehicles wrecked on the side of the road, or even in the middle of the road, some with dead bodies still in them or beside them. Thieves pick through the wreckage and rifle the corpses looking for stuff to steal. All of the roads are dangerous, as armed robbers often set up roadblocks to shake down travelers. Nigeria is now a world center for counterfeit pharmaceuticals, credit card fraud and drug dealing, and a district of Lagos, Oluwole, is now a world center for top-notch forgery. The FBI and the US Merchant Risk Council recently came to Nigeria and inspected 40 packages coming into the country from the US to check for stolen goods. 39 of the 40 packages contained stolen property. When the agents arrived at a Lagos neighborhood and tried to arrest an 18-year-old boy for reshipping scams that targeted US merchants, much of the neighborhood – up to 100 people – rushed out of their homes to defend the local punk from Big Bad Whitey. Although the country is awash in oil, the power goes out all the time because the government power company is so crooked. The power company has either stolen all of its own budget money or the power comes in, but the crooked company resells it on the side. As with elsewhere in Africa, Whitey is blamed for all the troubles here. Hatred of Whitey is higher in Nigeria than in much of the rest of Black Africa and the White visitor will definitely feel it. The degeneration of Nigerian society is complete, and the culture appears near collapse. Mobs lynch thieves in the street and kill them in public for as meager a crime as stealing a cellphone, yet crime rages on anyway. Anyone can just up and say they own your house, put it on the market and sell it and you are out a house. Law enforcement, courts and anything resembling government seem to be nonexistent. ****** ****** Lima, Peru: When they tell you to visit Peru, they don’t mean the nightmarish capital. There are teeming slums as far as the eye can see, horrible crime (although not a lot of violent crime), pickpockets everywhere, and on top of all that, the sun never comes out. The fog mixes with the smog and the filthy streets to make a toxic brew. Lima made many worst lists. But it has its fans, and the upscale Miraflores district is said to be nice. The execrable Shining Path took up their nihilistic, deranged war in this country for a reason – because Peru is a rotten heap of a country. ****** ****** Medan (Sumatra), Jakarta, Surabaya, Indonesia: Jakarta is a reeking city with terrible pollution, open sewers and wrenching poverty. Medan seemed to top many lists for worst city on Earth, though it has a few fans. It’s hot, dirty and polluted, with factories, thieves and leering, menacing men everywhere. There is also nowhere to stay, not that you would want to stay anyway. Besides Medan, the rest of Sumatra is much better. The river running through Surabaya is so polluted you might vomit walking across the bridge. As you suppress your gag reflex, you will look down and notice that people are actually washing their clothes in this river. ***** ***** Mumbai, Patna (Bihar), Calcutta, all large Indian cities, India: Indian cities are very dirty and teeming with some of the most miserably poor and wretched people you will ever see, but at least there is not a lot of crime. The Hindu religion keeps crime down because believers fear they will be punished by returning in the next life as something terrible, like one of the huge rats you see scurrying about. Mumbai has pollution that is so bad that people actually get lung cancer from breathing the air. Mumbai, a stinking and sometimes dangerous city, made many worst city lists. Patna is the sorry capital of Bihar, the poorest state in India. It’s dirty and miserable, and it’s almost impossible to even get a taxi to get you out of town, which means it’s hard to leave the place. Calcutta is generally agreed to be one of the worst cities in India. ***** Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenyang, China: Deadly pollution, mostly from coal. Bucharest, all of Romania: Stalinist pollution covers the whole country and everyone seems depressed. Bali (in particular Kuta Beach), Indonesia: Hopes so high, reality so low. It seems everyone is out to rip you off. Surly locals hungry for money. Dangerous roads, nightmarish traffic, rude, leering men. When it rains, the sewers flood into the streets. Very high crime rate, hustlers everywhere. Most of the rest of Indonesia is pretty nice. Kuta is a tourist trap gone to Hell. **** Manila, Philippines: A crime-ridden hellhole. There are armed guards everywhere, especially in front of banks due to constant bank robberies. Their nemeses, criminal gangs armed to the teeth, roam streets filled with prostitutes and transvestites. It’s a town where everyone seems like they are out to rip you off in one way or other, and the hotel workers and cab drivers are all crooked. The latest advice is to have your Filipino friend meet you at the airport and head straight to their place, thereby avoiding all the ripoffs and con artists that seem to descend on every tourist. Traffic is horrible, and pollution is so bad it kills people. But some people don’t mind it. **** Gdansk, Poland: Combine a high crime rate and daylight robberies with totally crooked, thieving officials, and you get this Polish city. However, a number of others said it’s just fine. **** Mexico City, Villahermosa, Mexico: Mexico City is a dirty, polluted city suffering an insane, surreal epidemic of street crime, especially violent crime. Add 20 million people, stir well, bring to a boil, cover with a lid of otherworldly smog, and simmer. Reportedly, tons of human waste are blown into the air every day, and much of the population has constant respiratory infections. The sewer system is reportedly above ground and more or less runs through lots of neighborhoods where many people are residing. Villahermosa is a Mad Max-style, violent, crime-ridden disgrace of a city. There are stabbings and shootings galore here, even with a 10 PM curfew in place. ***** Tangier, Morocco: This is a dangerous place with lots of street crime. That’s unusual for a North African country, but Tangier is so close to Europe that it is almost a part of Europe. ***** Cairo, Egypt: Cairo has horrible pollution, smells terrible, there is trash everywhere, nothing works, there are armies of miserably poor people and it boasts some outrageously awful traffic. In the souks there are huge rats and wild, mangy scavenging dogs running about in plain sight. There seems no escape from aggressive, pestering hawkers. On top of all that, all the Customs officials are criminals. The crime rate is fairly low, though. Thank President Hosni Mubarak. 25 years ago, Cairo was one of the great world cities. ***** Bangkok, Thailand: This gigantic city has pollution so bad you need to wear a mask over your face. However, some folks like this city and say it has many positive attributes. ***** Brindisi, Naples, Italy: No one seems to like Brindisi. It’s a sad, dirty, polluted and ugly city, with hostile, brawling, drunken locals, hungry stray dogs, belligerent drivers, horrible traffic, and miles of soul-killing tenements. You would think that despite all of that, being genuine Italians, they could still manage to make a decent pizza. Forget it: even the pizza is terrible. Brindisi topped many worst lists, although it has a couple of fans. I had never even heard of Brindisi and had to look it up on a map. It’s located in southern Italy on the East Coast, southeast of Naples. Naples has a great deal of crime, and many think this city is overrated as a tourist destination, although others say that, despite the drawbacks, it has its joys. All of southern Italy has a lot of crime, but it’s mostly property crime. ***** ***** Athens, Piraeus, or the whole country, Greece: Greece, especially Athens, gets mixed reviews. A lot of people really hate Athens; others don’t. The detractors say the city is dirty, ugly, depressing, polluted, and covered with garbage and traffic. I was surprised that Athens made the list, as I had always thought it was a wonderful city. The port city of Piraeus is a nasty place. The whole city smells like a giant sewage treatment plant, and the ocean offshore has a sickening color to it. ***** **** Suburbs of Paris, France: These tragic towns, full of hostile Arab immigrants angrily refusing to assimilate to French culture or join French society, are a sign that the French model is not working well, at least for some folks. There is a terribly high crime rate here, and cops and firemen often won’t go there because they get attacked as soon as they show up. These mournful towns are packed with angry, unemployed young Arab men who like to seriously riot every year or so, or even more often if the mood strikes them. Lately, they have been staging mini-riots every night. If only 100 cars are burned, that’s a good night. Otherwise, Paris, of course, is one of the world’s great cities. But that doesn’t mean you might not walk into a subway station reeking of urine and see junkies shooting up in plain sight. But still, Paris is a must on any serious travelers’ list. ****** Brussels, Belgium: As with Paris, the districts with many Arab immigrants are quite dangerous and unpleasant, but the rest of the city is as nice as any big city. Abidjan, Ivory Coast: With one of the worst crime rates in Africa (although it has plenty of competition), this city topped many worst lists. ***** Bangui, Central African Republic: One of the worst cities in Africa, as bad as Lagos. The crime rate is totally insane. The locals will try to steal everything you own and even a contingent of armed guards will not be enough to protect you. Your hotel room will feel like a war zone. This fiendish city made a number of worst city lists. Lonely Planet’s guidebook more or less tells you to avoid this city altogether. Here is a harrowing report of a visit to Bangui. ***** Bamako, Mali: Mali has one of the worst governments in Africa, admittedly a race with a lot of competition. Bamako is a sick joke of a town, where the tourist surcharge is rigorously enforced, and the ridiculous, potholed streets are undriveable by any vehicle. Guatemala City, Guatemala: A totally dangerous, dirty, polluted, terminal patient of a city, full of scary, heavily armed teenage soldiers. The soldiers are there to keep the teeming, crime-ridden slums that stretch as far as the eye can see, from overrunning the place. But this city has a few fans. Belize City, Belize: This sweltering, miserable, impoverished, crime-ridden, very dangerous city is built on a swamp, with a jungle for a backyard. The beggars are aggressive and even menacing, and shady characters shadow you on the streets as you walk about. Cops are nowhere to be seen. This is one of the worst cities in the Americas. But the rest of the country is a great place to vacation. ***** Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Sao Paulo is the industrial engine of Brazil. This major city is full of garbage and very dangerous. There are hustlers as far as the eye can see, chaotic streets that render maps useless, not enough cops and Godawful traffic. Rio de Janeiro, the popular tourist destination with the killer skyline perfect for any postcard, is a deceptive place. It’s a very dangerous city with lots of violent crime. Street gangs armed to the teeth regularly shoot it out in military-style wars with the cops. Death squads of off-duty cops funded by local businessmen roam the streets at night, murdering homeless, drug-addicted street kids and petty criminals with impunity in a sickening “social cleanup” campaign. There are pickpockets and muggers all about, often in menacing, youthful gangs (especially on the famous beach) and they frequently operate in broad daylight. A dystopian horrorshow of a city. ****** Nairobi, Kenya: Unfortunately, this city is seriously crime-ridden. Even locals admit that violent crime has reached catastrophic proportions. Caracas, Barquisimeto, or the whole country, Venezuela: The crime is very bad here, sadly, and there is garbage everywhere you look. This blog supports Hugo Chavez, but crime in Venezuela is a tragic, long-standing problem with no quick fixes. Guinea-Bissau: There is no water, no electricity, no place to stay, and the only hotel is half-demolished. San‘a’, Yemen: In a Dickensenian touch, children are actually chained up here in order to beg! Moynaq and Nukus, Uzbekistan: These two cities broiling in a merciless desert have been ruined and turned into ecological dead zones by Stalinist pollution. ***** San Pedro Sulu, Honduras: This sad town has a horrible amount of crime. Swarms of locals will attack you on the bus, trying to steal your luggage. You will have to fight them off if you wish to retain your suitcase. Like the rest of this wreck of a country, it’s full of US gang members gone home to Honduras. People here are very poor and desperate. If you can make it to the nice part of town and afford to stay there, though, you can be quite safe. ***** ***** Dakar, Senegal: According to some, this large West African city has horrible street crime – it is very dangerous. They say if you don’t have armed guards with you, don’t even go outside your hotel room. However, others report that they spent a week there and found it to be safe, in fact safer than many American cities. Violent crime is reportedly rare, and the country is one of the most stable in Africa, and has been that way since independence. ***** Port Au Prince, Haiti: This filthy, degraded, extremely dangerous and desperately poor mess of a city is best avoided at all costs. It sports open sewers, enslaved children, riots, killings and lots of other fun things. This blog did support President Aristide’s efforts to improve the tragedy of a nation called Haiti. Lome, Togo: Criminals are as common as mosquitoes here, walking around fearlessly in broad daylight in this terrible city full of miserable people and crooked taxi drivers. ***** Istanbul, Turkey: The 20 The rest of the country is a great place to visit, has many fans and is one of the world’s top tourist destinations. Best bet for Turkey is just to head to the tourist spots and blow off Istanbul altogether. ***** Phnom Penh, Kampuchea: This city has become a very dangerous, crime-ridden place. The gangs of little girl prostitutes add a particularly poignant touch. ***** Bogotá, Colombia or really the whole country: Bogotá is one of the most dangerous places in the Americas but there seems to be agreement that Colon, Lima and Guayaquil are worse. Really, all of Colombia is dangerous as Hell, to be honest. This comment about Bogotá was recently rebutted by a Bogotán blogger, with more comments here. His post aggressively taking issue with this entry is in Spanish, but my Spanish is good enough to get the gist of it. Also I am getting a lot of comments coming in from Bogotáns on the Internet aggressively objecting to the content. The sole issue that these Defenders of Bogotá are taking issue with is my contention that the city is a very dangerous place. To be honest, Bogotá used to have a truly horrible reputation for crime, but in recent years, there has been a huge effort put into cracking down on street crime. For some more agreement that Bogota is dangerous, see Bogotá is scopolamine. This drug is used by crooks to disable their victims so they can rip them off. It is sprayed in the face, dumped in your drink or spiked into a cigarette. Bogotá hospitals receive an incredible 2,000 scopolamine victims every month, or an astounding 66 a day. The drug knocks you out and can cause medical problems. Colombia has one of the world’s worst road systems. Many roads are not even marked. Drivers are reckless and many cars don’t have headlights at night. Cows have a tendency to wander into the road. Taxis are totally dangerous and are best avoided, if possible. Women are advised to avoid all taxis at night. Anyone is advised to avoid any taxi that already has someone in it. In many cases, this is a criminal accomplice of the thuggish driver. In addition to getting scopolamine sprayed in your face, another popular scam is the “jump-start”: you are told that the taxi has stalled and asked to get out and help push. As you do so, the taxi driver leaves with your luggage. Buses are also best avoided. Thieves haunt the buses, waiting for you to fall asleep, at which point, they rip you off. Certain bus lines are frequented by thieves offering drugged gum, sweets, food and cigarettes. After the drug knocks you out, they rob you blind. In addition to theft and druggings, kidnapping and extortion are also rife on buses. In view of all of the above, it is nothing short of amazing that all of these Colombians are angrily protesting my characterization of their country as dangerous. Or perhaps they doth protest too much? ***** Managua, Nicaragua: This dirty, crime-ridden, dangerous disaster of a city has a bombed-out look about it. This blog supports Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista Party and prays that they can ameliorate this mess. ***** San Salvador, El Salvador: See Managua. Full of dangerous former LA gang members. Death squads roam the streets, slaughtering gangsters by the dozen, but for every one you kill, it seems five more pop up in his place. This blog supports the FMLN’s efforts to reform this ruined land, but the crime here has become so terrible, one wonders if anything short of an act of God could make things better. In fact, I used to make contributions too the FMLN’s weapons fund via an FMLN agent in Los Angeles during the 1980’s. ***** ***** Detroit, New Haven, Newark, Gary (Indiana), Hammond (Indiana), USA: Detroit topped all lists as the worst city in the US. An ugly, dangerous, depressing and filthy city with a downtown that looks like a war zone – a despairing district surrounded by miles of crumbling, abandoned industrial buildings, torn-down fences and rusting cars. Newark is similar, with few to no redeeming qualities. It’s a frightening, polluted city with a postwar look of miles of weedy, trash-strewn vacant lots where crumbling apartment buildings have been torn down. It’s also a dangerous city with a high crime rate. New Haven, despite the presence of Yale University, is similar. There are legions of homeless, begging drug users clogging the streets, and the crime rate is very high due to hordes of crack-dealing gangs shooting it out on the streets. Congress and Columbus Avenues are notorious for drive-by shootings, drug dealing and muggings. It is reportedly the HIV capital of the East Coast due to IV drug use. A lot of the more respectable people have been moving out for some time now. Although much of the city is quite ugly, New Haven does have its bright spots, thanks to Yale. There are nice parts of town, parks, trees, etc. Gary is yet another postindustrial Rust Belt train wreck of a town. A grimy town full of abandoned factories, overgrown lots, rusting fences, graffiti, barred windows and vomit. Go downtown and see tall buildings all boarded up, with no vehicles in sight and unhinged stoplights swaying in the wind – for all practical purposes, a ghost town. This was once a vibrant, working-class city, and now it looks like Road Warrior. Hammond is similar, a suicidally depressing city lined with shuttered factories on the shores of Lake Michigan. Yet another Rust Belt post-industrial ruin. ***** Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: A collapsing, dirty, crime-ridden hellhole. Osaka, Japan: I never would have thought that this city would make the list but according to my friend Tumerica, she says it is the worst city she has ever lived in. I tagged her with the title of this story. In blogging, tagging mean you are supposed to write on the topic – kind of like, “Tag, you’re it.” I will let her explain why Osaka is such a crappy place in her post here.

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147 thoughts on “Bad Place to Visit, Wouldn't Want To Live There”

  1. I made the rounds of the web and listed the cities that made travelers’ Worst City list, then I just recorded them, so it’s not so much my opinion as that of others. Athens came up over and over, so I listed it. My Mom was in Athens and she said it’s dirty! Dirty and trashy. Trash everywhere. But she said all of Greece is sort of like that. It’s a great city, but that was a common complaint.
    I’ve been on Skyscraper City today as per your suggestion. I think that White preservationist who linked to a South African city and said that this is what happens when non-Whites take over a city is just wrong. For one, I found that Arab and North African cities are quite clean, as are Iranian and Azeri cities. A friend said that Muslims hate uncleanness, so Muslim cities often are clean and lacking in litter. One beef I have against Blacks is that they litter. Mexicans too.
    I also checked out Latin American cities and they were pretty clean too. The Spaniards imported some civilization there. At least there was not garbage strewn everywhere. And in SE Asia, those Asians do not throw trash and garbage everywhere. Nor do they Chinese. Asians generally use trash cans.
    Even in the Caribbean, which is heavily Black and mulatto, the cities seemed fairly clean, or at least there wasn’t trash and rotting garbage everywhere. Caribbean cities look sort of decayed, but that is because they are built in a rain forest and the elements are always trying to rain and mold everything away.
    I do not think that African Blacks are really capable of running modern cities. American Blacks are vastly more intelligent and can run a city much better than Africans do. I think this goes beyond brains. What is it with Blacks and trash? They just don’t care? It’s too much bother to find a trash can?
    Islam is good in a lot of ways. Muslim cities are clean and relatively non chaotic. They also often have little crime. Even Blacks seem to do a lot better under Islam. There are Black Islamic cities in Africa that have way less crime and chaos than the non-Muslim cities do. Islam creates some very strong rules to order your life by, and while it’s not for me, a lot of folks need those kind of rules to make a workable society.
    I don’t mind Turks all that much. I have known a couple of them. The ones I knew were very intelligent, spoke more than one language, and one was very liberal. Both were secular. They were both way more educated and literate than the average bonehead American. They had a “Europeanness” in them that I liked. And the woman acts like a real woman, feminine. The guy is a real masculine guy. That’s cool. Western sex roles are getting so fucked up.

  2. You are a classic case of the worst type of “arm chair scholars”; you just sit there and google all your ‘facts’. Nigeria has leadership issues, just like any other country, just like your country. We do not hate whiteys; you guys are just plain scared of telling the truth (that is if you can discern what the truth is). Expatriates enjoy all d benefits that citizens only dream of…but that does not make us hate them (nor does it push us to suicide). It makes us work harder, longer hours trying to better our lives.
    Lagos is a metropolis, a city that does not sleep. Real people, hardworking people abound…but then, there are hustlers and the current Lagos State government has put great measures in place. Your description of Lagos is so full of hatred and disgust. A city that I do not think you have even visited before.

    1. Your city is a sewer. Your government has done nothing. I think 50% of the population are dirty, evil scummy criminals. You have Internet cafes where people sit in broad daylight 24-7 and do nothing but try to steal from Westerners. Your country is the World Epicenter or fraud, cheating, lying, and theft. Nigeria does not even deserve the honor of being a part of this planet.
      I know you only too well. I have been dealing with you Nigerians for years now!

    2. Robert Lindsay,I agree that you are an arm-chair scholar…..you have been dealing with Nigerians who are crooked doesn’t make the entire population crooked.We have fraudsters even in your country,doesn’t make us think you are all fraudsters does it?
      You speak with such ignorance its a wonder you’re published,if you want to speak then you should have all your facts right and stop shooting from the hip ok? You owe it to yourself for credibility if nothing else

    3. there no point in trying to defend yourself and your Nigeria. Ask 100 people what they think about Nigeria. 90 people will tell that it’s trash. Sorry, no i’m not sorry, but you should fell sorry for your country because everything being said here is true. If your country is on the news every day it’s because it’s being advertised to tourists, it’s warning people not to go there. Go make a difference in your country and then come back and post.

  3. Interesting write-up. Sounds like you forgot ‘The law of attraction’. How come you attract the evil Nigerians only? You probably attract the evil of all races.
    I work with a couple of expatriates. Think you should speak to them and ask them what they are still doing here. I can’t imagine that my American MD would choose hell as an abode for three years.
    Summary: Check your facts!!!

  4. As regards your response to “olusholaaromokun”, you really took things out of proportion. He was trying to tell you there’s a good side to Nigeria and you ended up screaming “fuck you” like a kid who’s just learning to swear.
    While I agree with a lot of, if not most of the points you made in your post, it is absolutely wrong to generalise and assume every Nigerian is a criminal.
    Grow up son, and try to reply with a clear head if you must.

  5. e: Nigeria. Obviously ds is personal for you..lets have your experience(s).. We are a country of bout 150million peeps..u sayin over 75million nigerians r criminals??? U earn $12,000pa.. I’m an average nigerian wit only 3yrs work experience & I can afford to pay you..that shows we r growin..No? your banks are in trouble for sharp pratices on way or d other, No? We are not bailing out our banks, are we? They holdin their own internationally..lets not even talk about how u ‘whiteys’ fuel & benefit frm some of our issues..heard about d erricson or is it seimens bribery stuff? I learnt ds in a nigerian school..’both d giver & reciever of bribes r guilty’.. U stated some facts correctly..most u grossly exaggerated while or are false..

  6. @Robert isn’t that a generalization? i doubt seriously the last poster has said anything that requires you being this vitriolic to him. granted, there are people who do nothing but try to rip off Westerners. but what percentage of people even have access to the internet in Nigeria? you make a lot of generalizations concerning the people of Nigeria. i guess we should be flattered that you dedicated so much of your blog post to our lil’ ol’ country. if you had to live the way so many Nigerians have to live, maybe you’d do worse than they.

  7. BTW..Lets have ur twitter/facebook ID and throw ds open for discussion witout ‘moderation’ or is it ‘one-way censorship’.. Wat do u say?

  8. Robert,
    I WAS going to post a comment about this post… then I read ur last replies to the comments and realized, you’re vile. You’re opinions are disgusting, and continuously telling a commenter ‘Fuck you’ is not exactly intelligent commentary. Do you always make blanket assessments of an entire nation based on a few people and pictures? I thought you were a researcher?
    I have been dealing with you Nigerian pieces of shit for years now! Let me guess, you got scammed right? No need to be bitter. Happens to the best of us (okay, no it doesn’t). You sit in your room, go on Google then come on here to spew nonsense because you happen to have been born in a developed country. Come on, admit, you’ve never been to Lagos.
    K, I just read your comments policy. And this line interested me
    This blog supports Christian values. Christian values demand that one should fight clean, like a gentleman. This applies to debates. In debates, a Christian holds his temper, treats opponents civilly, and follows the rules of gentlemanly debate.
    Does a ‘Christian’ abuse other commenters? Or are you one of those people who applies Chrisitianity when it suits you? I also noticed that you don’t allow everything I wanted to say to you. For you to have made that law, I must no be alone in thinking this of you. Popular opinion can’t be wrong, maybe you ARE a bigoted, shitty writer with bad ideas and a sense of elitism. But if you want only comments that agree with you and praise you, I hate to be one of MANY that will disappoint you today.

  9. Robert,
    There’s no need to get personal and or insultive about this.
    I think your submissions about a lot of these cities is not only harsh but also unfair seeing as you’ve never been to these places before.
    You’ve beat Lagos and Nigeria as a whole with a big stick, even providing statistics. How do you come up with statistics like 150,000 full time internet scammers? You’ve never been there.
    There are loads of stand up, hard working people in Lagos and in the rest of Nigeria. Yes, there are scammers but there are scammers everywhere.
    Your perception of Lagos and Nigeria is based entirely on hearsay.
    If it’s so bad, why would Wesley Snipes come around often? What about Danny Glover? Why would Akon, Nelly, Beyonce, Jay Z, Wyclef, Busta Rhymes, 50 Cent, just to name a few, come out here and perform concerts?
    Why would Kirk Franklin, CeCe Winans, Lionel Petersen, Bishop T.D Jakes and lots of other minsters from the US and around the globe come out here year after year?
    There may be some truth to the things you’ve listed but even those are blown way out of proportion.

  10. 50%. I see we’ve made progress. According to this report: http://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreport/2008_IC3Report.pdf (A 2008 report by the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is a partnership between the FBI and America’s National White Collar Crime Center), Your country (I’m assuming you are American) is responsible for up to 66% of all scams that are generated daily and Nigeria is only responsible for about 7%. That tells me that Americans have only succeeded in shifting blame to/on another country (as usual).
    You say people sit in internet cafes trying to steal from westerners? Westerners have been robbing the world blind (check the current Global Crisis), westerners are lazy and feeding fat on other people’s sweat…but that is no justification for the advance fee fraud that Nigeria is now known for. We have leadership issues quite alright(thieving, lying, murdering leaders in connivance with American and European businessmen) and your ‘international watch dog’ government could intervene, but the last time I checked…you people still ‘need’ our crude oil…so there is no actual emergency yet?
    Now, my friend maybe only a few of my country men are dirty? I’m thinking 15%

  11. To be honest, with regards to your summations on Nigeria, I believe that your conclusions are based on outsourced information, you lack the authority to put the nail in the coffin and as such should keep your opinions to yourself. You are an arm chair scholar. What crime scene investigator operates from the confines of his office?!
    With you concluding on Nigeria being the worst government on earth, I beg to differ. With the drama that occurred during the bush v al gore election in 2000, and the obvious revelations concerning the election being rigged in america, are you in a position to judge another country when that with you reside in is riddled with corruption?
    Corruption as a word is the decomposition of recently-living matter,the dysfunction of a political system or institution in which government officials, political officials or employees seek illegitimate personal gain through actions such as bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement.is a specific form of rent seeking (not to be confused with property rental), where access to politics is restricted by limited transparency, limited competition and domination of narrow interests,the abuse of power by corporate managers against shareholders or consumers. Let’s get one thing straight. Has this definition not summarized everything that america embodies , from the creation of the federal reserve by a group of elite bankers i.e the rockefellers, the morgans,the warburgs, the rothschilds who single-handedly manipulated the system to suit their selfish interests ,with even Woodrow Wilson who was appointed president after years of the so-called banking elites’ manipulation of the system to place him in the presidential sit being forced to proclaim in 1919, “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great nation is now controlled by it’s system of credit. We are no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men”!, promising stability and then manipulating the financial system leading to bankruptcy and collapse of institutions, thus leading to monopoly of by the small group of elite bankers?! Was there not the establishment of the federal reserve act and the federal income tax bills in 1913 which obviously takes advantage of the ignorance of the dumbed-down and oblivious state of the american citizens knowing fully well that those bills are completely unconstitutional as it is a direct unapportioned tax since all taxes have to be apportioned to be legal based on constitution? Was the entire number of of states required to meet the bill met before it was passed?! Americans at present day contribute roughly 35% of their wages yearly as income tax i.e 4months of hard earned money goes to pay the interest on the money being produced by the fraudulent federal reserve bank, with not even a cent going to any governmental program instead it goes into the pockets of the international bankers who own the private federal reserve bank.
    Since the inception of the federal reserve a number of wars have broken out with the 3 most pronounced being ww1,ww2 and vietnam.
    With world war1, the war centered around europe( engaland and germany) with america seeking neutrality. Under the surface the american administration wanted everything to do with it.
    Even William jenning,secretary of state under the Woodrow Wilson admitted “THE LARGE BANKING INTERESTS WERE DEEPLY INTERESTED IN THE WORLD WAR BECAUSE OF THE WIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR LARGE PROFITS!” We should take note that lucrative thing that can happen to the international bankers is war.For it forces the country to borrow money from the federal reserve which will obviously be paid at an interest. In a documented conversation between colonel edward house (woodrow wilson advisor and mentor), and sir edward grey(foreign secretary of england) regarding how to get involved in the war, grey inquired,” WHAT WILL AMERICANS DO IF GERMANS SINK AN OCEAN LINER WITH AMERICANS ON BOARD?”.
    House replied,”I BELEIVE THAT A FLAME OF INDIGNATION WOULD SWEEP THE U.S, AND THAT BY ITSELF WOULD BE SUFFICIENT ENOUGH TO CARRY US INTO WAR!” Son the suggestions of sir edward grey, a ship- the lusitania was deliberately sent into german controlled waters and was exploded, killing 1200 americans in 18minutes. The first world war cost 323,000 american deaths with jd rokefeller making $200,000,000 and that war cost the american government $30 billion borrowed on interest furthering the profits of the international bankers.
    I COULD GO ON ABOUT HOW THE CORRUPT ACTIONS OF A FEW COST ALOT TO BENEFIT THE FEW WITH REGARDS TO WORLD WAR 2,THE VIETNAM WAR, THE 9’11 STAGED PLANE CRASH AND THE SO CALLED WAR ON TERROR,AND THE PRESENT SITUATION CALLED THE RECESSION. BUT MY POINT IS TAKE THE LOG OUT OF YOUR EYE BEFORE TAKING OUT THE SPECK FROM ANOTHER MAN’S EYE.
    YES, NIGERIANS MIGHT SEEM TO BE A CORRUPT BUNCH, BUT DO YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THE OBVIOUS CONTRIBUTIONS OF MANY HARDWORKING,INFLUENTIAL NIGERIANS IN TODAY’S GLOBAL SOCIETY WORKING TOWARD A GLORIOUS RENAISSANCE?
    LEST I FORGET, HAVE INDIVIDUAL ORGANIZATIONS NOT BEEN SET UP IN MOST AFRICAN COUNTRIES TO MANIPULATE OUR GOVERNMENTS AND SIPHON THEIR RESOURCES? NIGERIA IS A COUNTRY WITH LIMITLESS RESOURCES BUT HAVE WE BEEN GIVEN THE CHANCE TO CONTROL THOSE RESOURCES?!
    We are faced with the flawed, corrupt free- market ideology that dominates western thinking-it continues to shackle Africa through the morally bankrupt, neo colonialist IMF, and World Bank- with their vicious and punitive free-trade agreements that devastate the economies of scores of impoverished African, Caribbean and Pacific nations.
    I HAVE A LOT TO SAY AND IF CHOOSE TO DO SO I WOULD HAVE TO NEGLECT VERY IMPORTANT WORK.
    AND EVEN IN THE FACE OF ALL THIS, A COLLECTION OF AFRICANS STILL CHOOSE TO DO THINGS THE RIGHT WAY.
    CHECK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOURSELF AND IF YOU CAN TAKE TIME OUT, SPEND YOUR MONEY . GO TO NIGERIA AND YOU WILL BE AMAZED. IT’S FAR CRY FROM WHAT YOU’VE BEEN TOLD.
    I HAVE A LOT TO SAY BUT WILL LEAVE AT THIS FOR NOW.

  12. Mr. Lindsay is prejudiced against Nigerians,and I can guess why due to his post “I know you only too well. I have been dealing with you Nigerian pieces of shit for years now! “.He probably dealt with a certain type of Nigerians.I’m a Nigerian and very proud to be one.I’m upset by the comments,but unfortunately most of the allegations are true.
    I think we should view this as a challenge and try to do what we can to get rid of:
    -the corruption
    -the filth
    -the small percentage of Nigerians that are responsible for the perception that we are a nation of scam artists.
    We can not ignore the fact that these people are in the cafes with impunity.I mean when we see them we are revolted by the way they flaunt their ill gotten wealth,and we loathe the fact that these uneducated,uncouth,criminals have not been put away.I feel its kind of akin to what drug dealers are to the American society.
    But until we try to do something concrete about everything thats wrong with our country we’ll continue to be seen by visitors and the whole world at large as is portrayed in this blog.
    And pointing out the falicies in this post won’t make a difference either.

    1. You,
      Using your left hand to point the way to your father’s house. No matter what tribe in Nigeria you come from I’m sure you know what that means. Omo ale jatijati.
      What is true in all this: Note Fashola is governor now and lagos is about the cleanest state in the world.

  13. you are indeed lame…
    you sit in your sit, type on your computer and generalize like that? who hasnt got problems? and who told you that global problems are independent of nations?
    someone should indeed summarize your life in one sentence…

  14. Obviously you have plenty issues… your writeup does not have any content, it is nothing more than a crazed language… as we can all see, your story on Lagos, Nigeria is simply a figment of your shallow imagination and ‘un-researched’ content on the web. On the other hand, it is only in your country do we hear of people killing others at random, and of course, without a good reason.. what could be worse? You have lost it! You are just a stupid white asshole.

    1. We know you only too well. Almost all the Nigerians I’ve dealt with are dirty criminals! You’re the most dishonest people on Earth. A black mark on humanity. I think you were made by the Devil, not God. Maybe as a joke…

  15. i think u have a bat view of nigeria and its pretty dumb to asume allot of stuff .Nigeria mit be one of d so called most corrupt nation but life here is better than alot of places in the world.

  16. I was going to grace this write up with a proper vent when I realized this guy has written bad stuff about so many places in the world.
    I think he’s just a sour grape. If you recognize there’s so much wrong in the world, what’ve you done to try and improve it.
    Write about projects you’ve been involved in that try to improve the lot of others…

  17. You totally off your hinges bro to publish information you just pick off unconfirmed sources! Come over to Lagos and I’ll show you a swell time!

    1. Seriously Robert, go jump off a cliff.
      Obviously you are very frustrated.
      There’s a place in hell for people like you.

  18. i hope this wasnt a publicity stunt?
    for those who understand Africa’s problems and are working to get her out of it-Kudos.

  19. This is only the insane ranting of a bitter, good for nothing skeptic who see nothing right with the world. Sit in your armchair and write your nonsense while the whole world moves along to greater unity. Fool!!!

  20. It is quite a disappointment to read of this barbaric claims from someone that claim to be learned. For someone as old as you are, you are a big disgrace to bloggers, journalists and writers generally. And too bad many some people will look up to you as a mentor. I just can’t believe seeing the words ‘Fuck you’ from you as a reply to a comment. If that was a right thing to say, why remove the reply?
    Really, I see you as nothing than dumb racist. Did I mention you are as well a disgrace to your family (If you have one)?

    1. Nothing but scammers and criminals in your armpit of a country. I’d like to go over there right now and kill some of those scammers with my bare hands. I’ll beat them to death with a baseball bat until they die. I will smile while I do it. Then I will sing and dance for 100 days.

    2. lindsay or wat eva u all ur self.
      seems like ur degenerating cos u guys in america are the founding fathers of wateva is wrong with the world . wouldnt u prefer to use d limited time u have on earth to think about ur miserable past and where u plan to spend ur eternity.i doubt if the devil himself would even want to have u for company

    1. Nope, deleted it. Haha.
      Education? Masters Degree. You?
      I think we should lop off your cancer of a country and send it floating into outer space forever. The 120 million “humans”? They can go with it. Please. We will let you fly around the universe. Maybe you all kind find some other planet to steal from.
      Do you people actually work for a living? 99% of the Nigerians I’ve met on the net are nothing but criminal dogs who ought to be beaten in the face with a baseball bat.
      You know what I would like to see? I want Al Qaeda to put car bombs outside your evil Internet cafes and kill all the “humans” in them. There’s nothing but criminals in your Internet cafes anyway. Hell! There’s nothing but criminals in your whole country! How many “people” in southern Nigeria are NOT criminals, anyway? 1%?
      Screw your country. Nigeria is the toilet of the planet. It’s probably the toilet of the universe too but we need to ask Kirk and Spock about that one.

  21. Robert Lindsay mind you; your president is from Africa. your mother was born in an Africa soil , your forefather stole from africa to make you be what you are today! we are well trained and cultured.
    Watch what You say about other people because you were not there from the start, even if u were told to write a report you do not conclude!
    WATCH IT
    YOU ARE ALSO A SCAMMER!

    1. Hey! Obama is my man. Obama is an African American. He’s not from Africa. He’s a human. Black Americans are humans. I don’t know what lives in southern Nigeria.
      Notice I don’t hate the North. Northern Nigeria is ok. Muslims up there. The urban areas of the South – there’s nothing but criminals there. The Northern Muslims are honest. They’re humans. The Christians in the urban South are nothing but liars, criminals, cheaters and thieves. For the most part.
      I run a Yahoo group that fights scammers and we are so sick and tired of you Nigerian maggots. We’ve been dealing with you for years now and we’ve had it up to here with you. Nigeria = scammers. Nigeria = criminals, liars, thieves, con artists, ripoffs, cheats, scumbags.

  22. I think we should lop off your cancer of a country and send it floating into outer space forever. The 120 million “humans”? They can go with it. Please. We will let you fly around the universe. Maybe you all kind find some other planet to steal from.
    Do you people actually work for a living? 99% of the Nigerians I’ve met on the net are nothing but criminal dogs who ought to be beaten in the face with a baseball bat.
    You know what I would like to see? I want Al Qaeda to put car bombs outside your evil Internet cafes and kill all the “humans” in them. There’s nothing but criminals in your Internet cafes anyway. Hell! There’s nothing but criminals in your whole country! How many “people” in southern Nigeria are NOT criminals, anyway? 1%?
    Screw your country. Nigeria is the toilet of the planet. It’s probably the toilet of the universe too but we need to ask Kirk and Spock about that one.

    Really??? It’s at this point I have realized you are very immature and not worth any body’s time.

    1. I agree with you, Onyeka. Not everybody that has knowledge of the use of words is educated. I think we all wrongly assumed that Robert is human and open to reason.

  23. Bash them, Silver! I don’t care what you call them. I hate these Nigerians so much I could spit. They’re like the lowest form of life on Earth. 99% of them are criminals, I think.

  24. Wow!
    to the Nigerians who read this: we feel the need to defend our home from Robert’s vile entry and comments with our own facts, especially since we either live in the country or have lived in the country or plan on moving back or TO the country. Please do so without wearing his angry shoes. Please EDUCATE this man on the things he can’t learn while surfing the internet on chat rooms trying to meet other “scamming Nigerians”.
    Robert, there’s only so much you can learn and experience from search engines. I remember sitting in a AIG cafe in Philadelphia, PA and seeing a man writing one of those scam emails…trust me, he WAS NOT a Nigerian. lol. My problem with you is you sound burned so you want to burn a whole Nation…in hopes that others would read it and hate the country as much as you do. Unfortunately, it won’t work. but thanks for trying anyways. You have given us more ooomph to lift our heads up and continue working to better our 49yr old country without doing it on the back of slaves and stealing from the Native Americans.
    Please check out the pictures of Lagos you missed during your research or decided not to post
    http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/index.php/content/view/12266/55
    and the recent EYO festival
    http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/nvs/eyo-festival-2009.html
    our country is GROWING…do not try to take that away from us with one flimsy blogicle.
    i wish you the same kind of growth Robert…maybe someday you’ll come visit and see for yourself.

    1. Beautiful Zara, seeing all these comments, I feel so proud of being a Nigerian. Fellow Nigerians, please refrain from insulting Robert. Educate him instead, post links to different resources. He has probably been scammed by a bad Nigerian before so he wants to burn down the entire Nation.
      There was this article by the National Association of Sea Dogs. I can’t find the link again but the title is something like this: 419: THE VICTIM AS A COLLABORATOR….I’ll find it and I’ll repost it.

    2. We don’t fight 419. We fight the romance scam! All the Internet dating sites have been ruined by Nigerians who pretend to be good looking male and female models and fool people into falling in love with them. There’s no greed involved here. Just theft. They break hearts and steal money. There’s no way the victim is a criminal. We let a bunch of Nigerians and Ghanaians into our group because they said they wanted to help, but almost all of them turned out to be criminals too of one type or another. We had to throw them all out and now all West Africans are BANNED because we don’t trust any of them. We tell everyone to not talk to any West Africans on the Net. We also warn them NOT to go to Nigeria because we think it’s dangerous.
      A friend of mine went to Nigeria and as soon as she stepped off the plane, a woman tried to steal everything she had in the ladies’ room. We have heard that the airport employees will try to rip you off before you even leave the airport. And she said all of Lagos smells like rotting garbage!
      We had a Nigerian in our group and he told us that you go into an Internet cafe in Nigeria and 90% of the people are sitting in there all day long trying to steal from Americans.
      We have friends who sell retail on the Net. They have banned all IP’s from Nigeria because out of 10,000 attempts to buy, 10,000 of them (100%) were using stolen credit cards!
      What the Hell man? You must be the worst group of humans on Earth, you Nigerians.
      We LOVE our African-Americans. I never knew how wonderful our Blacks were until we met some of you AFRICANS. I think you are 2 different races. A-A’s are so much better than Africans, I think maybe they are from a different planet.
      I wish you could be helped but I fear you Nigerians will be a nation of criminals as long as I am on this green Earth.

  25. y are u guys making this mutherfucking dick head feel good, by accepting to the gross things he wrote about our lovely 9ija.
    I just feel like fucking his mama till she vomits the last intestine she’s got.then go ahead on every female around him,including his daughter,if he’s got one.

  26. “I do not think that African Blacks are really capable of running modern cities. American Blacks are vastly more intelligent and can run a city much better than Africans do. I think this goes beyond brains. What is it with Blacks and trash? They just don’t care? It’s too much bother to find a trash can?”
    Man, one must get down to your level and say: YOU ARE MAD! You can even start telling us that we are all monkeys and that we play with Elephants and Lions in our bedrooms. Stupid you. I have met a few nonentities like you whose only pride is in having a white skin. It is people like you who cannot cope if they belong to some other ethnicity.
    For your information and an attempt to open your thick skull to reality; your fore-fathers attempted to destroy the black man not only physically but mentally by writing this kind of rubbish and ensuring they think of themselves as incapable of doing great things. But we will not accept that! Our generation will correct that impression. Check your intellectual community in the USA; tell me the number of Africans making waves and positively contributing to the economy of your society.
    I won’t attack the Caucasians as I have worked with many with sense and dignity. Most are good people with a good heart and that is the reason Obama could have won the US presidency. left to people like you – the black man should be in a zoo. U need to grow up and stop hating. Get something reasonable to do and maybe then the world will take you seriously.
    Talking about how beautiful your so called developed countries look like – remember whose sweat those riches were built on. I won’t say more than that. It is also very stupid to conclude that 50% of a nation is criminal – that is simply Argumentum ad populum – that is if you know what that means.
    Africans – we need to change perceptions and go back to our roots. The kind of democracy we practice that has failed us was handed over to us by this idiot’s ancestors. Fela said it all. Also, the Bernard Maddof’s(And his government contemporaries) of this world taught our bad leaders. Check out all former French colonies; they are riddled with poverty and the French government dines with their leaders including the recently dead moron in Gabon. A man who stood up to the French governments corrupt ways was killed by his no 2 with assistance from France.
    If you must know, idiot – MKO Abiola who could have stopped the looting of our resources in the guise of Neo-Colonialism was killed and evidence is pointing to the fact that the US government knows about it. All African countries with resources are still being plagued by the Western worlds with a penchant for sponsoring civil wars to destabilize and loot. Look at everywhere with wars in the continent – there is something there for your people.
    Until Africans rise up and destroy the canker worm; we will never get to our destined heights and the likes of you will continue opening and closing your mouth without an iota of thinking.
    To close this. Even though we know that the under-development of Africa is caused by our so called leaders with help from your conniving leaders; we don’t go about just hating you people. As someone rightly said; most Nigerians and Africans actually accord you with more respect than you rightly deserve. We know that most of your guys who come as expats are not even graduates n most times inexperienced, but they still live in the choicest areas in Africa. Doesn’t that show you our level of maturity? Think well.

  27. My fellow country men have decided to be mature about this and give u well presented arguments to counter your “facts” about nigerians. well, im not goin to be as mature as them, im going to treat u like the silly little dumb piece of shit that u are. how dare u speak ill of a place u have never been to and seen first hand for yourself. you work with a group of people to combat scam? has it ever occurred to u that its the same small group of people repeating these scams? and i suppose everyone is honest where u come from right? do the rest of the world a favor and shut the fuck up….

    1. I would never go to your country in a million years. I have friends that have gone there, and we got to know many Nigerians on the Net. 90% of them turned out to be criminals! They said they were the good Nigerians helping us fight the bad ones, and they were a bunch of criminals themselves!
      Seriously, I think 50% of the population of Lagos wakes up every morning and thinks, “Who can I rip off today?”
      You are the most morally degenerate people on Earth.
      I realize that you commenters may not be criminals yourselves, but your nation is one of the most reprobate on Earth. The Devil himself would blush at your criminal nature.
      PS. We also tried to work with your “law enforcement” but I guess most of them are criminals too! I don’t even think there is any rule of law in your wicked land. Crime pays over there. You may as well be a criminal as the cops don’t even arrest criminals anyway, so why not be a crook. We got no cooperation whatsoever out of your police. We are also told that the scammers operate in broad daylight in the cafes for all to see.
      My Nigerian friend reported the post office incident. He saw it with his very eyes! The criminals went to the front of the line and walked away with the stolen goods! This was in a city called Idaban.
      I met a Nigerian woman from Warri. She was ok, but I saw her later online using model pics to try to cheat Americans out of money. She was a criminal, like so many Nigerians.
      Nigerians are the most criminal race on Earth.

  28. @Robert: Seriously dude…you will only hurt the innocent with these kinda posts. We are aware of our issues and even though the government is, well, what it is…Nigerians disdain the so called Advanced Fee Fraudsters and we are dealing with this issue in different ways: check: http://www.nigeriancuriosity.com , http://www.switchedonnaija.com, http://www.werunthings.net, http://www.bellanaija.com, http://www.notjustok.com and you’ll read/see young Nigerians staying positive, chanelling all their energy into creative stuff.
    What about Facebook and Twitter…all the convo’ by Nigerians are strictly positive. There are bad eggs, and we are on ground, we know how these wasteful and greedy scammers operate, with government intervention all it’ll take is just ONE day to apprehend all of them.
    Writing/blogging is a powerful medium. Use it constructively, use it creatively. We maybe young, but we know what we want from life and it’s much more than what is available right now. If you wanna be a part of the solution, rather than heating things up…we can give you a platform to do so. Yes, we can help make your voice heard all over the world…but not like this. No, never like this.

    1. That’s cool man. But why don’t these guys go to jail? We know one woman who got one of these romance scammers put away. She’s Swiss and it took her forever. He took her for $13,000, bought a new car and drove it to his college campus where dozens of Nigerian students crowded around and cheered the scammer on. They all knew how he got the car and none of them cared.

  29. awww, did gweedy Robert get scammed by d 419 boys?? Is that why he is so angwy? How much were you hoping to make from the deal b4 it all blew up in ur face??? Naija has the bad as you have pointed out but we also have the good, the very good and the excellent. Don’t be so myopic!

    1. I am not so stupid as to fall for the 419 advance fee fraud. That must be the dumbest scam on Earth. In addition to being the most criminal humans on Earth, you also have the stupidest criminals.
      We fight the romance scammers! Not the 419’ers. It’s heartbreaking. So many men and women have been ripped off by these crooks. Nigerians have destroyed every dating and social networking site on the Net with their scams and nowadays with their romance scams.
      My friends sell things on the Net via Internet auctions. They are inundated with offers from Nigerian criminals! Nigerians have destroyed most of the auction sites on the Net!
      I piss on your country!
      I have friends who collect beetles and were ripped off by Nigerians in Cameroon. I have friends who rent rooms and were inundated by Nigerians pretending to be renters. And yes I do know some Americans who got caught up in the Nigerian check cashing scheme.
      I’m not a victim! I’m an anti-scammer! And I’m about this far from going to Nigeria myself on a one man jihad against those criminals over there. I want to take a baseball bat and beat them to death with it!

  30. I am ashamed of myself for having wasted 5 minutes of my time to read this.
    Is it not obvious that this is just an attention seeker that is craving for all your attention?
    Its just disgusting that he has to get it this way.
    Please dear Robert, you need to see a shrink fast before you run raving mad into the streets.
    Any decent nigerian out there would not degenerate to trading words with this pervert.

  31. “I am not so stupid as to fall for the 419 advance fee fraud. That must be the dumbest scam on Earth. In addition to being the most criminal humans on Earth, you also have the stupidest criminals.”
    Oohh! So I guess americans have the stupidest victims in that case. If the ‘business’ doesnt pay, the 419 dudes would’ve backed out. That’s some food for thought.

    1. We have victims who fell for the check cashing scam too. That’s part of the romance scam. And the reshipping scam. And the “let’s open a joint checking account” scam. Never knew anyone who got nailed by 419 though. And my friends who run auctions say the Nigerians and the GYPSIES have destroyed online options.
      Who is more criminal? A Nigerian or a Gypsy? Good question. Two of the most criminal races on Earth!

  32. Robert Lindsay ok i see Omo Naija in the house make una leave this guy e no know wentin to talk about. Ori ti dero!
    o deni

  33. Wowwww. Robert, u have got some issues!!!!! there is no doubt about it that you were scammed.
    Some of the problems you raised are true although highly exaggerated and u are obviously using outdated facts! One of the total lies would be the mistreatment of whites. Actually, whites tend to enjoy more than the citizen because we feel for their comfort. We may have problems with leadership, but i can vouch for the leadership in lagos, that is cleaning up the streets bringing in easier transportation etc.
    U have your opinions, but you should try to be more constructive. for a masters degree holder, your research method is quite basic, putting things lightly. Your statistics, also not the best.
    About your most passionate topic, that of scamming, it is a two way thing! mostly greedy people get caught. I cannot phantom how some would believe that a country is trying to sell off their central bank and would fall for that! if not that they are too money hungry.
    now, do you ever wander about your dear country’s involvement in the country’s issues? take for instance, pollution! Exxon mobil’s quarters situated near a frequently passed road, uses the loudest generator sets that run 24/7 even though there are sound proof types that can be bought, but do they care? no! and we let them be (our bad)
    the Niger delta crisis, though the country has its own issues, when chevron and shell spill oil, do they clean it up? no. they go the cheaper route by giving the community money, even though their livelihood is destroyed and hence they decide to break the pipes.
    the list goes on..
    Now with the killings and crimes… In naija, if u get killed u know the reason why(even if its a robbery), unlike the rampant pointless killings we hear from the west. as much as i wldn’t love to be murdered or robbed (and i’ve been in lag for a while and have not been robbed), i’d prefer to know there is a point than someone trying to blame his/her mummy issues on me!
    The fact that you write the way you do, shows that you are no different from an extremist/terrorist. You need counseling, think woozah!!!!! the world aint perfect but it would be a lot better without the vile, negative sentiments of people like you, who believe you are God’s gift to the earth and anyone that is not like you is the devil.
    But if you can’t be more objective, or get some help with your very violent thinking process (i suggest emotional intelligence classes) i think u should offer urself for al qeada recruitment. u cld be of great use like a suicide bomber (u know those ones that just blow themselves up without reaching their goal). they’d use you to make a statement and forget your name!!
    Wouldn’t it be lovely if your daughter brought home a nigerian bro as her beloved?!!!!
    As for your African Blacks are stupid, dude!!!! Again!!!! where the hell do you get your notes? that is the most ignorant statement ever. Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Emegwali, Awolowo, Asa, M.I google them!!!!!!!

    1. Babe, that’s a whole lot you gave him to ponder on. I doubt if he’ll comprehend it all. And you’ve got a big point. 3 years I spent in lagos, I never got robbed once. Even tho I walk home pretty late (11pm+) a number of times on Allen Ave.
      I doubt he knows Wole Soyinka. And if he does, he probably thinks Wole Soyinka scammed the world into thinking he won a nobel prize.
      If everyone shared his views, I doubt FIFA would ever consider Nigeria hosting its games this year, and one in 1999.

  34. …you can’t win your fight telling all these untruths about Nigeria; Lagos, Nigeria and Nigerians are far from what you’ve described in your posts. The Nigerian government and people are doing all they can to fight corruption in the country.
    Can I ask you a question? What is the aim of your so called research and posts?

  35. “We fight the romance scammers! Not the 419′ers. It’s heartbreaking. So many men and women have been ripped off by these crooks. Nigerians have destroyed every dating and social networking site on the Net with their scams and nowadays with their romance scams.”
    We have a saying “some people major in minors” (loosely translated )
    You fight romance scammers, fine so why have you ignored the plight of your cousins across the pond; 50 million pounds not enough of an reason for you?
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1192211/From-Russia-Without-love-How-thousands-lonely-British-men-ruthlessly-fleeced-Russian-email-brides-racket.html
    Oh i get it; its a lot easier to blame the international poster child for scam (safer too)! surely, one more derogatory label wouldn’t make a difference.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
    Your children take guns to school and kill other children; wheredya think they got all the hatred? from daddies like you of course
    http://www.emergency-management.net/school_shoot.htm
    Your politicians are indicted for crimes of corruption http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/senator-ted-stevens-indicted-in-corruption-case/?hp,
    You world is crumbling mate and yet you have time to hate us?
    J.C said it best “Thou hypocrite, take the log outta thine own eye before you take the spec outta thy neighbors eye”

    1. We go after the Russians too, but they are not such a serious problem, to be honest. For one thing, they are pretty stupid! I have to hand it to the Nigerians. The Russians started the romance scam, and the Nigerians learned it from the Russians. The Nigerians took the Russian scam and dramatically improved on it in many ways. For one thing, the Russians were using computer-girls to communicate with you. You’re not even talking to a human – you are talking to a computer! The Nigerians improved on that by having you talk to a real human. The Nigerian crooks are brilliant in their own way.
      There are other groups that focus on the Russian scam. We tend to focus on the West African and increasingly the Filipina scammers.

  36. Dear Mr. Lindsey,
    I was initially ticked off (putting it very very mildly) when I read your blog post, but after taking time to engage in deep breathing techniques my clarity returned and I found myself overcome with great pity for you! What else can I have for someone who wears his prejudices and bigotry so proudly on his chest as if it were a bronze star and exhibits his gross stupidity, myopia, racism and illiteracy (education consists of more than acquiring degrees).
    I’ve been fortunate to have travelled to a few of the places you so caustically disparaged (most recent being Manilla, as well as having the (mis)fortune of a 1st World (says you!) upbringing) and although some issues do exist it is nowhere near as bad as you erroneously claim.
    With regard the Nigerian scam artistry issue get your facts right. Nigeria is yet to produce an scammer with as much skill as say umm…America’s own Madoff! Neither have we attempted to sell off the London Bridge or the White House as some of your fellow citizens have. And usually people that get scammed are either greedy, naive or just plain dumb. And how pleeeeease who is so so lame as to have to resort to internet dating…don’t have women in your own country?
    We don’t have cases of serial killers, or people waking up in the mornin hating self and humanity and going on senseless killing sprees for the heck of it like you crazed and deranged whiteys.
    You should speak from experience not hearsay for your rantings to be taken moderately seriously or maybe this is like Candid Camera and we’ll find out that you’re just jossin with us and this is just a big joke and you really aren’t this retarded.

  37. Pls all nigerians should stop commenting on this article. THE AUTHOR IS JUST A PSYCHO. He is suffering from a weird brain disease.

  38. LMAO…This is so crazy and sick but the only way I can let out steam is to laff out at this fool of a man…Nigerians, well done for putting this racist in his place all except “tp2drescue”…omo ale jatijati nie lo’to…Josiedorgu, abdul, onyeka, edayo, pingu, ifeoma, ezra, banibaba, soga, amaka, olusholaaromokun, et al…big ups to u guys…one love…Nigerian to the core and proud of it so “robert watever ur name is” go jump off a cliff!!! Ass…

  39. LWKMD!!!
    I didnt know i was a scammer o
    Mr Robert, take heart..maybe if you guys weren’t that dumb or greedy, you wouldn’t be in the cesspit you’ve trapped yourselves in.

    1. Screw you, you Nigerian bitch, and screw your toilet of a country, and screw all your evil friends. You’re as bad as the scammers. You are a morally reprobate people who deserve to be hated. I even know Black Africans who hate Nigerians. I don’t blame them. Hating Nigerians is normal, healthy and adaptive behavior. We need to encourage it!

  40. Hi Robert,
    Thanks for the post. I believe it’s a good wake-up call for young Nigerians (as evident by the comments) because they sure have their work cut-out for them.
    If I hadn’t lived in Nigeria, and my only contacts with Nigerians were by email, hearsay, a random visit, or the news, I can absolutely understand why you would think a huge percentage of Nigerians are criminals.
    Most Nigerians I know are not criminals or scammers though; I did hear that an old acquaintance is now a scammer though 🙁
    Nigerians just happen to be very tolerant people (forgive my generalization). They, or should I say we, can accommodate about anything. If the public schools don’t work, we adapt and pay more money for the private schools, if the roads are bad, we travel less, we allow a few scammers to shape the image of our nation, we allow corruption around us and pay bribes when asked to (“Wetin man go do now?”), we adapt when we go to other countries with resources and excel over there, we adapt to military government, civilian government and just about anything thrown at us…
    Luckily, we can’t accommodate a post like this though, and that’s a VERY good thing. Maybe by reading a post like this, our tolerance threshold would collectively increase, and we would collectively stop adapting to the opportunistic individuals and system that are currently shaping the image and destiny of our nation.
    Maybe, just maybe…

    1. This is a great post, Wale. I have known 4 Nigerians here in the US and they were all great people. 2 were doctors. The ones who come here are mostly very educated and quite honest. Back in Nigeria, another story. I don’t hate all Nigerians or anything like that…

    2. @Robert, I guess you are acting based on assumptions. The nigerians you know in the US are just a few among the honest ones in existence who are priviledged to be out there. Some prefer to stay in the country (which they should anyway), while others are simply not privileged enough.
      Sure, we’ve got lots of bad eggs in this country, but they are not enough to conclude everyone back home is bad.

  41. who the fuck is this bastard?has he ever been to Africa?i think we can sue him for defamation of character,excessive exaggeration and character assassination.
    where the fuck is columbia or ecuador,mexico,peru,bolivia and co. on the world drug dealing table,from UN surveys,the US,russia and UK top the chart for internet fraud,the US taking 71%!
    this guy dey vex me!

    1. I would not go to your evil country no matter how much money you paid me!
      The Internet fraudsters we deal with are mostly West Africans.
      I don’t care about drug dealers because they don’t effect me directly.
      Nigerians and West Africans effect me directly. They’re ruined the Internet. The whole Internet is overrun with Nigerian scammers, liars, crooks, scumbags and thieves! They’ve destroyed it. These scums target me and mine directly. I feel like Nigeria is almost declaring war on me and my people.
      Also, other countries go after their scammers. The Russians have arrested hundreds of Russian romance scammers. Putin himself denounced them as insulting Russian womanhood. What happens to African scammers? NOTHING! NOTHING happens to them, zero! The LE system in Nigeria for all intents and purposes is nonexistent.
      PS. There are many more Nigerian scammers than you think. We had Nigerian contacts who told us that there were at least 1 million Nigerians scamming part or full-time in the country. AT LEAST.
      A bunch of Nigerians wormed their way into our anti-scammer group to “help us fight the scammers.” About 95% of them turned out to be criminals themselves! We ended up throwing all of them out after they caused a lot of damage. We now have a RACIST policy that in effect bans all West Africans from joining. We tell group members to avoid all West Africans on the Net as a general rule.
      Just about every Nigerian you meet on the Internet is a fucking criminal! WTF man?

  42. The Jewish watchword "Workers of the world unite" will be conquered by a higher realization, namely "Workers of all classes and of all nations, recognize your common enemy!" says:

    Even though Nigeria is on the whole a corrupt and polluted hellhole (mostly because of their corrupt-to-the-core central government who are of course slaves to Western oil companies, other Western businesses, and the international Jewish plutocracy), I do truly admire many Nigerians for caring about education, learning, reading, writing, etc – many Nigerians are VERY thirsty to educate themselves, even against all of the odds which are clearly stacked against them. Many of the commenters here are obviously very educated, literate, and intelligent individuals, and when I was in college I met a few Nigerian students that were studying at my university who were very cool and intelligent…also was taught by and had some good conversations with a Nigerian-American who was a professor at my uni – he is an internationally well-known poet and scholar.
    And frankly, I sympathize with some of them in some respects – for instance, I want Western oil companies like BP expelled from the Niger Delta because they have completely polluted and trashed the place just so a bunch of fat-ass dumbfucks (i.e., British and American hyperconsumers who are brainwashed by the international Jewish money-masters) can be ‘mobile’ 24-7 and ‘free’ to drive their fat-asses around in their wasteful SUVs. Thus I sympathize deeply with the group known as ‘MEND’ (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) and I want ALL Western oil companies OUT of Nigeria unless they are working to clean up the environmental disaster they have caused there. BP, those Judaized pieces of exploitative shit, have even recently tried to buy off some Nigerian locals with a few million bucks, which amounts to LESS THAN A DAY’S WORTH OF OIL REVENUE TO THEM; as if a paltry few million bucks split among thousands of Nigerians is enough to repair the likely permanent environmental damage they did to parts of the Niger Delta region…they polluted their water with oil run-off, blackened their air with oil-burnoff smoke, etc.
    However, I don’t want any more African immigrants trying to come to the USA, Europe, Australia, or any other White countries. You intelligent and motivated people should stay in your own countries and improve it instead of abandoning and seeking the easy life here in the West…because what do you think will happen if so many of you educated Nigerians keep abandoning your country for White Western countries? Like India, it will of course keep getting worse because you all (who are intelligent and thus best able to help fix and clean the place up) are leaving the country to be run by a bunch of idiot do-nothings.

    1. These commenters are unbelievable. I’ve seen the 67 IQ score for Nigeria and I figured most of the people were dumb as rocks. And a lot of the scammers we ran into were indeed dumb as doorknobs. But these Nigerian commenters on here are smart and educated and all have good jobs working in white collar offices. It’s amazing really.
      The Nigerians in the US are mostly ok. I’ve only known 4 of them, but they were all good people. We turn down 99.5% of the apps to come here, because most of those applying are probably criminals.
      It is just sickening what has been done to the Nigerian Delta, and I support the armed insurgency down there. All Nigerian governments have supported these crooked US corporations to the hilt though. They have repeatedly used the Nigerian military against the locals.

    2. No I won’t Ezra. I attacked the Nigerians who defended the scammers!
      I actually kind of like you Ezra. I can’t believe how smart the Nigerians who came here are. You see, I am sort of racist. I think “Nigerian” and I think “dumb as a rock.” You all sure give the lie to that one!
      But stop defending the scammers! Pls.

  43. Nigerian cannibals ate my granny! Only joking – Ha Ha Ha. Lighten up guys – Robert’s just winding you up to increase traffic on his site.

  44. I would disagree with “Greece, the whole country”, this is hillarious, cause it’s very beautiful especially the mainland, cause I am not so fond of the islands. There are many nice cities like Salonica, Ioannina and above all very very safe…It was the only country I could walk at night like it was daylight. On the other hand I find Athens dirty, maybe dangerous in some places and apart from its center, it’s a big city full of illegal imigrants.
    As far as Cairo, I really really liked it, except for the dirt, but people are more friendly than any other muslim city.

  45. I wonder how we defend the scammers?
    when we constantly work against them.
    Ezra, arent you a mod and a programmer
    This dude just doesnt have a clue and its a darn shame on “intelligence”

    1. You blame us for getting scammed. Hardly anyone in the US would say something like that to defend an American scammer. That’s just shows how morally debased you Nigerians are. You are humans with very low morals. Even our American Blacks have much higher morals than you do. Shame on you.

    2. We do not support scammers, neither do we support those that get scammed, especially the “african prince” email scams.
      Ok, I’m probably speaking for myself, but I guess every Nigerian who has commented here shares the same opinion. I was a mod in one of the biggest Nigerian forums (http://www.nairaland.com) and I worked hard to fight scammers and also prevent legitimate members of the forum from getting scammed.
      There is only so much you can do as an individual to fight scam, but we wont agree to generalizations that all Nigerians are either scammers, or support scams.

    3. Yes you DO support the scammers. You blame the victims! How dare you. Do you know how far these excuses would fly in the US. In the US, fraudsters are punished and go down, provided they are small-timers like these guys. I’m not dealing with corporate and subprime stuff because that’s so big that it’s almost left alone. However, the subprime scamming is about ended, and there are major laws here against all kinds of scammery, even including false advertising of all things. I know this because I run a business. Customers are often afraid to pay money up front because they fear getting scammed. But there is little to worry about. If I scam you, just go to the DA and have him file charges against me. And he will! DA’s here in the US love to go after small time fraudulent businesses. The enforcement is so severe that few small businesses engage in obvious and upfront ripoffs. The ripoff artists instead move around, leave town, leave the state, are nowhere to be found, etc.
      Almost no one in the US would attack the victims of American fraudsters, accusing them of being stupid or greedy. That’s sympathy for fraudsters, and Americans are not like that.
      What you don’t understand is that con artists are very, very good at what they do. Con artists are found in every society. As a tribute to Nigeria, I must say that you have some of the finest con artists on Earth. You do not have to be stupid or greedy to be taken by these master thieves. Just about anyone can get nailed. They are that good.
      I know Americans who were on Nairaland forums. They eventually left in disgust because they said that the forums were completely infested with scammers up down all around and all over. The scammers were members of the forum.
      I agree that there is only so much you can do in a corrupt to the core society, but attacking crime victims is simply not helpful, furthermore, in US society, it makes you look like an extreme scumbag.

    4. Again… generalizations. The only instance I said something that sounded like I blamed the victims was when you said you were to smart for the email scams. I just had to ask you if those that fall for it were stupid or something. But then again, you contradict yourself because you noted that Nigerian scammers are the stupidest in an earlier comment.
      Once again, I and many of us here dont support scammers. We get their mails everyday as much as you do. But then again, we also get mails from American spammers. You claim Nigerian scammers have destroyed auctions and payment systems, but can’t the same be said about spammers who almost rendered email useless? Or the virus creators who have almost rendered networking computers (including connecting to the Internet) a dangerous act?
      You claim scam is easily fought in America because you have DAs that will fight on the victim’s behalf. My friend, how will you fight here in Nigeria when you don’t even know who you are fighting? No reasonable con-artist will actually set up a business just to scam people. Most of them simply do their transactions and disappear. That’s why you’re supposed to know who you are doing business with and cover up all angles before you go into it. This applies everywhere.
      As regards nairaland, I also left at a point but came back to help combat scammers and spammers. So dont talk like only the American visitors got pissed off. Nobody likes spam or scammers.

    5. Honestly, there is little fraud here. If you give money to a local businessman for work up front, you get the work done. Maybe it’s not up to your standards, but you get something for what you pay. Local fraudsters who take your money and run are not that common here. Businesses are licensed by the county (or should be) and hence are trackable. It’s quite simple to take a fraudster to court, and DA’s love to nail these assholes. What happens here instead is businesses get ripped off by customers. We do work for folks and never get paid. It’s up too us to sue them because it’s not considered a government matter. That’s why everyone wants money up front. If anyone is ripping off anyone here, it’s customers, not businesses.
      OTOH, US corporations pay their bills. Period. A corporation with a reputation to uphold pays its workers and contractors. It’s part of the culture – they have a reputation to uphold. I don’t see this in Africa.
      I have friends who went to West Africa on investment schemes. The % of such offers that are criminal is stunning to behold to a Westerner. I think, living in Africa, you can’t comprehend what it’s like to live here in a relatively fraud-free environment. Personally, I can’t see how you Nigerians can get any other humans to do any business with you at all.

  46. See, the system of running a business with such trust that you can pay upfront and be sure the job will be done or even give another company your credit card details and expect then to debit just the amount they should wasn’t built overnight.
    I may not be able to comprehend what it’s like to leave in a relatively fraud-free environment like you said, since I grew up knowing better than to fall for just anything presented to you. Adoption of ecommerce systems is slow here in Nigeria (I once worked with an ecommerce firm). This is because Nigerians are skeptical about anything online payments. The trust just isnt there yet. But with time, and enlightenment, we’ll get there.
    And yes, we do get to do business with people from other countries. As long as what you’ve done in the past can speak for you and is verifiable.

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