I came across a very shocking news on the internet today, the Senate President of Nigeria David Mark, in a news report titled “Nigeria has no apology for 419 victims” says and I quote

“I have no apology for victims of 419. If somebody asks you to bring, say $200,000 in order to get $20 million in return without investing anything concrete or rendering valuable services and you go ahead to do so. If you are ripped off in the process, you should blame yourself and not the system”.

This is very insensitive of him, to use an umbrella to qualify all victims of 419, is literally saying all scams by criminal minded Nigerians is allowed and the victims deserved to be scammed. On behalf of myself as a Nigerian citizen, I hereby denounce his statements, he does not represent my thoughts or opinions, but rather represents his illiteracy in the subject matter. He is uninformed on the depth of 419 scams in general. Many victims of 419 have been caught unaware in mimicked legitimate business deals with criminal minded Nigerians.

I hope he would withdraw his statements by correcting them appropriately and putting them in proper context, before this statements of his gets misinterpreted and acted upon.

I feel sorry for Nigerians that are so uninformed about the depths of 419 scams, and I hope our Initiative would help in educating the uninformed Nigerians, on why we should act and why it is wrong to think the victims deserve to be scammed, because that is the impression the Senate President made.