from the archives: a previous exchange with Tony Levene

Regarding my last post about the guardian's Tony Levene, below is the email i sent to him in 2003 as a result of his usual naija bashing. Unfortunately he still has not changed his ways, shame my ijebu jazz doesn't work on oyibos (yet)

----- Original Message -----
From: ijebuman
To: jobs.and.money@guardian.co.uk
Cc: letters@guardian.co.uk
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 12:40 PM
Subject: Regarding Nigerians (Capital letters 13/12/2003)


Dear Tony Levene

I found your response to the letters from RD (from Nottingham) - 'Ignore this fake NatWest email' and BN (from Devon) '$41.5M offer is a fraud' in Jobs and Money (The Guardian 13/12/03) very offending.

I'm a regular Guardian reader and also a Nigerian. It's rather unfortunate that you could immediately assume that the Natwest email spam was "probably from Nigeria". I got this same email and traced it to the same site you mentioned and there was no evidence that this site was operated by Nigerians or from Nigeria.

A similar incident which affected Nationwide and Halifax (which i received as well) was traced to Russia (http://www.computercops.biz/article3829.html).

The second letter you responded to also suggests to the writer that its another Nigerian scam without any proof or evidence to back it up. I expect such reporting from papers like The Sun and Daily Mail not from The Guardian.

You might as well be telling all Guardian readers out there that all fraud is from Nigeria. What about online scams originating from Russia and some east european countries ? How about dodgy lottery companies operating from postal boxes in Canada etc

This is a worldwide phenomena and i find it quite strange that you should single out Nigeria without any iota of evidence. I do not deny that Nigeria is well known for 419 scams but as you could not provide any proof of where the scams came from how do you know they were from Nigeria ?

A lot of hard working honest Nigerians live in this country and a lot of us are doing a lot of work to reverse the negative image the country has gained as a result of the antics of a tiny minority. Sweeping comments like yours (with no backing EVIDENCE) only contributes to the false stereotypes associated with Nigerians.

Rather than doing some research and providing useful information, you have chosen to malign a nation of over a 100 million people.

I hope you have the guts to print this email or provide proof that the above scams were from Nigeria.


Yours Sincerely

------------------------------------------------------------

This was his response

----- Original Message -----
From:
To: ijebuman
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 12:50 PM
Subject: Re: Regarding Nigerians (Capital letters 13/12/2003)



You are right to be sensitive about this. And you are right to be offended
even though we have every reason to believe those behind this came from
Nigeria or neighbouring countries. We shall run your letter.

Tony Levene
--------------------

He never produced any evidence but he did print my letter in the guardian


my response

----- Original Message -----
From: ijebuman
To:
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 7:05 PM
Subject: Re: Regarding Nigerians (Capital letters 13/12/2003)


And i have every reason not to, You may have your opinions about Nigeria and
to be honest i don't really care about them however if you're going to make
sweeping statements at least produce backing evidence.

It's like the government's Iraqi dossier with the 45 minute claim. Provide
the evidence Mr Levene and then you can blame Nigeria/Nigerians for any
other crime you can think of.

Have a nice xmas

ijebuman

------------------------------

I get really pissed off with the way the likes of Levene label all Nigerians 'fraudsters', yes they are a few bad eggs amongst us but which country doesn't have them.
If all Nigerians committed fraud, the UK economy will probably collapse. I work for a FTSE 100 company and i'm in a position where if i was so inclined i could take my employers to the cleaners (and with my special ijebu jazz i go just disappear).
There are loads of naijas in similar positions, contributing their own quota to the UK economy, most of us will rather contribute to the Naija economy but unfortunately we're not in a position to do so.