Don't Dignify The Petty E-mail Scam

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

The Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) may not be composed of choir boys, but I don't think for a split-second that it serves the President and his minions any good purpose by taking issue with the allegedly Hawaii-based e-mail racketeers who have been scamming apparently greedy and credulous desperate-to-get-rich-quick people here in the United States (See "US, Ghana Begin Investigations into Mahama Email Scam" MyJoyOnline.com 5/28/14).

The story is that some Internet scammers have been sending messages to selected users, telling them that the Ghanaian leader and his officials have earmarked $1.8 million to be paid to certain individuals. Those targeted are then asked to pay access and transfer fees. This, of course, is an age-old scam that only the most naive among civilized hmanity would fall victim to.

For starters, if, indeed, any such remarkable sums of money ready to be doled out existed anywhere, why cannot the purported facilitators deduct some of the said sums as "processing fees" and then go ahead and transfer the rest of it to those whom it is allegedly intended for? Then also, intelligent people would ask precisely what they have done, by way of work or services, to deserve such decent sums of largesse. If they can't think of any meaningful answers, then it ought to be obvious right there and then that the entire notification letter is one heck of an epic scam.

After all, hasn't it been said since time immemorial in the proverbial land of milk and honey that there is no free lunch anywhere within the boundaries of these United States of Uncle Sam? As for the criminal misappropriation of the name and office of the Attorney-General of Hawaii, it is all too common. Besides, that position is a public appointment, which means that it can be readily accessed by Google. Very likely, the E-mail address of Ghana's President and some of his appointees have been hacked into; and in such a situation, the proprietors of any of the major servers and/or search engines could track down these scammers, or scam-artists, in absolutely no time.

Nonetheless, I can clearly see how the Mahama government could be so easily sidetracked into spending precious time, energy and material resources in an attempt to tracking down these criminal suspects. The recently alleged forging of the signature of the Petroleum Minister on a document granting oil-exploration rights to a Canadian-based company, may well have spooked the President into taking such distractive bait. As far as yours truly is concerned, since the fraudulent racket so alleged is reported to have originated from Hawaii, by all means, let the State of Hawaii and the relevant authorities in the US government handle the problem.

All that the Government of Ghana can do, at least presently, is to cooperate with the American authorities in getting to the bottom of the matter. Unless, of course, the Attorney-General of Hawaii can point to forensically convincing evidence indicating plausible wrongdoing on the part of either the Ghanaian leader and/or any members of his cabinet and government. Besides, $2 million is rather relatively too paltry to direct the full-heft of national attention at; and I would rather see Mr. Mahama and his government's operatives fervidly focus on implementing some of the practicable resolutions generated by the so-called National Economic Forum (NEF), than allowing itself to be frivolously sidetracked by the apparent villainy of some Internet petty thieves.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Board Member, The Nassau Review
May 28, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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