I was at this meeting/training at my job where we were discussing fraud and Forgery in financial institutions and how to detect and stop them. The discussion led to internet spam mails, and the moderator brought up an instance when her husband got a mail from somebody in Naija telling him that he had won a lottery jackpot. She also went ahead to talk about how Nigerians send spam mails about long lost relatives who died leaving some huge deposits in Nigeria. The talk also went on about how Nigerians are not allowed to sell stuff on ebay, and on and on and on. It kind of sounded funny, but at the same time really embarrassing. Fortunately for me, none of the people there knew I was Nigerian, so I just kept my mouth shut. I must admit, that was the first time in my life that I was ashamed of being identified as a Nigerian because it was just too embarrassing. Those of u who happened to watch the abc documentary on 419 in Nigeria might have a slight feeling of what I faced during the discussion.
I just want to know if any of u has ever felt embarrassed being identified as a Nigerian before? If u have, how did u feel and what was the situation like?

I think u may not like my tone about this one ,but i think u were rather very stupid to hide the fact that you are a Nigerian,now tell me ,by hiding that u are a Nigerian,have u helped your country ? i would like to believe that you are an honest Nigerian ,but don't you think that by keeping calm in such a situation ,you have effectively made it to appear that all Nigerians are criminals and we have no honest ones among us .
when you speak up there against those Nigerians that bring shame to us and at the same time show them that you are not same like those bad ones , you are sending a good message to the rest of the world that we still have many honest ones among us . if we would all be hiding the fact that we are Nigerians then how will our image be cleaned and by who ?

Hey dude, I understand what u are saying, but that situation was just so awkward. If u ever get into such a situation, then u are going to know how I must have felt. BTW, I'm not mad at ur tone cuz I expected such reactions from some people.

Thank God you have such understanding , its never gonna be easy thing to clean our image and bring it back to good old days ,but the fact remains that its what we have to do if we want to get to that good old days ,so just have to do our bit no matter how hard or embarrassing to help our country stand on its feet again .

ooh i love this thread, because i've been a victim of the above mentioned situation and more

Hope you guys'll be patient to read through and comment

@ egoldman
i love hearing people like you talk, the fact that nigerians are the no.1 scammers is no new news. My boss here in Norway has actually been a victim on two different occassions. And sometimes when we're having normal conversations he brings it out of the blue. Not for once have i been ashamed of my country, i just try to make him understand that there are both bad and good people in every country.

@ daprince
I won't say you were stupid because egoldman has already stolen the word but you just reminded me of a used-to-be friend of mine. There was this period, say 2years ago where it covered all newspaper- and news headlines that Nigeria had the most prostitutes in Norway, Because of that my friend on one occassion totally denied being a Nigerian claiming to be a Ghanian. It was the most stupid and annoying thing i had ever heard in my life.

The fact that most Niigerian girls here were prostitutes was no longer the embarrassing issue, for me it was the fact that my then-friend was idiotic enough to deny her fatherland.

And the honest truth is that the prostitute thing never bothered me a bit, i actually said the name of my country before i was asked, and then people will be like "have you heard?" and i'll be like "and so what?" afterall there are norwegian prostitutes and its not like i'm a prostitute myself.

When you proudly proclaim your country, it helps make the illiterates understand that you don't judge  a whole nation by the act of some but judge individually

The one situation i had found awkward and slightly embarrassing was the episode of the shangarian lady that WAS sentenced to death by stoning because sHe was pregnant out of wedlock. It later resulted to the fact that the "miss world beauty peagent" that was rightfully supposed to be held in Nigeria had to be held in London cos the pannel of judges didn't think it safe to be there with all the war going on.

I felt bad cos people saw it that Nigerians didn't appreciate their women, but i took the time to explain to anybody that would listen that the deed wasn't practiced in all parts of Nigeria, but a few culture. It sure didn't stop me from walking with my head high .

I LOVE NIGERIA, AND NO CIRCUMSTANCE WOULD MAKE ME SOOO EMBARRASSED AS TO DENYING MY COUNTRY . . . . . . NEVER

cute-ass ,very nice post from you ,but u got something a little bit on the wrong side ,you see we are not the number one scammers in the world,what actually happens is that we make the most noise and our government sometimes seem to have sold this view to the rest of the world that all Nigerians plus the government are all scammers .
Now observe what am going to say very well ,the bulk of spam and phishing emails that are being sent to people all over the world originates from countries like USA,JAPAN,EUROPEAN UNION CHINA ,INDIA AND BRASIL ,this is not in anyway to say that Nigerians are not involved ,but this bigger scale is coming from the above mentioned countries and USA is still the leader in it.
Now what is the aim of someone who sends phishing emails ,it is to steal someones identity ,bank account login details,credit card details and other financial informations that they would use to get access to a victim's money,so tell me what makes this kind of people different from the Nigerian 419 guys ?the 419 guys are a drop of water to what this people do ,this people steal money in billions from their victims ,what u should ask here is why is; Nigeria making the most noise ? why is 419 crimes getting so much attention than those who are committing the same crimes if not more in a very bigger and even more sophisticated scale .this is post is not in anyway to say that 419 is a good thing or should be justified for any reason ,but what am trying to show here is that western reports crime that relates to Nigerians as if its has never been done else where in the world ,they report it in away that makes the reader assume that everything that comes out of Nigeria is evil and that Nigerians are the most dangerous people on earth ( we are not )
if the late chief of enron and his deputy were to be Nigerians ,am sure the case wont have ended as the western media like cnn and co would continue to dig it more deeper .

I guess i expressed myself a bit wrong, Nigerians might not be the no.1 scammers practically but that's what they portray us to be. The thing is that the white man sees thoes other countries you mentioned above as semi-white and for that reason tend to cover up their acts or see them as harmless.

But they've never trusted africans, so when Nigeria shows herself to be a noise-making country, they automatically have somewhere to lay their fingers.

I've seen many whites say Nigeria is the most corrupted country in the whole world, filled with violence.

This incident baffled me and continues to baffle me:
A guy works up to me and asks where i come from, i said "i'm Nigerian" and he's like "i've lived there for three years" and i'm like "then you've got to agree with me that its one lovely country" and he's like "i'm never going there again' there's too much violence and blah blah blah"

My $2million question was/is "since he knew Nigeria was the worst country in the whole world, what the hell kept him in my country for a whole 3yrs?"
Stupid oyibo man *sighs*

there are still many like him still in niger ,they say we are 100% scammers yet they keep coming to our niger ,what are they coming to do with people they have classified as all corrupt ?
mudabala is in Nigeria,shell is here ,Macdonald's has plans to come,Google has come ,Microsoft have some partnership with zenox computers ,how many will i count? the standard bank of south Africa,after failed bids to take over banks like uba and others had refused to rest and few days back they finally merged with IBTC of Nigeria,foreign investors are involved in our capital market ( though many Nigerians are not) and i keep asking myself ,if we are as bad as they portray us to be ,why are they getting involved with out companies ? why do they want to do business here if we are all that bad ,my brother we Nigerians need to shine our eyes and see what we are worth .

My dear, don't mind them. How i wished we were capable of turning them into slaves.As in hold them captives and impose slave trade on them like they did to us(africans)
They call us corrupt yet they're the ones that invented slavery, ironical, hæ?

I was in the same situation some years ago.  A Kenyan dude put me on the spot by telling his friends from Hong Kong of my nationality.  The guy from Hong kong took it upon himself to tell me what Nigerians were doing in his country, I took him head on and laid the facts before him and he found out that he was very uninformed.

No matter how unpleasant the situation is, I try to tell my nationality. US Assistant Secretary of Health, Dr John Agwunobi still finds it worthy to described as a Nigerian descent, who I am to say no. Even though Kenya is as corrupt as Nigeria, Sen Obama still ties his ancestry to Kenya.

Another thing that has dropped some tears down my cheeks is the way we treat each other. I've actually been thinking of making a thread about this but anyways

When i travelled to Nigeria in 2003, on my way back from Nigeria to Norway there was some confussions about the flights, actually hundreds of Nigerians were lying at the airport, some had spent days there, some with their whole family, new borns. It was a catastrofe. The airline workers were just being rude saying it was all our fault we missed our flights and so on and so forth ;

Then came a white lady who i wasn't even sure had a flight ticket at all, all she had to do was say she wanted to fly to england and she was provided with a plane ticket, i'm sure  she even got one of those VIP(very important people) treatment or the business-class traetment.

But the sad thing is that we're not much respected in their countries and when we finally get home to a place we should be able to call ours, they've still got the upperhand.
We're still being looked down on, and traeted with so little respect

My kenyan friend actually narrated this story to me:

In kenya, when you walk into the shops you have to drop your bag and luggages at the entrance. This is to avoid theft and its very much ok.
But the stunning thing was that the last time she was in Kenya, she took her norwegian boyfriend with her.

On entering one of the shops she dropped her handbag at the entrance and informed her white boyfrienf of the rule. He was like "sure,sure,why not?"
As he was about to drop his bag, one of the shop assistants came running towards them, telling the white guy that he could actually take his bag with him.

My friend said she'd never been so shocked and stunned in her life, not to mention how stupid and embarrassed she felt.

Why are we africans like that? treating the whites like they were some kind of gods when they treat us like dirt .

i wish i were ur kenyan friend, i'd have either taken my bag in or gotten my boyfriend to give the woman a very good talking to about the advantages of self esteem!

That's just it, my friend said she was too embarrassed and ashamed to utter a word. She just followed the guy into the shop pretending she didn't understand what happened. This she did for the future, she didn't want to risk the chance of him throwing it in her face as one of those  african illiteracies. So for the pride of her nation she had to keep shut

neo colo mentality. Europeans discovered Africa. Mungo Park discoverd River Niger etc

I used to, not anymore. Embarrased for what? Was it me who did it? Geez, once, I was in an elevator, when some guy who would be my co-worker asked me if I had read the paper the previous day or so. The headline was that Nigeria was the most corrupt nation in the world. My reply was that he who was not without sin should cast the first stone. He laughed over it. I used to get worried over it, but now, it does not affect me at all.

well said , well said. Those with their bad and wrong ways can stand alone haba

my defense strategy has been. I am of millions of good Nigerians, so use me a comparative benchmark. Tell me if I have not been nice to you.

Defending ur nationality/country on a one on one basis is pretty easier than doing so when u are a single voice in a large group where everybody has already made presumptions and forgone conclusions about a certain class of people. I tell u this, when the abc network documentary was aired, I had fun watching it on the internet and also, talking about it and how greedy most Americans were. I remember turning on my laptop in the laboratory at school and showing some Nigerians and even foreigners the documentary. I let 'em know that yeah, it's being done cuz Americans are greedy, but only a minute fraction of the population does it. But I tell u, when the moderator at my training/meeting was talking and giving instances, DANG!!!!! I was so embarrassed that people in my country have caused some punks to stereotype the entire country as being corrupt. You may argue that u are always going to defend ur country, but when u face certain situations, u will look for words but find none. It is so easy for most of us to sit our butts down and type shit about defending our country, but we all know the truth that there are instances that u just can't help it.

daprince , here in india i have been involved with Indians and westerners who always want to paint every Nigerian as being some kind of fraudsters and have on several ocassion made them eat their words,what u need to do is to be well informed ,u need to know the positive things about Nigeria and stick to them when u are in the mist of this kind of people .
tell them about the achievement of people like professor emeagwa,who Clinton called the father of the internet ,tell them about chinua achebe,wole soyinka ,ask them if we are as bad they want the rest of the world to beleive then why do we have hundreds of western companies still doing business in nigeria ,there are nigerians that have big post in the us government and same goes with the english ,if we are all bad why would those Nigerians maintain those posts,ask them why do they have 2 million Americans in prisons in the united states ,that is more than any other country ,yet they tell u that Nigeria is the worst country on earth .
as for the Indians ,i only count on my fingers three well known criminals of Indian origin and they would just shut up their mouths ,cos this three alone have commited more crime than the entire Nigerian criminals .
my brother wherever u are ,keep ur head high no matter what ,this is the most effective way they would change their narrow minded views about us ,when u speak with the conviction of what u believe ,people would surely listen .

.

i don't been embarassed doesn't make u a bad person. .and it doesn't mean u love Nigeria any less than the next person
its just one of those things