On June 27, the FBI, an American intelligence gathering organisation, put up a public request on its official twitter page that the public should help with information on some wanted cybercriminals. The list contains 37 Arabs, 16 Russians, 20 Chinese and six Nigerians. However, the poster plasters the faces of the six wanted Nigerian cyber fraudsters at the top, giving them more visibility than others. They are made the face of cybercrime despite the number of Nigerians on the list being the lowest.
It is not surprising that Nigerians are made the face of cybercrime in the FBI poster because that is the single-story they choose to narrative and feed the world. Nigerians are not even the ringleaders in cybercrime, they are just the flamboyant and reckless types who flaunt proceeds of crime with abandon and this is a reflection of a collapse of national values.
With the headquarters of cybercrime being jostled for by North Korea, China, Russia and America, the western mainstream media still let them off public consciousness and it boils down to the ingrained perception of the West towards Africa generally. For Westerners to feel morally and culturally superior, they must make themselves different from Africans as much as possible…..
To read more, check full article on The Guardian Newspaper.