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Nigeria Widows Lose Their Fortune 107

Posted by Hemos from the oh-the-irony dept.
Phil John writes "In a cruel twist of fate, two Nigerian widows are genuinely fighting it out for their husband's (yes, the same husband) $55M fortune. The BBC has the full scoop. Who wants to bet we're abot to see a whole lot of 419's from 'The Wife of the Late Timothy Olufemi Akanni?'" Sometimes, life is too amusing to be true.
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Nigeria Widows Lose Their Fortune More

Nigeria Widows Lose Their Fortune

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  • Correct wording. (Score:5, Funny)

    by suso ( 153703 ) * on Monday September 11, 2006 @09:35AM (#16080422) Journal
    Its not for their husband's $55M, its
    for their late husband (Who was killed by the government)'s USD55,000,000.00 (FIFTY FIVE MILLION US DOLLARS) which they will deposit into your account
    • You know, a letter fitting these circumstances passed through my spam filter the other day.....

      I wonder how many suckers will be hooked by it just because they heard something to that effect in the news?

      Dear ****,

      RE: CONSIDER MY CONDITION

      I presume this letter will come to you as a suprise,but as things unfold, we will know each other better. I will start by introducing myself to you, I am Mrs. Mercy Obaseki, the wife of Chief Jackson Gaius Obaseki, the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive of Nigeria

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Misch ( 158807 )
        So often, these scammers link right to the news stories themselves. I just got one with a link to a September 11th widows/widowers organization. It would be nice if the news agencies/sites would put fraud warnings right on the pages involved.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ant P. ( 974313 )
        How do you know this news story wasn't written by one of those idiots that fall for these scams?
      • The phrase "this letter will come to you as a suprise" alone should have set it off.

  • Blast !!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by unity100 ( 970058 ) on Monday September 11, 2006 @09:38AM (#16080433) Homepage Journal
    So all those recent emails asking aid from me to transfer $55 m was real after all ?!?!?!?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 11, 2006 @09:39AM (#16080443)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • ^H Explained (Score:5, Informative)

      by JoshDM ( 741866 ) on Monday September 11, 2006 @10:02AM (#16080562) Homepage Journal
      Sincerely,

      An American who wants to help you spend^H^H^H^Have your royal family money.

      I always understood the underlying meaning, but I never caught the origin until now: ^H Explained [wikipedia.org].
      • I recommend you get yourself an old malfunctioning terminal right away, so you can see the joys those of us old enough to remember them went through.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by mooingyak ( 720677 )
          No need for it to be that old. Whenever I need to telnet/ssh into a newly set up Solaris box, first thing I end up doing is 'stty erase ^H' (and putting it in my profile).
          • Now that is news you can use. Does that work with ksh and sh?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by morcego ( 260031 ) *
              stty doesn't depend on the shell you are running so, yes, you can use it with tcsh, bash, ksh, zsh, csh, bsh, ash ...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jelle ( 14827 )
            Solaris always had that crazyness. Solaris boxes were nice because they were rock solid stable, but things like that made them a pain to use. I remember the first, and last time I ever gave Solaris x86 a chance. Standard PC, standard setup, login on console, tap the backspace, and there it was : "^H".

            My Solaris x86 test failed less than a minute after installation. Back to Linux.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )
        You're on /. and don't understand "^H"??!!!???

        Hand in your geek badge immediately!!!

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by ozbird ( 127571 )
        I always understood the underlying meaning, but I never caught the origin until now: ^H Explained.

        I call BS [linuxquestions.org]...
      • Is that on the terminal you are typing it may appear that the characters are deleted, but they may not actually have been removed from the application you are typing into; email, irc, whatever. And the full text with ^H symbols and original incorrect text might be sent to the recipient. Things like you are a cun^H^H^Hnice person could easily be sent on incorrectly configured systems.

      • This sequence is still used humorously by hackers to denote a deletion [wikipedia]

        Look out chaps, you're all tarred with the hacker brush now...

    • And so would the American public... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Veetox ( 931340 ) on Monday September 11, 2006 @10:07AM (#16080599)
      Add in couple of lawyers and talk show host and I think it would be safe to say that Nigerians are finally becoming Americanized...

  • abot (Score:5, Funny)

    by sgt scrub ( 869860 ) <[saintium] [at] [yahoo.com]> on Monday September 11, 2006 @09:39AM (#16080445)
    I didn't know Hemos was Canadian.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ack154 ( 591432 )
      If he were, I think it would be aboot anyways...
      • You know, speaking as a Canadian... I've NEVER heard anyone say "aboot" other than in the context of mocking Canadian speech. I've heard people use the other cliche 'eh', but even then it was more prevalent in the 80's due to the popularity of "Bob and Doug" on SCTV. "Aboot" sounds like it may be something that someone from Newfoundland of Nova Scotia might say.. but then it would hardly be representative of the general Canadian public.. or am I just missing some great Trend-setting Canadian Television agai

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
          You know, speaking as a Canadian... I've NEVER heard anyone say "aboot"

          As a Canadian, you can't hear it. Trust us, it's there.

        • My boss is Canadian and he says Aboot all the time. I think it's an Ontario thing.

    • aboot means he's canadian.

      abot means he's illiterate.

  • News for nerds? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Hrshgn ( 595514 )
    I'm usually tolerant towards news stories with weak relation to the "news for nerds. stuff that matters" slogan but this story takes it too far. The link to 419 scams looks desperate.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MECC ( 8478 ) *
      I think its somewhat relevant to 'news for nerds'. Also, its appearance on /. may indicate who has and hasn't fallen prey to the infamous Nigerian widow emails...

      Hemos....

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sure it's a really thin link. So what? It's *funny* because of the different types of 419 scams we've been getting.

      Even then, who cares if it's not 'news for nerds'? /. doesn't always have to be geeky techno-oriented. Why five years ago to this very day, a very non-techie article [slashdot.org] was posted.
    • "It's funny. Laugh."

  • In lieu of flowers... (Score:4, Funny)

    by terrahertz ( 911030 ) on Monday September 11, 2006 @09:41AM (#16080454)
    ...the families have asked that donations be made to The Holy Church of The Order of The Red Breast [419eater.com].
  • It's one thing for /. editors to miss misspellings, but BBC editors?

    PS: I already sent them an email pointing out the error [next-to-last-paragraph, if you care].

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Zorque ( 894011 )
      Surprisingly, I actually see quite a few errors on the various BBC news pages. Even worse is when I don't know if it's an error or just the British spelling of the word.

  • So... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kent_eh ( 543303 ) on Monday September 11, 2006 @09:44AM (#16080474)
    Apparently just agreeing to take 27.5 million each isn't an option?



    This story is just made for Fark, isn't it?

    So, why is it on /. ?

    • Well, you have to take into account all of the monies that she already funneled through various US bank accounts via what everyone thought was an elaborate phishing scheme...

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by curunir ( 98273 ) *
      Apparently just agreeing to take 27.5 million each isn't an option?

      Though I'm not sure why a story such as this would make it onto slashdot, the article does address your point.

      Aparently, in their squabble over his money, someone tipped off the government and when they looked into it, they discovered that his assets were far greater than what he could have leaglly earned while alive (as a church pastor and election official). So now the widows/family get nothing because the government got a seizure order f

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kent_eh ( 543303 )
        Aparently, in their squabble over his money, someone tipped off the government

        Precicely. If they hadn't been squabling, and just agreed to each become multi-millionares, then the tip-off probably wouldn't have happened.
        But no, they wanted to be twice as obcenely rich, and now end up with nothing.

        There's a parable in there somewhere.

    • This could be a stupid question, but I have a question for the investors out there. Which would generate more money? Investing 27.5 million and claiming 100% of the interest or investing 55 million and claiming 50% of the interest?

      I'm just thinking what if I had the choice of over a 10 year period (let's say) of investing 27.5 million and keeping the 27.5 and all the interest earned at the end of that period, or invest 55 million but only keep 27.5 million plus 50% of the interest earned at the end of that
  • We make Nigeria into a state as there is $57,848,925,050,147,124.63 languishing in Nigerian banks. We could all be rich!
  • Give it to the elderly and mentally disabled US citizens that he scammed it from.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by CockMonster ( 886033 )
      $55M / 250,000,000 = not a whole lot

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Zurd3 ( 574979 )
        $55M / 250,000,000 = not a whole lot

        You mean divided by 300,000,000 or even 299,360,879 which is the 2006 census of the USA (wikipedia source), or 18.3 cents for each citizen...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by silvioh ( 69867 )
      No country has a monopoly on elderly an mentally disabled people... so why to U.S. citizens only?

      S.

  • 2 Wives??? (Score:3, Funny)

    by tygerstripes ( 832644 ) on Monday September 11, 2006 @09:56AM (#16080534)
    Shit! That three-timing bastard was already married? After all the sacrifices I made for him!!

    *sigh*Time to go make up with the missus, I guess.

  • ... the main vehicle their late husband had for actually using his money was a Chase-issued Circuit City Rewards Card. So, if they don't get this resolved quickly, it will be resolved for them.

  • WTF Nigeria (Score:2, Interesting)

    by WED Fan ( 911325 )

    My wife's is the second wife of a Nigerian university professor. She's been a Niger-o-phile since the mid-60's. She will be moving to Nigeria shortly to live full-time because, as she believes, Nigerians take care of their elderly, and that being a wife of a Nigerian will mean that she will have family to take care of her. Note: She spent most of her productive, read: reproductive, years marrying Nigerians so they could come to the U.S., so never really had a family of her own. Now she's exiting middle-age

  • We just got upgraded to Outlook 2003 with fancy junk-mail features and it still sucks donkey balls (suprise, suprise). The reason is very simple: Setting up a bayesian spam filter is way too complicated for joe sixpack. And any spamfilter run at the mailserver is missing one very important piece of information: the adres book of the recipient. It should be possible for mail servers which pass on the mails to add spam-info in the header. Any server should be able to add a spam-probability to the header,
    • Two things:
      1. Apple's Mail program, and I'd reckon most others, already ignore junk mail headers if the sender is in the address book. (This is of course configurable.)
      2. It is hardly the solution to spam. I make use of this, and still get shedloads.

  • Reminds me of the story (Score:5, Interesting)

    by briggsb ( 217215 ) on Monday September 11, 2006 @10:35AM (#16080801)
    About the Nigerian philanthropist [bbspot.com] who couldn't give away his money because everyone thought he was a scammer.
  • From Google News, I came across a news site that's actually in Nigeria. The story is quite a bit more detailed here [vanguardngr.com]. The advertisiments alone on that page are quite amusing as well, it's worth a look.

  • From TFA: The posthumous discovery of his second wife and fortune has shocked many of his friends and family.

    He cannot have enjoyed his wealth too much, if his family didn't notice anything.

  • "Nigeria Windows" oh, however...
  • Funniest phrase I'll probably see all day. Say it like an infomercial announcer and it will crack you up for hours.

    So we've got a Pentecostal minister who amassed an eight-figure fortune as (among other things) a corrupt electoral commission director. Now we know where Diebold got their inspiration.
    • ...the most sought-after parts of Lagos and Abuja

      I don't understand why you find that funny. There are certainly parts of Lagos and Abuja which are desirable areas to live. I freqently stay in a 5 bedroom rented house in Victoria Island worth approximately NGN 150,000,000, or US$1.1m based on valuations a few years ago. I am sure it must be far higher than that now.

      I wish you could see the people of Nigeria that people like this dead fool have taken advantage of. They work hard for a very small wage that ba
  • Sometimes, life is too amusing to be true.

    But the guy just died! I doubt he'd agree with that statement. From the 'oh-the-irony' department indeed.
    • Sometimes, life is too amusing to be true.
      But the guy just died! I doubt he'd agree with that statement. From the 'oh-the-irony' department indeed.
      he saied LIFE is amusing... since this guy is dead, this statement doesn't apply to him ;)
  • In Nigeria, it's only terrible if it happens to you...

  • Weren't they supposed to be thown in the grave with him?

  • 55 million is a lot of money. I can't believe one guy got all that from 419 scams.

    Is there anything that says this came from 419 scams? He could have been a drug lord, Mafia boss or something else too.

    If this did all come from 419 scams then it just goes to show how many stupid people there are in the world. No wonder spam works.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rob Kaper ( 5960 )
      Is there anything that says this came from 419 scams?

      You're misreading the comments. Unless some 419 scammer is now laughing out loud for succesfully conning the Beeb and subsequently Hemos.
    • He was a preacher and an election official; why would he want to waste him time with that petty-ante shit?
  • It's payback time... and payback can be a bitch!

  • Who wants to bet we're about to see a whole lot of 419's from 'The Wife of the Late Timothy Olufemi Akanni?'"

    Sometimes, life is too amusing to be true.

    Virtually demanding respect for the loss of 2,749 souls in the 9-11 attack, the world has been flooded with news and documentaries about the event for the last week and no doubt this will continue for another week or more. Is it really so difficult to show a little respect for the friends and families of Timothy Olufemi Akanni, regardless of what kind life

  • Oh, wait - he had 2 wives?? Shit, no wonder he was trying to move that money out of his account...

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