The sakawa menace ...Any solutions

Last year, I received an electronic mail from a lady, who claimed to be the Managing Director of a bank in South Africa.

She proposed to do business with me and asked me to provide her with my personal details, including my bank account number, social security number, etc. In fact, her proposal was very convincing.

She promised to sponsor my trip to and back from South Africa. What surprised me, however, was that she seemed to have known quite a number of things about me, which indeed were correct.

I discussed the issue with a friend who warned me against the deal and said it was a scam (“Sakawa”). My friend noticed that I was still determined to go ahead with the deal despite his warning. He therefore suggested that we should search for the bank which the lady claimed she was the managing director of on the internet.

Interestingly, we found out that the bank really existed. However, you needed to be very clever and smart to be able to detect the difference between the logo of the “original bank” and that of the fake one which the lady claimed to be the director of. We went further to call the telephone numbers of the “original bank” to find out whether the lady was indeed the managing director. Shockingly, we were told there was nobody by that name. They went ahead and told us that they had received numerous calls in connection with that case. They warned us that any business we transacted with the lady was at our own risk.

I do receive a number of electronic mails from unfamiliar persons who claimed they had inherited certain amount of monies, which they would like to share with me. Others claimed I had won lotto or my e-mail address has won so and so amount of money so I should contact an e-mail address, (the address is usually different from the one used to send the mail) for further details. Some also sent mails with funny reasons why they would like me to be their friend or lover. In all those cases, they asked me to provide them with my bank account number, telephone number, social security number, etc.

What is more worrying is the spiritual dimension which this social canker is taking. I hear “sakawa stories” which I thought were too fictional to believe. Interestingly, they (the stories) were proven to be real and true.  As a way of getting rich quick, the “sakawaians” were made to perform all kinds of scary rituals. Some spent nights at cemeteries. Others were made to sleep in coffins for days while some also ate from dustbins. The conditions attached to the rituals are unbelievable. In some cases, the “sakawaian” is prohibited from taking his bath for months. Others are not allowed to give their “sakawa money” to close relatives. In some cases, there is a strict quota on how much money one could spend daily. I am told some people have wounds which would never heal till death. All these and other horrible things are done for nothing but to get MONEY.

We should all be concerned about this social canker. Considering the rate at which the “disease” is spreading, the earlier something is done about it the better. I personally believe that as parents, religious leaders, educational institutions, and in fact as a society, we have crucial roles to play as far as the fight against the menace is concerned.

It is unfortunate some children had never experienced any parental love, control and care. Consequently, they grow up to become social deviants. Some children, who should have been in school, spend several hours at internet cafes, scheming to dupe innocent people. How could a seventeen year-old boy buy an expensive car, own a house and live an ostentatious life without his parents questioning his source of wealth? As parents, we should be responsible and train our children to conform to the norms of society. But are parents the only people to blame?

We live in a society where some people use the display of affluence as a yardstick to measure one’s level of success in life. The emphasis is no more on how hard-working, honest, sincere or diligent somebody is in his/her dealings. Instead, people want to see the latest car that the person drives, the number of mansions he/she owns, the location of the buildings, and the number of women or men the person could go out with. In fact good morals in our society have now gone to the dogs.  It is therefore not a surprise that some people, especially the youth who would like to be seen to have “made it in life” resort to “sakawa”. I personally believe that as a society, we could fight this menace by giving the right orientation to the youth, inculcating in them, all that it takes to be successful- discipline, hard work, diligence, honesty, etc.

In the past, any elderly person, who might not necessarily be the biological father or mother of a child, could either correct or discipline the latter when he/she misbehaved. Today, try it and see! If the child does not abuse you and ask you whether you were his/her parents, the parents themselves would question what right you had to discipline their child without their consent. Children are therefore left to rot when they are seen indulging in all kinds of vices. The philosophy is “everybody for himself”. How could internet café owners and/or attendants look on unconcerned while young boys and girls use their facilities to indulge in all kinds of internet frauds?
       
Religious leaders should also instill good morals into their followers. They should not create the impression that one’s success in life is always defined by the amount of material possessions he/she has.

Of course, as parents, educationists, and religious leaders, we may be doing our best to instill good moral values into the youth. However, economic situations could compel some of them to indulge in the act. The government should therefore provide the youth with the necessary jobs to keep them busy instead of idling.  Laws on internet fraud, if any exist, should be enforced without fear or favour; and those who are found guilty should be severely punished to serve as a deterrent to other offenders. In this era of information and communication technology, it should be possible to monitor the activities of internet cafes. For instance, the owners could be held responsible for any fraudulent act that their facilities would be used to commit by tracing their internet protocol (IP) addresses. This would make them to be more vigilant and ensure that nobody uses their systems to commit such crimes.

As individuals, we need to be very careful. We should not be too quick to trust everything that anybody tells us. We should learn to carry out due diligence on business proposals, invitations to international conferences and notices that we had won lotteries (which we never staked)

Indeed, the fight against “sakawa” is not one person’s responsibility. We should all marshal the necessary “weapons” to combat it.

By Sammy Dzandu                              
The writer is an archivist
Writer’s e-mail address: [email protected]