I was wrong

I was duped, and I’m sorry

Over the years, and most recently just before the weekend, I have published articles trying to persuade you of my faith in a certain individual in a far-off country who I believed was worthy of charitable generosity.

On Saturday, I made the acquaintance of a stranger with whom I entered into conversation about the individual whose part I have taken in The Gambia. She undertook on my behalf to investigate the individual: she lives in The Gambia, and it is a pretty small place.

She wrote back to me on Sunday:

Bad news I am afraid...

This man is clearly a scam, he tries to tell me things about Gambia which are definitely NOT true, of course he thought he could tell me lies to make him come out as the victim of his environment.

He had no clue I am updated and living there too...

I checked his background and skills and his efforts to find himself a job, the latter is not existing, he is a leach who has several contacts with white people outside the country and gets here and there cash, instead of doing efforts to find a job in cleaning, gardening etc...

He claims that this is not possible because his father “died and the education stopped” … of course, I told him I employ several locals: cleaners, gardeners who did not study at all, but have the will to work and gain money themselves...

In a decease case of a close family member, like he claims to have, the whole family and even the community will make sure people are buried...they do not keep the body endlessly in the morgue...NONSENSE AGAIN.

I can refer you to my son who is local and who can give you more insights if you want.

...

Also the man was not polite: the first thing he does is send me a picture “of his Mom” dead! Very very inappropriate at all ... no shame no intimacy ...

and then he starts calling me DEAR because he sensed I saw his true colors,....

So again, my dear Graham, my advice is take distance and block him, he is not honest at all but a scam and lazy...

Of course, these kinds of revelations come as a shock to me. Doubly so. Not only have I been duped, but I have involved some of you in the duplicity that has been practised on me, and for this I am truly, deeply sorry. When I am able, I will repay you the funds that have been tricked out of you by my gullibility.

But I will add one thing. This trick has not lessened my conviction that Africa has been treated unjustly by the colonial masters who saw it as their rightful prey; to exploit and rape and corrupt for their own ends. From the Conference of Berlin to the present day, the rest of the world has been Africa’s scourge, and whatever means can be deployed to restore Africa’s dignity and self-respect are, to my mind, to be encouraged. I therefore remain of the view that those who would believe the mendacity by which Europe justifies the extractive gains it has derived, and continues to derive, from Africa display every bit as much gullibility as I confess myself to having been guilty of.