25 August 2005

Warning: Nigerian Poetry Corporation

for Mark Featherstone

Greetings,

I am Mr. Hattrick Gomaui, the alleged Bank Manager of GLOBAL BS BANK NIGERIA. I have an urgent and very confidential business proposition for you.

On June 6, 1997, Asif IsAllah, an Iraqi overseas publishing consultant/contractor with the NIGERIAN POETRY CORPORATION made a term Safe Deposit Box storage, for 36 calendar months, of 29,000 (Twenty-Nine Thousand) poems in my branch. Upon expiry of the safe deposit box rental term in 2000, I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply.

After a month, we sent a reminder. In reply, we discovered from his contract employers, the Nigerian Poetry Corporation, that Mr. Asif IsAllah had died as a result of torture in the hand of conservatives during one of his trips out of country. On further investigation, I found out that he died without making a WILL, and all attempts to trace his next of kin were fruitless. I therefore made further investigation and discovered that MR Asif IsAllah did not declare any next of kin or relation in any his official documents, including his paperwork in my bank.

These 29,000 poems have been floating unclaimed since 2000 in my bank, as all efforts to find his relatives have hit the stones. According to Nigerian law, at the expiration of 8 (eight) years, the poems will revert in ownership to the Nigerian Government if nobody applies to claim them. The eight-year anniversary is the end of December 2005.

Consequently, my proposal is that I want to seek your consent as a foreigner to stand in as the owner of the poems, as the next of kin to the deceased, so that the bank will transfer the poems to your designated poetry account.

All documents and proof to enable you get these poems will be carefully worked out. I have secured from the probate an order of mandamus to locate any of the deceased beneficiaries and, more so, I assure you that the poetry business is risk-free. Your share will stay with you while the rest will be for me and for investment purposes, as I intend to leave Nigeria by the end of the year. The sharing ratio will be agreed upon my receiving your response.

PLEASE APPRECIATE THE FACT THAT DOING BUSINESS OVER THE INTERNET IS RISKY. ENDEAVOUR TO NOT SEND YOUR CONFIDENTIAL TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBER IN YOUR REPLY TO THIS BUSINESS.

Bless you,

Mr. Hattrick Gomaui



T-shirt: camo
loc: Spam wall
temp: 19 C
sound: Killing Koke, Pandemonium

4 comments:

Simply Kel said...

LOL! Gotta love a good Nigerian Scam . . . check this one out http://eyeshot.net/lipshitz.html

Anonymous said...

Ah you won’t catch anyone in my family falling for that again! Why, my own dear mother once lost her entire life’s work in one such misadventure. She was lured into giving up her one and only hard-earned semi-autobiographical novel -- on the wretchedness of growing up with a Mary Kay soul trapped in an Avon representative’s body – with the promise of thousands of novels held in trust by the Foundation for Orphaned and Ostracized Literature of the protectorate of Meewunts (FOOL-Meewunts). But having relinquished the novel she had been counting on to ease the blandishments of her retirement years, what did she receive in return? Postcard stories!!! Thousands and thousands of utterly useless postcard stories worth absolutely nothing once converted into Canadian literature. The poor woman has been forced to postpone retirement to continue selling Avon products door to door in competition with younger and more literate Mary Kay reps, always one short story ahead of her. So, not for me the Nigerian Poetry Corporation, Mr. Blades. I would rather sit here in the stink of my rejection letters which are, at least, legal tender.

Mark Featherstone

Anonymous said...

By the way, that's the nicest blog page I've ever seen.

Mark Featherstone

Anonymous said...

I got inspired and sent out a spoof I did from the Dutch lottery scam. A copy of it is on my journal blog: cpalondon.bravejournal.com