Nigerians have strongly condemned the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for using a photo of six compatriots as poster for crimes committed by 79 different nationals, including 37 Arabs, 20 Asians, and 16 Russians.
The Nigerians, who took to Twitter on Saturday morning, described the law enforcement agency’s action as constituting “racial stereotyping”.
They were reacting to a Friday tweet by the FBI reproduced below:
Information provided by the FBI showed that the Nigerians were among its Cyber’s Most Wanted list currently containing 79 names of allegedly fraudulent individuals, groups and organisations.
The Nigerian suspects were said to be wanted for Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams amounting to $6 million.
The FBI identified the Nigerian suspects as Richard Izuchukwu Izuh, Alex Afolabi Ogunshakin, Felix Osilama Okpoh, Abiola Ayorinde Kayode, Nnamdi Orson Benson and Michael Olorunyomi.
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But some Nigerians who took to social media to react to the post said it was unjustifiable for the law enforcement agency to use the phrase ‘6 Nigerians’.
According to the critics, the action amounted to labelling all Nigerians as “criminals”, an insinuation they described as preposterous.
Read comments monitored on Twitter below:
Racism at its peak.
This list has:
39 men of Arab origin
16 Russians,
20 Chinese/Southeast Asian guys
6 Nigerians.
But racist FBI has chosen the only 6 Nigerians as the poster boys for this crime.
Criminals are in every nation of the world but the moment you are black…..
— Tosin Olugbenga (@TosinOlugbenga) June 27, 2020
This sensationalizing bullshit is the reason I commended Dubai Police. They captured scammers of Nigerian descent and paraded them as “international cyber criminals.” But you activated Nigerian nationality-baiting, even though there are only 6 Nigerians out of these 79 scammers.
— Gimba Kakanda (@gimbakakanda) June 27, 2020
Many people condemning Nigeria in this comment section didn’t even click the link ,I just read it all and
there are 79 of them ;16 Russians, 20 Chinese ,6 Nigerians and 37 men of arabic descent.But they’re making Nigeria the subject of criticism coz of a few bad eggs
— Dehkunle Of Africa💧 🐐 (@Dehkunle) June 27, 2020
You used the name ‘Nigerian’ as click bait, when there are other nationalities here
All Nigerians are not scammers, this type of post encourages the stereotypes that makes other countries keep profiling us as scammers
Not all black people are thugs, not all Nigerians are frauds
— JAGS (@EtniesJags) June 27, 2020
We are good people and work legitmately to make ends meet.
Please do not judge us based on the greed of these six miscreants.
BTW the original list contains 16 Russians, 20 Chinese and about 35 people of arabic descent. Kindly post for all to see.
— freethinker (@Elmaxi_ubongy) June 27, 2020