Don't Get Duped by African SPAM Mails!

Nigeria, Africa - On November 2, 2002, Pastor Deacon Fred, along with several other Landover Baptist staff members, received an important e-mail message from Basher Mobutu, son of the late President of Nigeria, Mobutu Sese Seko.  "I knew that the matter was urgent," recalled Pastor Deacon Fred, "because he had taken the time to send copies not only just to me, but also to everyone on our staff and their families." In the e-mail, Basher explained that he knew that Pastor and those who received the e-mail message would be surprised to hear from him, but assumed that the Landover Baptist Church was already aware of a financial dispute between his family and the present civilian government of Nigeria. Basher conveyed that due to circumstances beyond his control, his father's bank accounts in Switzerland and North America were frozen. He went on to solicit the Church's confidential assistance in taking custody of thirty million United States dollars (US$30,000,000.00).  "Naturally, that bountiful sum caught my well trained eye," said Pastor.  "And we didn't get to be the richest church in America by asking a lot of questions when folks wave a fistful of cash in our faces."

Without a second thought, Pastor Deacon Fred phoned Mrs. Betty Bowers regarding the situation. They decided not to ask actor Don Johnson to fetch the cash for his usual fee after some scathing comments from a previous, dissatisfied customer in Germany. Instead, on the following day, Pastor and Betty, along with a team of Landover Baptist unsaved Jewish lawyers and accountants, several personal body guards and coolers filled with food that doesn't give you dysentery or indigestion, were aboard Mrs. Bowers' Christian Ministries' private Gulfstream V jet, on their way to a savage land no one had even heard before the e-mail called "Nigeria."  They made one stop in Switzerland, to refuel and authorize UBS bank to do whatever was necessary to assist Mr. Mobutu. Immediately afterward, they received their shots, and were off to the godless country of Nigeria to meet with Mr. Mobutu. 

"Frankly, I harbor great trepidation at the prospect of being in a country where the minority is, perversely, the majority," Mrs. Betty Bowers told the president of UBS Financial Services when he drove the Landover Baptist dignitaries to the Geneva airport. "Granted, I've been exposed to colored people in the United States through my Christian Crack Whore Ministry, but these are genuine Negroes we were about to face.  The type without cell phones and Louis Vuitton knockoff visors." 

"As a real American," Pastor would latter recall, "I would have no reason to ever go to an uncivilized country like Africa.  But as a Christian, I was curious to return to the Garden of Eden where the Lord had first given man a paradise – only to snatch it back from them in an angry rage.  Once I got there, I realized that the deck was stacked against Adam and Eve from the get go.  As Mrs. Bowers and I well knew, to be the only two white people in Africa is a daunting ordeal."

Pastor's and Mrs. Bowers' worst fears did not prepare them for what awaited in the aptly named Dark Continent.  It was only after the eager Landover delegation went through the unsettling ordeal of landing a 72,000 pound private jet in the middle of a herd of impalas and a wildly scrambling tribal wedding that they discovered the e-mail was some type of sick hoax.  "Honestly, you think American Negroes are sneaky," remarked Pastor Deacon Fred, "but they have nothing on their sub-Saharan cousins." 

When the phone number that Mr. Mobutu had given them proved not only not to work, but also be eight digits in excess of all local numbers, Pastor and Mrs. Bowers, loving Christians armed only with bibles, began banging on doors throughout Abuja, accompanied only by their automatic weapon wielding security detail.  When this three-day effort failed to find the writer of the e-mail, much less $30,000,000, they resorted to stopping natives on the street, waving Mr. Mobutu's e-mail in their faces and demanding: "Where is this person?" 

"It was only when we were on the plane back to civilization that it occurred to me that none of them African Americans in Nigeria can probably read a stop sign, much less a sophisticated e-mail about high finance," said Pastor with a laugh.

After almost a week, not only did they fail to locate the promised money, but they received a call from Geneva to say that, pursuant to a wire transfer request on the previous day, UBS had moved $7,000,000 from one of Landover Baptist's accounts to a small bank in Nigeria. Upon realizing that they had been swindled, the Lord filled the Landover delegation with a righteous rage. 

"As an devoted admirer of President Bush, I knew exactly what to do when a foreigner does something that gets under your skin," recalled Pastor Deacon Fred. "You take over their country. So, I had one of the unsaved lawyers go back to Betty's jet and fetch me Old Glory."  With the American flag in hand, the Landover pioneers went to the center of Abuja, planted the banner in the ground and sang a hymn.  "We then claimed everything – out to the city limits if they had any – in the name of the Lord Jesus, America and Landover Baptist Offshore Holdings, LLC" 

After an afternoon of intense fighting, Landover had only been able secure a gas station, a brothel and rusty pen that had held a seemingly bulimic goat that eventually got away.  Undaunted, the prayer warriors had UBS wire additional money to a different bank to pay for local armed mercenaries to be hired to kill for Christ.

"Once we had hired about 300 natives and bought weapons for all of them, we bid a gracious goodbye to our subjects in our new kingdom," said Pastor Deacon Fred.  "Betty can only go so long without shopping and once we had hired those thugs to do the Lord's work, things got very bloody and dangerous overnight.  When you are in the thick of claiming souls and acreage for the Lord, you can't always assess the power of righteousness, but according to Fox News 180 folks died in street warfare while we were checking out of our hotel.  And that is nothing compared to the number of willful souls who had to be put down for the Glory of Christ after we left.  Yes, it is unfortunate, but like my golfing buddy [Secretary of Defense] Old Rummy says, 'democracy is untidy.'  And so, apparently, is starting up a Christian kingdom in Africa."

Upon returning to drinking water, Pastor held a press conference to warn Americans that even though New Eden (formerly Nigeria) was under increasingly Christian control, dangerous SPAM mails were still being sent.  "These e-mails are very sophisticated.  You almost have to be a genius to guess that they aren't for real.  Which is why I've been working very closely with the FBI on this so another American doesn't get duped, wind up losing a lot of money and end up with the constant headache of being the potentate of a lawless country in Africa."  

Explaining his embarrassment over realizing he had been the victim of a clever e-mail con game, Pastor Deacon Fred told the 700 Club: "Being Baptist, growing up reading only the Bible, we are taught never to question the truth of anything someone has taken the time to type.  So, naturally, I took it on face value that this little African fellow had millions of dollars he was willing to give us – and millions more we could call upon the power of the Lord to coax him out of.  I now realize that he was like the devil -- cagily tailoring temptation to play into the biggest weakness of the tempted.  I'm sure if I had been Whitney Houston, the e-mail would have promised a pile of prime Columbian cocaine the size of Kilimanjaro.  But since it was me, a Pastor at an American Christian church, of course, I was offered cash."

"If you receive any e-mails from any of my New Edenites, either offering money or telling you they are being tortured if they don't accept Jesus as their Personal Savior, just do yourself a favor and please delete them."

In an effort to alert public readers of the Landover Baptist Church web site to recent e-mail attacks coming from the former Nigeria, a typical letter has been placed below. Please note, Pastor Deacon Fred assures everyone that he has gone to great lengths in order to find out who the author of this e-mail is. We can happily say that we've received word from New Eden that if there ever was such a person named Mrs. Mariam Mobutu, she no longer exists.

URGENT MESSAGE: Dear Most Blessed Citizens of the Christian Empire of the United States of America,

I am Queen Mrs. Mariam Mobutu from the recently enslaved Nation Kingdom of Oshobogo. Oshobogo is an undeveloped region in Nigeria. I am appealing to you as international and world citizen. We are in a perilous danger, and do struggle daily for our lives are in the hands of Fundimentalist American Baptists who are now using us as slaves to burn the Yoruba Sacred Forest of my ancestors. Plans are under place to turn our entire region of Africa into a religious theme park for your American tourists. Many here have been driven from our homes, and making to lay down their bed in the open plains, unless we agree to work and destroy our own properties and land for these fanatics.

I have wrote to the American government, and not heard a reply. I do guess they are behind things that are transpiring now in Oshobogo, otherwise they would have sent word. Forgive me, for I am forced now to beg. I write to you in quickness and haste. Please understand I and many others have been forced to work for these religious lunatics or be starved to death. They split up our families to increase their productivity. Many of us are living as captives in bamboo prisons (that we ourselves had to design!). People are beaten within an inch of their lives for trying to get messages out to the Nigerian capitol of Abuja. They would surely burn me in their evening fire and sing religious songs around me as they watch me die - if they knew I was trying to reach you!

I want you to know as well that the children of my people are forced to live and hide in trees and act as pets for Christian missionaries and construction workers who live here now. More of them arrive each day!

I ask only that you get word of our plight to your government, or to some wealthy person of great power and influence. There is nothing I or my people can offer you in financial means. Please, if your God is a God of love, and you follow that belief. HELP US!

Mrs. Mariam Mobutu

 

 

 

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