Dont call the Nigerian fire department

Are these the same folks that send those e-mails asking me to send $200 so they can release 8.5 million US to my bank account?.....maybe they want the money to buy some better pumps?:dunno:
 
When I worked for a company in Houston, we did a lit of business in Nigeria... even had a partial interest in one of the forwarding companies there and kept an expat onsite manager in Lagos... I never went as I was a single parent with a young child at home, but several of the younger men from my office spent a few months over there.

I used to get the scam emails from there all the time, but also met a lot of really nice folks from there working on trying to make their country right and bring it up into the current century. They have a lot of problems, there is corruption at every turn, after we learned to work the system, we made a lot of money trading with Nigeria.
 
Ok first off. I definitely did not post this video to be cruel or derisive in any way what so ever. I posted it because of the way it was filmed it reminded me of a keystone cop movie from 90 years ago. Purely from a humor standpoint... I'm sure if I or anyone else trolled the internet deep enough we could find a video of an FD in some small town USA that has the same problem or any other country or tragedy for that matter....:D

That said. Yes Nigeria along with a many other "third world" countries are suffering badly. Alot of their suffering being due to the vacuum created by the end of the "cold war" as a lot of these countries were propped up by either the west or the ussr. Puppet governments propped up by "foreign aid" that benefited the few at the expense and suffering of the many, stripped of their natural resources through "trade agreements" and "repayment plans" and left destitute and tossed aside when it all ended.
There are good and bad in every country first second or third world as well as a never ending supply of corruption.
Many of the countries in that region are going through the same thing. Nigeria just happens to be in the news a lot because of all the phishing scams and the "underwear bomber".....
 
I met the President of Nigeria and several of his cronies about 4 or 5 years ago. I was at a meeting in Manchester NH at a company called Hexaport. Hexaport was bidding on a steel framed housing project there and I was going to supply the pneumatic tools and fasteners. The whole steel framed project was to be panelized, shipped in containers and installed on the jobsite.
The deal fell through thank goodness ;)
 
Ok first off. I definitely did not post this video to be cruel or derisive in any way what so ever. I posted it because of the way it was filmed it reminded me of a keystone cop movie from 90 years ago. Purely from a humor standpoint...QUOTE]


and I dont think anyone thinks you had any intention of being cruel.

the fact is it is a bit comical, but its also sad because its the norm.
 
Ok first off. I definitely did not post this video to be cruel or derisive in any way what so ever. I posted it because of the way it was filmed it reminded me of a keystone cop movie from 90 years ago. Purely from a humor standpoint...QUOTE]


and I dont think anyone thinks you had any intention of being cruel.

the fact is it is a bit comical, but its also sad because its the norm.

Agreed. it is definitely "dark humor"
 
I met the President of Nigeria and several of his cronies about 4 or 5 years ago. I was at a meeting in Manchester NH at a company called Hexaport. Hexaport was bidding on a steel framed housing project there and I was going to supply the pneumatic tools and fasteners. The whole steel framed project was to be panelized, shipped in containers and installed on the jobsite.
The deal fell through thank goodness ;)

Back in '85 I was partnered with a group of investors and was the minority partner in a small forwarding company. My other operating partner and I made a contact with a Nigerian Banker who had contacts in Switzerland, Nigeria and New York. He had a contact with the governor of one of the provinces and wanted to build a shoe factory in Nigeria. We formed a shell company and began negotiating for funding to build the plant... the deal was all set, we had a contract, negotiated funding.. the factory was going to cost $8M... our negotiated loan was for $15... the $7M overage was for the purpose of "payments" to the officials who were going to "approve" the permits... my partner was in Nigeria, in the governor's office with the contract to be signed when the military coup took place, the governor was arrested in front of my partner, the contract was tossed in the trash can as he watched and then he quietly left the office and went straight to the airport... our brokerage fee for negotiating the loan would have been substantial, but somehow now I think we dodged a big bullet.. :dunno:


BTW Rich, the video was funny and I seem to remember a local volunteer fire department in my subdivision when I lived in Houston that wasn't a lot more efficient... about 3 houses down from mine, the teen who lived there was shooting wasps with WD40 and a lighter... one of his shots evidently hit the inside corner of their garage behind some stuff stacked in the corner so that he didn't see the flames... he got bored with his game and left.... the garage was in blazes, but he evidently didn't notice.... the neighbors had garden hoses out and almost had the fire out when the fire department arrived... the engine chief ran the neighbors away, then proceeded to pull out the fire hoses, drag them down the street to the fire hydrant, and generally getting ready to fight the fire... 20 minutes passed before they put a drop of water on the fire... it was almost out when they arrived, but took so long to "get ready" that it flared up again... by now the garage is about a 50% loss.... Keystone Kops for sure...
 
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... my partner was in Nigeria, in the governor's office with the contract to be signed when the military coup took place, the governor was arrested in front of my partner, the contract was tossed in the trash can as he watched and then he quietly left the office and went straight to the airport...

Oh!

Hi guys.

I was just leaving.

[Exit, stage left]

snaggle.jpg
 
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