Nigeria’s already damaged online reputation was further tarnished today, with news coming in that a Nigerian undergraduate has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for obtaining $47,000 (33,382 pounds) from an Australian woman by convincing her over the Internet that he was 57 years old, white, and madly in love with her.

According to media reports, Lawal Adekunle Nurudeen, a final year student of the Department of Survey and Geo-Informatics Engineering, at the University of Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria, has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for obtaining $27,900.91 from an Australian woman named Pee Loo Rosalind Summer.

Apparently, the two had met in 2007, where Nurudeen had introduced himself as Engineer Benson Lawson, a British widower working with a multi-national company in Nigeria, whose wife and children died in “a ghastly motor accident”.

“The victim, a 56-year-old woman from Australia, told the convict that she wanted a husband and all the men she had met always disappointed her,” a statement he quickly capitalized on, convincing her that he was her “Mr Right”, and sending her a picture of a white man to further the ploy.

Reports from the Times of Nigeria have it that he was arraigned before a high court in Ikeja, Lagos- where he was handed the sentence. In addition to the 15 year sentence, he is also to pay $250 monthly to the victim, until “the total amount is liquidated.”

As expected, the story has made headlines across the globe, the result- a further dent in Nigeria’s online reputation. The story in itself really is saddening, considering that there are many other legal ways to make a living online.

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