Negative profiling of Nigerians in Dallas

Posted by admin American Politics, Headlines, Top Stories Thursday, February 27th, 2014

I read with utter dismay a scathing story, “Dallas area home to huge health care frauds,” by Mr. Jim Landers in The Dallas Morning News on February 15, 2014, where he labeled Nigerians (by inference) criminals-an insidious generalization. The story, written in a pernicious spirit with veiled parallels to organized crime and other sinister characterizations of Nigerian-Americans, could only be seen as a calculated attempt to have the Nigerian community in the Dallas metropolitan area writhe in shame. An objective analysis reveals that Mr. Landers appeared to conflate health care fraud and Nigerian community in Dallas and Houston with a consequence of doing a great damage to the image of Nigeria as a nation and Nigerian-Americans in particular.

Nevertheless, let me briefly describe Nigerian-Americans in the Dallas metropolitan area. They’re highly educated and have excelled in their respective professions. Most of them have professional and advanced degrees working as educators, pharmacists, physicians, engineers, and attorneys. Also, the children of those Nigerians who first came as students decades ago and later settled as immigrants are now medical doctors, pharmacists, engineers, and Ph.D. holders. According to dfwinternational.org, “Nigerians have the highest level of education of any ethnic community in the United States, surpassing the overall percentage of people nationally with degrees; 4% of Nigerians hold doctorates, as compared to the US overall of 1%.” Similarly, Prof. Dennis Dale Cordell noted in his essay a few years ago that, “The Nigerian community in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas (DFW), like the Nigerian immigrant community nationally, is characterized by very high levels of educational achievement, and quite high economic status.” Prof. Cordell, professor of history and anthropology passed away on October 16, 2013 after spending 35 years at Southern Methodist University. He was also an associate dean for the University Curriculum/General Education Curriculum.

Majority of Nigerians are law-abiding, peace-loving, caring, and friendly. They’re mostly Christians, who try to raise their children with Christian ethics. Members of the Nigerian community strongly condemn privately and publicly perpetrators of fraud. I wrote “Jaded Banquet” on April 11, 2013 where Judge Chizoma Ihekere publicly advised home health operators to always obey the law. She warned, “If you’ve been involved in some shady or below table activities, don’t think that just because you made it through the year and filed taxes with no problem that you beat the system.” “The government may take its time, but generally, they find wrongdoing eventually,” Ihekere continued. Suffice to say that Nigerians are apt to work with the law enforcement agency to ferret out criminal elements among them-indicating that just like every other community in the United States, Nigerian community is not perfect. It was this imperfection that Mr. Landers latched on to label the entire community negatively.

While Mr. Landers associated Nigerians with “a third of all cases under investigation,” he failed to identify the ethnic groups that are under investigation for the two-thirds of all health care fraud cases in the area. He wrote that “as many as 50,000” Igbo immigrants live in the Dallas area and found it convenient to generalize with his blurb which read, “Hundreds of North Texas Nigerian-Americans are caught up in the biggest home health care frauds ever uncovered by U.S. law enforcement.” It’s understood that when a community is labeled and vilified, prejudice is always the outcome, which may take a long time to overcome. The vestiges of such prejudice formed as result of vilification may remain for generations. Irked by the unfair generalization by Mr. Landers, Mr. Geoffrey Nzeadibe, National Chairman of Pan Ndi-Igbo Foundation USA said, “Inasmuch as I do not condone defrauding any program, the blanket reporting of Dallas Morning News, depicting most Nigerians criminals because of some unscrupulous home health agency operators is equally absurd.” “I believe statistics would show that most Nigerians are law-abiding and condemn the activities of bad apples among them,” he continued. “Dallas Morning News should apologize to the Nigerian community,” Nzeadibe concluded.

Nigerian community is not subsidized with home health fraud. The community at large is not benefiting from the home health care business. The individuals in the business are enriching themselves and not the community. However, Mr. Landers defended his piece-see the email thread below:

On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 9:40 PM, Acho Orabuchi <a_orabuchi@yahoo.com> wrote:

Dear Mr. Landers: I read your piece, “Dallas area home to huge health care frauds,” in The Dallas Morning News of February 15, 2014 with a keen interest. I wonder how you were able to describe in fine details the people of Nigeria, particularly the Igbo as you attempt to juice up your story. Without condoning fraud, what ethnic group or nationality committed the rest of the health care fraud? Please refer me to your previous crime stories where you attached ethnicity, tribe and/or national origin to the perpetrators of the crime. I would have preferred that you wrote about individuals, who committed fraud without using a brush to paint every Nigerian or every Igbo person in Dallas and Houston. Your piece is unfair to those law-abiding Nigerian-Americans in various professions doing their best to contribute to the society. Sad still, you have done an injustice to our children, who have Nigerian/Igbo names and last names. You indirectly convicted them without a crime, but by association/affinity. How many other ethnic groups or nationalities have you profiled in this manner? Thanks, Acho Orabuchi

On Feb 19, 2014, at 8:59 AM, “Landers, Jim” wrote:

Dear Mr. Orabuchi: Thank you for your letter. I take no pleasure in the discomfort my story may cause among the Igbo and Nigerian-American community. It is a distressing situation when so many of the perpetrators of crimes come from the same ethnic origin.
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