The Weekly season 1 episode 7 recap: Connecting the World

An unexpected tragedy

Back in Nicas’ car, he says that he tried to call Renee at home and her phone had been disconnected. The Weekly then shows incredibly sad news clips.

Two days before Christmas, Mark had shot and killed Renee, her father (who she was taking care of) and himself.

I won’t talk about it here, but consider this your trigger warning if you watch the episode. They do play 911 calls from the neighbors and it’s very hard to stomach.

Nicas sits down with Susan Anderson, a friend of Renee’s. She talks about her relationship with Renee and shows Nicas a message she had received from Renee mere hours before she died. It’s a short conversation, but it’s nice to hear from someone whose life was touched by Renee.

Ok, take a breath. The Weekly moves back into Renee’s scammer. Before she died, she had introduced Nicas and a colleague to the scammer as her friends. So, Nicas and Rolake Bamgbose (a producer and director for The Weekly) sit down to talk to him. He had reached out to them, saying he hadn’t heard from Renee in weeks.

They inform him that Renee was killed by her husband. He simply responds by saying “omg.”

Then, Nicas and Bamgbose start to plan their steps. They want to meet this person and talk, so they have to say they’re reporters, but they don’t want to scare the guy off. Surprisingly, even though he knows who they work for and that they know he’s not really an American soldier, he still responds to their messages—but he simply says that no one is perfect.

Cut to Lagos, Nigeria. Nicas details how he’s been joining the scammer Facebook groups and messaging people in hopes of finding people who are willing to talk to him. With no luck getting anyone to talk online, Nicas goes to an internet cafe to find a scammer.

He eventually has a chance to sit down with Akinola Bolaji, a 35-year-old unemployed scammer who is extremely open about what he does. He confirms a lot of what Nicas already thought and says that they message thousands, knowing only a few will respond and they may only get one person who complies and is able to send money.

Bolaji admits he feels guilty, but also says that poverty makes it so you don’t feel the pain. He then says that he uses the money to pay tuition to get an education because there’s no government support or loans.

He then says he’s stopped the love scams because it was too easy to fall for the women. But Bolaji is also now apparently in a real relationship with a woman he met on Facebook who lives in the United States.

In voiceover, Nicas reminds us that it’s hard to know what’s really truthful when it comes to scammers.

The Weekly then moves on to sitting down with Dr. Adedeji Oyenuga, a criminologist and senior lecturer at Lagos State University. Oyenuga points out that Nigerians aren’t the only ones doing these scams, they just happen to be very good at it. Plus, social media made it easier. Easier to connect to people. Easier to simply create new profiles if one gets blocked.

Says there will always be scammers like this until the economy improves.

Oyenuga even admits that there was a time where he was pulling these scams too. He only stopped because it took up too much time. He tells Nicas that morals go out the window when you’re thinking about your own survival.