2021
Uchechukwu Evelyn Madu
- Lecturer I
- Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo, Nigeria
![Picture of Uchechukwu Evelyn Madu](https://www.acls.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2306A6DA-C9BC-EB11-8236-000D3A35FF19.jpg)
Abstract
In the Calabash of Wisdom and other popular Igbo folktales, Tortoise (Mbe), the folkloric witty trickster outlives the mere comic tag of the schemer and wise one to be a socio-cultural character that outwits itself. Tortoise is often laced with demeaning traits of misdirected wisdom, self-acclaimed superiority over a victim and uncontrolled selfishness. These traits not only negatively portray Igbo ideologies of independency, individualism and entrepreneurship, but are connected to organised Nigerian modern-day cyber crime tricks. This study comparatively examines the deployment of tortoise’s traits in five-selected foremost and popular Mbediogu’s collections and a corpus of media reports on the Nigerian 419 scams to reveal how the character of the tortoise transcends to the ‘wise’ deception and self-wrecking features in the internet fraud. Using literary (Archetypal) criticism and New Historicism, this study shows how distinctive, phishing, BEC schemes, spoofed e-mails, reflected in everyday Nigerian cyber crimes are semblances of Tortoise’s one-outwitting-self motif.